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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 6:34:22 PM | "To crush the enemy, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of their women!" :)
Seriously though I think it's life it's self, with a dose of the basic right for all people to be free.... free from oppression, free from persecution, free to live one's life as they see fit provided it dosen't hurt anyone else. And because of that freedom we get life and without life what have we got?
"I think I've made more wrong decisions in my life than right ones, I've been really selfish and I've hurt a lot of nice people because of it, sometimes I wish I could go back and change a few things, sadly if anyone could grant me a wish, I'd probably ask for money."
Nardo Polo | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 6:42:21 PM | To me, it's empathy....without (more of) it, we're nothing - it doesn't matter how advanced or how rich or how powerful we get...if we can't put ourselves in our less fortunate brother's and sister's shoes, we're doomed (IMO).
JMO | |
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rhodax
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Joined: 6/11/2009
Msg: 28 | |
| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 8:20:22 PM | No, sorry, no hidden deep meaning in the philosophical sense (or I'd have posted in science/philosophy); Its just plain old economics. However, on the economic level this was almost an epiphany for me when I figured it out. The answer is not only simple its also common sense but its not how we normally think.
Labour is the most valuable thing in the universe because without labour there is no (economic) value to anything.
Diamonds - would diamonds be of any value to anyone if they were never sought out, never removed from the ground, never sorted and cut to bring out their sparkles or made into industrial materials?
Gold - same as diamonds, without labour its just dirt.
Money - what good would money be if nobody laboured to produce goods and services to purchase? What if nobody laboured to produce the notes and coins at all?
Food - If nobody laboured to produce or procure food, well, there'd be nobody around to notice its absence before long.
Not that the other answers aren't correct on a non-economic level but economics doesn't place value on life, love, happiness, death, suffering, or anything else that is truly important to humans. About the only thing economics takes into account are the negative effects of too much death, too much unhappiness, or too much suffering. That is unless the death, unhappiness, or suffering are the profit centers. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 8:47:07 PM | | I'm going to go with very densely packed hydrogen. Without it the hydrogen and the immense pressure created by its dense formation within stars, we would have no nuclear fusion and thus no energy created by stars such as our sun. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 8:48:51 PM | | Hmm, you make an interesting point about labor, but I'm not sure if I agree 100%. Yes, labor is required to do nearly anything, but generally the material resources are pretty important too. I'll use food as an example, if there was no labor to produce food then that'd be bad, but if there was no food to produce then once the laborers are eaten then it'd be just as bad. Labor is required, but individual labor is pretty lowly valued, though more valued than in the past when labor was dirt cheap and materials were the majority of cost (pre-industrial age). | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 9:22:16 PM | hmmm, i don't think it's as basic as economics 101 ( demand/ money), so i'm going with
the time continuum. ( i am assuming that life exists on an ongoing basis in your theory,
and is not a missing element.)
just for kicks:
intrinsic value: love
palpable value: food; the mind/intellect/ taxes (LOL)
monetary value: whatever traded highest in the metals/ gemstones today (platinum?) i don't keep up with this stuff
a Reno divorce: priceless (couldn't resist!) | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 9:28:34 PM |
"...economics doesn't place value on life, love, happiness, death, suffering, or anything else that is truly important to humans."
Economically, health is very valuable, in the sense that health care is expensive and is a large part of our economy. Unfortunately, the "Health Care Industry" could also be re-named the "Sickness Care Industry" because it mainly makes money by profiting on the weak, sick and those who have un-healthy lifestyles.
Love is an industry in that there is a lot of money flying around to buy things and services to help people attract the opposite sex. There is the expensive plastic surgery option, the expensive diet plan option, the expensive athletic club option, the expensive sports car option, the Rolex watches, the designer dresses, the "Sex In The City" shoes and purses. And of course, the foreign brides, the paid companions....
Happiness is expensive. Psychiatric help is over $60/per hour. So is a Wii, and so is a big flat screen TV. If happiness is having most of what those around you have...
Death is very expensive. My friend recently spent over $10,000.00 on her father's funeral and burial. As well as his remaining medical bills. Hospice is a great option, but also rather expensive.
Weddings are about the same price, coincidentally.
Insurance is rather expensive. Insurance would seem to reduce suffering by creating at least some sense of security for unknown surprises/accidents in life.
Legal services are expensive. Legal protection/recourse from injury or crime is valuable.
Addiction is expensive. Gambling is expensive. Addiction treatment is expensive.
War is extremely expensive.
So the most valuable thing in the universe is then health, security, peace, without legal problems, and quality of life, because then you wouldn't need war, health care, legal assistance, and then, being in good health, you would be more likely to find love, be less likely to need psychiatric care, and be less likely to die and need funeral arrangements. An average person living in a tiny village could qualify by this standard of value.
