[ExI] The Price of Life and Meaning of Wealth

[Lee Corbin]

Eliezer writes


> Lee Corbin wrote:
>> 
>> Oh.  Well, in that case, since you're not really putting a contract
>> out on me, I don't need to think about it.  The answer: eight hundred
>> trillion dollars (which effectively gives my beneficiaries complete
>> control of Earth).
> 
> I'd think that if anyone had eight hundred trillion dollars, it would 
> give everyone else a motive to temporarily stop believing in the 
> figment of our collective imagination that is the financial system, 
> for just long enough to decide that those eight hundred trillion 
> dollars weren't there.

Yes.  In fact, the $800T would have to come in the form of hidden
ownership of this and that just about everythng, probably including
undiscovered gold, oil, and other minerals, and if need be, advanced
technology.  I really don't know what would be needed to come up
with an honest, real, genuine, and legitimate $800T.

Wealth only means possession of things that other people value, and
doesn't necessarily mean that they have to *know* you have it  :-)

Lee

> "Bill Gates owns everything in the world" may technically look like a 
> self-consistent private property framework, but the problem is that no 
> one except Bill Gates has a motive to believe in it.  Others may wake 
> up from the dream if they have no stake.