| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 8:48:47 AM | | Over the last few years I've been doing a lot of study on economics. Not the voodoo formula driven stuff used to predict which was a stock will go but the very basics but the more basic things like "What is money". In that time I've come to some pretty profound realizations and one of those is that there is one thing that is more valuable than anything else because without it, nothing has value. I'm wondering what other people might think this thing is. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 9:11:12 AM | | I'll go with human (well, let's say sentient because the universe is a big place) life, because without it nobody would be buying anything and nothing would really have value besides food/water (that's my second guess) and instinctual behavior. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 9:35:37 AM | | I'm going to have to go with Carbon. Without it, there would be no organic material. I"m pretty sure there would be no inorganic material either, but I'm pretty sure the most valuable thing is carbon. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 9:53:36 AM | 'Value' is a perception of our own human 'knowing'. Since the universe exists - and continues, aside from human thought, would continue without us, and is directed by energies we have no control over, it is that momentum that will keep it going.
Thought provoking question! | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 10:13:34 AM | Me. I am the MOST valuable thing in the universe. I can prove it too.
Right now, the universe continues on, most of it out of sight, out of mind...but it continues. The Minute I die, the whole thing stops...for me. therefore to ME, I am the most valuable thing there is. All else ceases to exist without me in it.
now to the next entity, I could be somehting less than what you'd scrape off the bottom of your shoe. But who cares about that? He/she/it will cease to exist for me the minute I die.
Therefore, I'd better stay alive a long time in order for "my" universe to continue! The rest of you better hope so too...cause there is always that small, but not impossible, chance that the whole works may go when I kick off.  | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 12:59:14 PM |
Life....does anything else matter if you aren't there to experience it?
This was my thought as well when reading the thread topic. Everything else that matters stems from the basic existence of life forms. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 1:32:00 PM | I know something about the economy, and the answer seems obvious to me: Those little tubes that hold coins. If you had a multi-trillion dollar economy and all the coins were loose the whole system would be brought to its knees. There would be piles of coins all mixed up, spilling off of counters onto the floor, making it treacherous to walk, and rolling down stairways and elevator shafts, into storm drains, fouling up the infrastructure. Long lines would form at every retail outlet as customers had to wait for change to be sorted. People would get cranky, then lose hope and lapse into a lethargic apathy, sapped of motivation, unable to work, staying home, producing nothing and buying nothing and soon there would be an end to trade, the stores would be empty, crops would rot in the fields, millions would starve, pandemics would sweep across the continents and civilization would vanish from the face of the Earth.
Using that example, taking its essential principle to apply to the universe itself, the answer is: Space. In the universe, space is what keeps the smaller bits separate and organized. Without each bit having its own space everything would be helter skelter, or worse, all in one spot. Nothing would be able to go from where it is to anywhere else. If nothing could not do that, something would have to be done about it. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 3:10:08 PM | This is more of a marketing question, than an economic question. But I'll play anyways.
"One man's junk is another man's treasure". And that pretty much sums up what value and valuable are. They are subjective, for something to be valuable, someone must think it is valuable. Or for something to be a good value or a good deal, someone must think it is a good deal.
To give an example. I used to sell cars for a living. I had a customer looking at a demo F-150, it had all the bells and whistles and was reduced $2000 below invoice. He thought it was a horrible deal and did not buy. Three days later another customer purchased the exact same truck for $1000 below invoice, and thought it was a fantastic deal.
I was also taught, that a good deal (or good value) is nothing more than a state of mind.
Now we can give an assigned value in monetary units. But for the value to hold, someone else needs to agree to the price, either through purchase or insurance.
If I wanted to sell an item for $1000 but I can only find buyers willing to pay $800, then we know the value is between $800 and $1000, and until a transaction is made, we can not assign a precise fair market value. I can might have receipts giving the item $1000 book price, but wheather it has $1000 of value needs to be dictated by people willing to buy at $1000.
You can even look at the current pick up truck market. Two years ago trucks were priced to the market, now the trucks are selling for 30% of sticker. The trucks are better today then two years ago, but less people want to purchase them. Since the supply did not decrease when the demand decreased, car companies are stuck reducing vlue in order to make sales.
Money has no actual value either. Money only has value, because we assign value. Money is simply a medium for exchange. In other words, money only has value because we all agreed to give it value.
If you look at the Cuban peso. In Cuba, pesos can be used to pay for products and services, but the same pesos in America can't buy anything.
The largest single purchase I know of was the Vodafone AirTouch's acquisition of Mannsesmann for US$ 172.2 bn. But this is obviously not the most valuable corporation in the world.
In that time I've come to some pretty profound realizations and one of those is that there is one thing that is more valuable than anything else because without it, nothing has value. I'm wondering what other people might think this thing is.
Well you could ask 1000 people what is the most valuable thing, and you will get 1000 different answers.
If you ask someone stuck on the side of a cliff, a rope might be the most valuable thing in the world to them.
If you were to ask a baby, it would probably be their mother.
But I'm guessing the OP is looking for humans as the answer, since without humans to assign value, nothing has value. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 3:17:05 PM | Beyond some of the obvious answers that sustain life, such as carbon, oxygen, etc. I'd like to add..........
Time.............a truly non-renewable resource.
Be well....... | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 3:53:12 PM | Memories have value. Without my memory, everything is the present moment, and there would be no reason to buy anything or change anything because the past is gone and minutes from now, whatever I buy would be forgotten.