The term, middle class used to mean, all those who actually worked (laboured) for a living. The lower class were all those society had to care for, and the upper class were everyone who had enough to not have to work at all because of inheritance or some other process, such as the spoils of war, the profit from colonization, or military action/use of power and threat.
I agree with you that those who work provide all of the productive engine for our society. However, it seems to me that there is a tendency in all societies where the very wealthy or very powerful (usually the same people/entities) gradually erode all the freedom, power and choices of the middle class, because it may logicaly seem easier to them to make the middle class more "manageable" predictable, and controllable. Thus pushing the middle class into a lower class. There needs to be an opposite pressure from society to work against this tendency or we will be back to having walled castles with moats and serfs who can't swim.
Labour is valuable in two ways, both as the means of production and also as the main consumer for most goods. Without consumers, there is no wealth for producers. To really have a strong economy, the labourers need to have more than just enough to survive so that they can purchase a larger variety of things that producers then will have the opportunity to sell. So greed has to be in check, or the labourers will have too little to really have choices and choices are the mainstay of competition. Competition is the main way of avoiding monopolies. And monopolies are the main way that greed becomes a tricky problem.
Quality of life is a matter of economics. Whether you are happy with the quality of life that you are able to achieve in a given society is another matter.
The issue of value and quality is done very well in the books; "Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and "Lila, an Inquiry into Morals," by Robert M. Pirsig. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 9:41:20 PM |
The term, middle class used to mean, all those who actually worked (laboured) for a living. The lower class were all those society had to care for, and the upper class were everyone who had enough to not have to work at all because of inheritance or some other process, such as the spoils of war, the profit from colonization, or military action/use of power and threat.
When? At the rise of the middle class (late medieval period), the lower class were the peasants and serfs who worked hard for a living, the middle class were the skilled tradesmen, successful merchants, lawyers, and people like that. The upper class was the aristocracy. What's changed? | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 10:18:48 PM |
Not that the other answers aren't correct on a non-economic
I kind of fine your tone insulting and arrogant. I don't think you meant to, but it is clear you are not a master of the subject.
To start with,Voodoo economics was the trickle down theory under Reagan, it did not specifically try to predict the stock market.
So let's start by defining economics:
Economics : The social science concerned with how individuals, institutions,and society make optimal (best) choices under condition of scarcity.
So simply stated; it's how we divide our limited resources. If we had unlimited resources, there would be no need for economics.
And our resources is pretty much everything. From our minerals, our land, our potential, our water, our air, our food, our finished products, our services, our savings, imports and exports, and of course our labour, plus any tangible or intangible asset you can think of.
You will notice that economics is a science and not an art. This means to study economies, we need to assign value. This is usually done using currency for a measurement, but could use other units, like man hours, or gold. There are actually people who study ancient economies that did not have any form of currency.
They have even studied the economies of prisons using cigarettes as a medium of exchange, and classrooms using Leggo.
economics doesn't place value on life, love, happiness, death, suffering, or anything else that is truly important to humans.
Human beings are in fact measured on an economic level in so many ways. Our labour is measured in our incomes and other employment benefits. There is in fact a happiness index measuring subjective well-being. Death is measured all the time through insurance adjustors, we also look at the costs and benefits of raising the life expectancy. We measure suffering in many ways, like lost labour, property damage, law suit awards. Love is much harder to put an economic value on, but people do try.
Labour is the most valuable thing in the universe because without labour there is no (economic) value to anything.
How about planet Earth, without it we don't even exist and there would be no labour.
Also labour has different values in different markets, and there are also many types of labour. Manual labour usually has less value than skilled labour and professionals. And doctors in northern Canada are much more valuable than in southern Ontario.
You can also look at Latin America, they have an abundance of unskilled labour, this causes the value of manual labour to be quite low.
You came up with an idea. It not neccesarly a bad idea, but you claim it as fact without any real research into your idea, and then you tell people who have actually studied economics in an institution that they are wrong.
If you had started the thread stating you had an idea about the economy, instead of making it some sort of impossible riddle, we could have a good discussion. But you did not do that.
If you really want to learn about economics, start reading some textbooks, instead of the best sellers on the topic.
I recommend as a start "Microeconomics" and "Macroeconomics" by McConnell, Brue, Barbiero. They are both first year books, they do a very good job of teaching basic economic theory in a very unbiased way. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 11:08:43 PM |
"When? At the rise of the middle class (late medieval period), the lower class were the peasants and serfs who worked hard for a living, the middle class were the skilled tradesmen, successful merchants, lawyers, and people like that. The upper class was the aristocracy. What's changed? "
As I recall, this version of the idea of a "middle class" I got from reading the biography of Benjamin Franklin. So it is a typically American version. American freedom and the promise of equality of all men helped form the middle class as we know it today, although it seems to be eroding from pressure at both ends.
I guess it is presumptive of me to assume that labour is itself a class.
