Two economists survive a shipwreck and are stranded on a desert island. They’re barely surviving on captured seagulls. One day they come across a big pile of seagull shit.
“I bet you $50 you won’t eat that” says the first economist.
“No? You’ll see” says the second, who scrapes up the pile of shit and promptly eats it, winning the bet.
A bit later they find another pile.
“Now I bet you $50 you can’t manage to eat that shit!”
“Watch and learn!” says the first economist, who scrapes up the shit and eats it.
“Now that I think on it, we’re now exactly the same we were at the beginning, only we’ve eaten shit.”
“What? Not at all. We’ve increased the GDP of the island by $100!”
That’s a different one riffing on the same idea. The island one is they trade a suitcase or coconut or whatever back and forth until they’ve raised the island’s GDP enough that it produces a boat for them to leave with.
Look you just pay the crabs in coconut futures to work in a gig economy rewriting AI prompts for fish until you’ve accumulated enough fishcoins to hire some dolphin contractors to acquire a boat for you with a loan using the assumption that your island’s economy will continue this pattern of infinite exponential growth as collateral.
I need more details on this.
Two economists survive a shipwreck and are stranded on a desert island. They’re barely surviving on captured seagulls. One day they come across a big pile of seagull shit.
“I bet you $50 you won’t eat that” says the first economist.
“No? You’ll see” says the second, who scrapes up the pile of shit and promptly eats it, winning the bet.
A bit later they find another pile.
“Now I bet you $50 you can’t manage to eat that shit!”
“Watch and learn!” says the first economist, who scrapes up the shit and eats it.
“Now that I think on it, we’re now exactly the same we were at the beginning, only we’ve eaten shit.”
“What? Not at all. We’ve increased the GDP of the island by $100!”
That’s a different one riffing on the same idea. The island one is they trade a suitcase or coconut or whatever back and forth until they’ve raised the island’s GDP enough that it produces a boat for them to leave with.
yeah i thought the shit eating economists were usually walking in a park
Look you just pay the crabs in coconut futures to work in a gig economy rewriting AI prompts for fish until you’ve accumulated enough fishcoins to hire some dolphin contractors to acquire a boat for you with a loan using the assumption that your island’s economy will continue this pattern of infinite exponential growth as collateral.