Vīta Brevis, Wit Artefāctōrum Ætērna Podcast

They say things like love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Back in Episode 011 we looked at scarcity , let’s now flip the coin! Furthermore, under that topic we explored how scarcity is indeed the mother of the invention of the very discipline of economics , so is this about, given a future state of abundance, in fact escaping economics ? We broadly know what abundance is, it’s what our po...

It is said about ‘the classics’, or classical literature that everyone has an opinion on them but nobody’s read them. In this decimilestone episode of the series, we meet the author of one such great classic work relevant to our subject. A Fertile Island No man is an island, it’s also said, and no great cultural and intellectual output emerges from a vacuum. Let’s explore the context and the backg...

Back in Episode 013 we looked at specialization , let’s now look at a very closely related concept. Just as in that episode, the fictional anchor for this episode is going to be the story already narrated in TecC 43 , where we saw how, after a disastrous start in a joint initiative, with everyone stepping on everyone else’s toes, our four fictional friends eventually manage to allocate each of the...

I’ve discussed the concept of value creation in the past, both in Episode 004 of this series and elsewhere in my writing on here. Let’s go further. But first a quick, and of course efficient, detour to check on our fictional friends. Steve, Bryan, Brenda and Irene are sat around the garden table discussing the week’s matters. Bruno the dog and Iris the cat are of course... well you know them by no...

I’ve sort of touched upon this topic before, or at least skirted around it while discussing price and scarcity . But today let’s look at supply and demand in their own right. Back in the first of those two episodes, we posed a question. At the townsquare market when Brenda and Irene each inquired on the price of a sack of grain, Steve and Bryan quoted different prices for the same quantity, 8 and...

Thank you for holding on for a whole week from the end of reading the last episode on delayed gratification , so you have my undiluted gratitude! In line with my promise to you when I ended that piece, let’s take that concept to its logical next step. The word investment conjures up some rather advanced images - of complex mathematics, overbearing financial advisers and glassy-facade banking insti...

I mentioned the concept of delayed gratification in passing back in Episode 010 while talking about certain elements alongside the phenomenon of trade . Let’s not delay any more! We haven’t met our fictional friends in a while, so let’s go back to the setting in Episode 012 where Steve, Bryan, Brenda and Irene are sat in the garden looking around as Bruno the dog and Iris the cat are doing doggy a...

So, much like with the previous episode, I have indeed written earlier about standardization, but as I said there in the context of innovation. Here we take a slightly different angle. Once more, that older innovation-series article, TecC 19 demonstrates by way of fiction how the idea might have arisen. So taking that as our standard, let’s proceed! We saw in the very first episode of this series,...

In fact, I’ve previously written about specialization, in the context of exploring how innovation accelerated at a crucial historical juncture - TecC 43 . However, let’s look at this from the perspective of our story here. And indeed, apart from the historical angle, I do have a fictional depiction around how this arose, in that episode. But, fiction and history apart, let’s now focus on the core...

I trust we’ve seen so far that the story of money involves a lot more than just cash and coins. In this spirit we’ve dug into some of the core concepts that make up the foundation of economics, today let’s explore one more such. Let’s first do a quick fictional round. Our friends Steve, Bryan, Brenda and Irene are sat in the garden, some of them halfheartedly taking stock of their recent business...

Last time, I concluded on the suggestion that economics is a lot more ubiquitous than we tend to think. Let’s dig deeper into the fundamental question of why we even need economics at all. Let’s in fact take this forward from where we last left off on one particular point. Back in Episode 009 discussing opportunity cost, we were faced with a few dilemmas, such as which of the two full-time job off...

This series is already ten articles old! I’ve covered some of the most fundamental concepts so far, some that might have seen too basic to bother. But hopefully I’ve shed some new light. Let’s take stock and consolidate. A Decimilestone We started with the very question of money itself, because the popular perception of it in some quarters can be somewhat blurred; we saw that it can be similar wit...