I love quoting Benjamin Franklin, who had a lot to say about aquiring wealth, and the value of things:
"I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things."
"If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some."
"It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth."
"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it."
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
"Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones."
~Benjamin Franklin | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/18/2009 7:26:22 AM | Maybe to humans economics is the most valuable thing in the universe.
But the question was "what is the most valuable thing in the universe"
Your answer only relates to humans, and if humans all died one day...well the universe would keep on going | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/18/2009 8:24:43 AM | Respect ..... We are all here on this here forum because of electricity , that invisible source of power that we all take for granted . Respect it or it'll kill ya dead .
That shady looking charactor that makes you feel uneasy , listen to your inner voice , when you sense danger Respect your own natural survival insticts. You can have a drink or two to relax , a glass of water on a hot day is fine but fall out of your canoe in the middle of a lake and you'll probably drown Respect yourself and life it's self. Respect the Planet . Show Respect and you will recieve Respect. Our western society is not the only inhabitants on this earth Respect other different cultures . People have existed for maybe 6000 years , the motorcar has been around for 100 years . Not that long in the scheme of things . Respect the fact that most people are lost without their cars . Respect the ability to think and function normally. Respect....... it's worth havin' | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/18/2009 10:15:07 AM |
As I recall, this version of the idea of a "middle class" I got from reading the biography of Benjamin Franklin. So it is a typically American version. American freedom and the promise of equality of all men helped form the middle class as we know it today, although it seems to be eroding from pressure at both ends.
Hmm, I buy that. Not my strongest historical area, and I don't feel like looking it up, but the founding fathers were idealistic and naive enough to think they could make a society where everyone who's willing to work can be middle class. You're right about Ben having some great quotes, a lot of the FF did, really. They were smart and they really understood a lot of things despite being a little naive and hypocrites to many of the ideas they spoke of. To bring this back around to a vaguely economic topic again, here's a warning quote from Thomas Jefferson on an economic issue, a warning that we've failed to heed.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson (The "Federal" Reserve is a private bank, despite the name.) | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/18/2009 5:39:43 PM | | I think you're quote regarding Thomas Jefferson is very misleading. The Federal Reserve is just the 3rd incarnation of the Bank of the United States. The first of which lased from 1791 until 1811. It is worth noted that this bank existed during the entire 8 year period during which Jefferson was POTUS. Granted, neither Jefferson nor Madison were fans of its establishment, but that was largely due to regional politics since the bank would favor the North. Madison would later created the 2nd Bank of the United States in 1816. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/19/2009 8:51:13 AM |
I think you're quote regarding Thomas Jefferson is very misleading. The Federal Reserve is just the 3rd incarnation of the Bank of the United States. The first of which lased from 1791 until 1811. It is worth noted that this bank existed during the entire 8 year period during which Jefferson was POTUS. Granted, neither Jefferson nor Madison were fans of its establishment, but that was largely due to regional politics since the bank would favor the North. Madison would later created the 2nd Bank of the United States in 1816.
I just interpret that to mean that TJ wasn't psychic when he gave his warning, he saw the beginning of the problem right in front of his face and could guess (accurately as it turns out) what would happen. Do you interpret that quote differently? I wouldn't mind hearing what you think it means. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/21/2009 5:46:55 PM | TIME !!!
We're all looking for the fountain of youth, or mis-spending our childhood... People don't understand that TIME is the one thing that once it's lost, a person can/will NEVER get it back!!!
With modern technology we can buy just about anything... We can fabricate just about anything... But we still cannot make more... TIME!!!
So think about that, next time you are bored and just wishing the time would go away! Take those moments and reflect back over the places in the past that you can learn from, to benefit your future!
CowTrucker
Chapman, Kansas | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/21/2009 7:41:02 PM | The most valuable thing in the universe?
Taking the question at literal value, it's probably this thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPM_37093
A white dwarf star, about 50 LY away from earth. This star is unique because it has consumed most of its nuclear fuel and collapsed into a crystalline lattice, and is believed to consist of around 90% crystallized carbon.
That's right, ladies, a 2,500 mile wide diamond.
I think I just heard three billion pairs of legs instinctively spreading... | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/21/2009 8:00:06 PM | I believe in several most vauable things in the universe
1.The act of human compassion/kindness
2. Emotions ( like love and hate)
3. Dedication (country or cause)
4. Friends and Family ( sometimes you don't have one but the other makes up for it) | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/21/2009 10:08:12 PM | Human Imagination....Labor means nothing with out it because it is the human imagination that gives worth and direction to labor. Human Imagination supports the Stock Market which is build upon paper. Human Imagination creates the business structures that buoy up the country.
And Human Imagination has brought us to the personal quests that we hope will lead from the imagined to the real. The source of our lives begins with Human Imagination that has lead to the searching nature of us all. | |
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