Attention from people has value. People want personal attention from someone else so much that they will start arguments to get someone's attention. Commercials are expensive ways to get people's attention. Getting a man's attention during the Superbowl being the most expensive attention there exists.
Anticipation and gratification have value, but only if what is wanted is not there to begin with. So you have to be unhappy to buy happiness.
So if happiness is dependent on spending money, you have to work very hard to be happy, thus the paradox of requiring you to do some things that make you unhappy (usually) to gain what you think will make you happy. (There being no guarantee that what you eventually own will actually provide the happiness you were seeking.)
Marketing creates the perception of unhappiness and neediness in the area the product's function fills. Thus, commercials can create unhappiness in order to make you think that you have to give up your money to be happy.
Women and many men want security. That usually requires money. So women like men to give them valuable things to show their ability to generate income and to provide for any potential (or current) dependents. So both women and men focus on looking like they have value by draping themselves in material things, so that they can seem secure and then be happy. So happiness becomes the body drapery, the car, the jewelry, the things, and soon nobody knows what really makes them happy anymore.
Dogs want the basics. And they are happy. They live mostly in the moment, experiencing life's sensual pleasures, like sniffing at trees and chasing a tennis ball. They never get too far mentally or emotionally from what really makes them happy. Being with their pack (human or otherwise) lying in piles together. Pulling at ropes with their teeth. They have nothing like money to exchange for any of it. All they have is their goofy toothy smiles, affectionate body language, attentive looks, protective stance, aware of every nuance of what is going on around them. We can get a lot of happiness through osmosis of their joy in living. They can make us laugh because they aren't afraid of looking goofy doing it.
I think a dog is the best value. But don't go automatically giving someone a dog to make them happy....(ask first, and help them pick the right kind of dog for them) dogs just can remind us that being happy is mostly a choice we make each moment.
But if the answer you were going for is love, then a dog's value would skyrocket, wheras in reality, G_d or the universe provides the average loving/lovable dog at the pound for a very affordable price, if not for free.
Air, is the most valuable if you were to be able to limit it's use to only those who could pay, because you can only live 5 minutes or less without it. However, you can't do that because you have to limit things that people can have the time to go out and work and then pay for it....limiting water, or anything that essential would backfire because many if not most of your customers would be dead eventually from the often sporadic nature of their ability to pay.
The current flu virus pandemic is an example. If it was extremely lethal, like Ebola, it couldn't spread as quickly or very far, since the hosts die too soon before spreading it to other hosts. If it isn't sickening enough, there won't be enough leaky body fluids (vomit, diarrhea, blood, snot) to fly around and transmit it to other hosts. So if you want to create a product to help combat this, (like a vaccine for it) you can charge a lot of money for it, if it is just the right amount of a problem for people. Too much of a problem and nobody can go to work, and make the money to buy the vaccine. Too little and it becomes like the common cold which most people go to work with. Some people wonder why someone would want to genetically engineer such a virus.....hmmm...
Freedom from fear, which is different from security, is very valuable, as any bully, or the mafia, or any protection scheme goes, and which many military war-mongerers have figured out. The perception of saftey is very, very expensive. To create the fear required to motivate people to give you money requires some finesse because you have to create just enough fear to keep people sending you money, but not so much that they get paralysed and fatalistic about it and unable to concentrate enough to work and create other valuable things or services to pay you.
Babies have value, because for some reason, most anybody seems to bond with them and go all gaga over them, and feel as if they are part of themselves and want to protect them. It seems that our bodies are set up so that seeing your child get hurt--hurts more than being hurt yourself--so that we will do just about anything to prevent that. That's what kidnappers figured out so long ago. However, I don't recommend this as a way of living, since it goes right up there with piracy as one of the most dangerous and risky things to do.
Most women will do just about anything to protect and nurture their children, and so they will look for men who can help them do that...which usually requires a steady income...so men are always looking for that steady income to gain the affections of a woman. If women have the steady income, then this changes the value of men...as we have seen the world of relationships change tremendously lately.
What everybody hasn't figured out is how to take care of the children while both parents work to everybody's satisfaction. The first generation of working women relied on their mothers (grandparents) to take the children. And nobody seems to care about children more than their grandparents do. But now, even the grandparents are working....
Our children are wanting personal attention from someone who cares. Everybody went to work to provide that elusive material stuff that seems to spell out security and stability for the adults so they will be attracted to each other, but we forgot that the motivation was originally to help out with nurturing the children. So many children are starting arguments, doing bad behaviors, to get attention, because good behavior doesn't seem to pull the adults from their trance in the material world of work.
We buy them games to distract them from their loneliness, and the games, TV and commercials are getting ever better at doing this. At being substitutes for personal attention.
So in the end, I will give my vote to personal attention as being, ultimately, of the most value. | |
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rhodax
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Joined: 6/11/2009
Msg: 24 | |
| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 4:50:56 PM | Oops, I did an edit and messed up the post it seems. I shouldn't do these things while getting ready for work.
I meant to add that this thing is not a concept (love, loyalty, etc) and being that the catagorgy is economics this thing is something we pay for on a regular basis. I'll drop a hint since I messed up the original post - it is not a physical object/material.
However, those are some pretty good answers up there with some ideas I don't think I'd have ever thought of. | |
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| What is the most valuable thing in the universe
Posted: 6/17/2009 5:56:56 PM | | Oh, so there's no trick or hidden deepness to it? Ok, how about entertainment (I include sports as entertainment too)? Individually, entertainers are some of the wealthiest people who actually do something to make money, they certainly must be bringing in more money than they cost or they wouldn't continue to get such exorbitant salaries. | |
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