Yes, opportunity cost is indeed one of those strange things, it sounds like one of those classic terms in economics one would prepare to explain in a job interview or one would hear from one of those experts in a panel making a strokey-beard pronouncement. But it’s more relevant to you and me than we might think. Let’s imagine a few situations in life: you’ve got a job offer (maybe you did blurt o...

In the previous episode we discussed the concept of interest, the price of lending money, I also made this huge claim that much of the modern economic engine and elements of our prosperity hinges on the core concept. Let me add some flesh to the bones, getting into a very closely related concept: debt. I don’t think it’s even necessary for me to give a formal definition for the concept of ‘debt’,...

What if I told you of the grandson of a peasant writing a letter in 1500s Europe to the most powerful man in the continent if not the world, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (modern-day Germany and a bit more), King of Spain and thus of the vast Spanish dominions in the Americas, Archduke of Austria, Lord of the Netherlands and some small change, of this son of a weaver writing this letter to the...

Last time we saw how the seemingly simple concept of ‘risk’ can have profound consequences in the story of money and our life in general. This time let’s explore another underrated idea in relation to money: time. Previously on fictional TV, we had our friend Steve in dire straits struggling with a disastrous harvest, unlike Bryan’s bumper one. This time however, they’ve both had a great harvest,...

In writing about the march of innovation and progress from my first-principles multi-disciplinary perspective, I’ve often sought to connect seemingly mundane developments with much bigger even universal concepts. Today I’m going to, in that vein, connect something with the very concept of the law of conservation, something very fundamental to resource management. And despite my use of ‘mundane’ in...

We all have a sense of what risk is, alongside our notions of whether it’s good or bad, and how to deal with it. We’ve also seen the intersection of risk and money, but let’s dig a bit deeper, for risk and money dance a strange dance together. First let’s meet our fictional friends as per usual. There’s breaking news all over town - someone from a neighboring land has devised a new type of hybrid...

The last four episodes released have served as a mini-series, or a tetralogy, deviating chronologically to lay the foundation for some important aspects of earlier innovation still of relevance to us. Let’s now come back to the current point in our story - the 1400s. Read full article. Article written by Ash Stuart Images, voice narration and some footnotes generated by AI Further Reading & Refere...

So far, in a series about money, I’ve never once mentioned the c-word. More than the terms ‘money’ or ‘profit’, ‘capital’ is perhaps the most loaded one in the field. But let’s look at what capital really is. Now for an extremely brief fictional detour. In fact you get to hear the full story when TecC 48 goes live, where these ideas are dealt with in some more depth. But the gist of it is that Ste...

This is the fourth of a thread in our study of the understanding how knowledge itself works. We started with the very questions of reality and how we can know anything. We explored the fight between competing approaches to addressing these fundamental questions. And we saw what progress was made or attempted in this direction. We now come to the turning point in this story, a radical pivot, a wate...

Having so far covered the very basic concepts of money , the market and the pricing mechanism , in the previous episode I first properly introduced the word economy , with its literal origins as ‘household management’, which more broadly could refer to all the resources available to us. But what does it mean when we say the economy ‘is growing’ or a myriad other similar expressions and stockphrase...

In the previous two episodes, the first in this new series, we first gathered some money and then went to the market . Let’s now look at a key component of all the transactions that take place there: price. Again, the concept of price has a lot more than what it seems at the surface. ( For a professional treatment of the psychological aspects of this and related topics, I highly recommend you chec...

This is still a thread on the study of the science of knowledge in continuation with the last couple of episodes released. Previously in Episode 33C1 and Episode 33C2 we covered two towering titans in this area, both as an extension of the wider golden-age phenomenon we covered in Episode 33 , the beacon of knowledge, the original of those spinoffs. Now we’ll take the thread forward, as if in the...

In the introduction to the series, I hinted at the word ‘money’ evoking strange emotions - and now, the word ‘market’ can also do the same, as it’s wound up in a whole lot of connotations and convolutions. But once more, let’s go back to the very basics. Let me also point out at the outset that I’ve already written in full depth of the institution of the market including tracing its origins and th...