[Mendenhall]

It seems his premise is "Rethink wealth so you feel better about giving your money to others" I find it well meaning but naive to human nature. It might as well have been called "Ignore human nature". Wealth stems from "taking" resources and wanting to survive. We are in a petri dish of limited resources, with more and more people consuming. Good luck with that math.

[zwischenzug]

It's also human nature to share. cf Kropotkin and studies of altruism in human beings. Wealth, as a concept is very much up for grabs. Is it accumulation of resources, the increase of security of resources, the fulfilment of psychological desires, the control of psychological desires, the stable passing on of genes?

[gonvaled]

Ideas, which can improve the amount of resources (virtually without limits, by say exploiting the asteroid belt), are not limited. That is, ideas can hugely increase the size of your petri dish.

What I dont know is if human nature can be contained to avoid growing the population continously above the carrying capacity, as we have been doing for the last 200 thousand years (or was that updated to 2 million?)