[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[Chris Hibbert]

I wrote:
>> Umm. When the stocks plummet, the money disappears. Some investors
>> get their money out, but only at the cost of others buying their
>> stocks (at full or partial rates) and either the investor just
>> before the announcement or the remaining investor after actually
>> lost money that didn't reappear anywhere else...

Spike replied:
> Well sure Chris, this is a common modern view but it almost makes
> investing in stocks sound like a zero sum game.

Au contraire!  If the value vanishes into thin air on the way down, the 
value on the way up is created from new ideas rather than from 
pre-existing resources.  Stocks go up much more often than they go down. 
  The total value of the market today dwarfs its past value, and will 
continue to do so even if we have a 20% downturn.

I omit the rest of Spike's message because it's preaching to the choir. 
  He described a little of the mechanism.  I just didn't want anyone to 
think I disagreed.  I was responding to someone's claim that when the 
value of stocks goes down due to regulatory intervention that the money 
goes elsewhere.  That money is gone.  Future investments will focus on 
projects with a higher likelihood of profit, so the value that's 
destroyed also drives away investment in that area.

Chris
-- 
Change is not linear. Our expectations are linear, but new
technologies come in "S" curves, so we routinely overestimate
short-term change and underestimate long-term change.
    --Paul Saffo

Chris Hibbert
hibbert at mydruthers.com
Blog:   http://pancrit.org