[kjksf]

When you buy a house, for whatever reason, it opens up the opportunity for a developer to build a new house.

House building is clearly a positive-sum game that benefits everyone.

The developer makes money building houses. Furniture maker makes money making furniture. Utilities make money providing power, water and plumbing. You make money renting your AirBnB or using it as a house for your family.

[diffxx]

> House building is clearly a positive-sum game that benefits everyone.

Not so fast. For any given project, what are the associated externalities? You can't build a house without exploiting the earth's resources. You can't build furniture without chopping down trees or digging up oil. You can't harvest energy without disrupting the environment in one way or another. Your renting your house on AirBnB is extracting more money from your guests than the time value of the house. Your guest must then do something exploitative to earn the money to pay you. The chain eventually will make its way back to the extraction of natural resources. It isn't possible to turn a profit without exploitation.

Do we really not care that we have burned up an unfathomable amount of precious, irreplaceable fossil fuels to prop up our industrial economy? We should be worshipping fossil fuels, and using them as sparingly as possibly, not frivolously wasting them.

Until we have an economy that doesn't rely on unsustainable extraction, it's hard to see any form of wealth creation as positive sum.

[anthony_d]

Nothing is sustainable. The universe eventually goes cold. Are you saying anything more?

[diffxx]

> Nothing is sustainable. The universe eventually goes cold. Are you saying anything more?

Our civilization is going to collapse long before the heat death of the universe, and honestly probably within the lifespan of people living today. We could at least try and soften the blow and stop doubling down on the same mindset that created most of the existential crises that face us today.