There Is No Free Lunch
Free must be one of the more popular words in the English language. After all, who doesn't like free stuff and any other word/concept with free connected. I would bet if you took a poll of Americans and asked what one word most represents the U.S., it would be freedom (although, perhaps, not as much anymore).
Problem is, there's no such thing as free anything. If something has value, there's a cost built-in and somebody must bear it. If it is readily available, e.g., air or ocean water, then it just exists apart from value and would not be considered free. It's just there.
Of course, that never stops retailers or anybody else from employing the notion because even though we (deep down inside) know that it's really not free, few can resist the allure of fantasizing that they beat the System. It's similar to getting really excited when your candidate wins the election, hoping that things are going to change.
What's really interesting is that all words are just like this (albeit more subtle. It's just that free makes it really easy to understand.
Problem is, there's no such thing as free anything. If something has value, there's a cost built-in and somebody must bear it. If it is readily available, e.g., air or ocean water, then it just exists apart from value and would not be considered free. It's just there.
Of course, that never stops retailers or anybody else from employing the notion because even though we (deep down inside) know that it's really not free, few can resist the allure of fantasizing that they beat the System. It's similar to getting really excited when your candidate wins the election, hoping that things are going to change.
What's really interesting is that all words are just like this (albeit more subtle. It's just that free makes it really easy to understand.
Comments (2)
Is there any free stuff at the Philosophy Forum?
They weren't free because they were not freely given by an agent. The bushes did not give them freely. And since I had no teeth because of the work required to maintain teeth (teeth do not "freely" maintain themselves) I had to crush the berries first on a rock to taste them. The work of that crushing, was just like the work of the picking, the cost of traveling to Denali was arduous. The swallowing was also very difficult. How I wish such mechanics were as smooth as nature and as ignorable as the best kinds of autonomic nervous function.
Yes, nothing is free, except when somebody gives you something freely. The sinister (costly) aspect of such giving is implicit. Why would a coworker buy another coworker lunch? Why would blue berry bushes hang their costly carbohydrates on stems? What future acts of quasi enforced reciprocity has now been sown into these absurd relationships?