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From: dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Free Lunches
Message-ID: <285@drutx.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Oct-85 13:51:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: drutx.285
Posted: Thu Oct 17 13:51:43 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Oct-85 03:44:17 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 81

From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
>>To be wrong is not teh same thing as to be irrational.  A great many
>>people believe in a free lunch.  It is difficult to disbelieve it since
>>-- 
>>Laura Creighton         (note new address!)

>Laura is always rational, but, as here, she is frequently wrong.
>It is insufficient jsut to follow Heinlein and repeat "There's no
>such thing as a free lunch" in every other posting.  There is (in
>both the literal and the metaphoric sense).
>
>We all live for free.  We obtain energy from the Sun (free), and all
>we make or do is based on how we use the degradation of this energy
>into heat (barring a little energy from nuclear fission).  Anything
>we do with out physical bodies is based on this "free lunch."  If we
>can't get enough energy, we can't do much.

Martin, there are a lot of steps between the Sun and, say, the food
on your table.  For you to have that food *required* somebody to till
the earth, plant the seed, keep the pests away, clean the stables. It
*required* someone to build the implements that allow the farmer to
grow the food.  It *required* someone to transport the food, and someone
to manufacture the vehicles for the transportation, and someone to get
the raw materials for the manufacture and someone to get the fuel, and
on, and on, and ... It all came at the expense of the surroundings and
of somebody's blood, sweat, and tears.  IT WAS NOT FREE!

>We organize.  That is free.  By organizing, we can make better use of
>all this free energy that the Sun gives us.  We can extract energy deposited
>millions of years ago, and use it to gather rocks that can be converted
>into metals. 

No.  It is not free.  Even energy deposits had to come from somewhere.
Besides, extracting it and gathering rocks requires an expenditure of
mechanical energy (manual labor).

>It's free, if you can induce people to work together and
>help you.

It does not matter whether you work together or alone; it must come at
somebody's expense.

>Why do you say "There's no such thing as a free lunch?"  Do you imply
>that if I want to improve my circumstances in one respect, I must reduce
>them equally (or more) in another respect?  That can't be true, for there
>would be NO material wealth if that were the case.  Do you imply that I
>must expend effort to get what I want?  Fine, but that effort represents
>energy I acquired free, by eating lunch.  Do you mean money? Ah... there's
>the rub.

Generating wealth is not like creating energy, but more like generating
electrticity.  People who generate all they use, whether they need it or
not, are not using what someone else generated.  People who generate less
than they use, no matter how badly they need it, *must* be using what
someone else generated.  In either case, it cannot be merely claimed; it
all must come at the expense of somebody.  If anybody does not generate
wealth equivilant to what they consume, they are, by definition, parasites.

>Yes, there is a free lunch.  Life as an organized society is NOT a
>zero-sum game (which I suspect is closer to the meaning than are the
>straw men I have been beating).  Organization itself creates wealth,
>and is the only effective means of doing so on a grand scale.  It is
>the flow of that free energy that gives us all our organization, whether
>it be social, or just the organization of materials into our high-tech
>toys.

Organizing does not create wealth.  In *any* given system, you cannot get
more energy (wealth) out of it than what went into it.  Organizing something
may make it more efficient, but even the organizing process consumes energy
(wealth).
>
>So please, let's hear no more from the cult of Heinlein.
>-- 

However painful this may be to you, I will scream it from the hilltops if
necessary --- THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH!

>Martin Taylor

David Olson
..!ihnp4!drutx!dlo