You cannot gain anything without first giving something in return.
In order to obtain, something of equal value must be lost.
Based off of the anime, Full Metal Alchemist, this thread is about the Law of Equivalent Trade.
Do you think that it exists in our world?
Don't just give examples on possible things that could happen to prove/disprove this theory. To make this more interesting, talk about your own personal past experiences that prove or disprove the law.
Last edited by Mizuchi; Thu, 08-03-2006 at 01:43 PM.
Can I instead talk about how many times I creamed myself while watching FMA?
It's just a Anime dude....
Get over it
And I do recall that I deleted a thread EXACTLY like this one a while ago, didn't you take the hint?
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What's wrong with it?
Honestly, what am i doing wrong? This is general discussion. I just want to have a discussion about it. If you don't want to talk about it, why not just click the back button and let the people who want to talk about it, talk about it? =/
yeah okay....so one day i went to the market an i bought something. i paid the equal value of the drink in money....i gained through equivalent trade it works i win i proved it works NANNY NANNY BOO BOO....this is a pointless thread theres nothing to talk about it its the law that everyone follows because it cant be escaped so no matter what you do you either lose or gain equally think about it with what little mind you have...
I'm official.
I deleted it because you were openly flamed to death on it and the topic in which you tryed to put across lacked much of what a good discussion would involve.Originally Posted by Mizuchi
If your talking about "Karma", then say so. Other wise you make yourself out to be a kid looking for some weak minded discussion on if something from a anime exists in the real world.
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Probably one strong reason why these forums appeal to the kind of people frequenting them is the low amount of sheer and naked fanboyism. This topic would fall under that category, though, like DF pretty much said in other words.
I don't think you should censor people just because their thread is dumb. It might have actually had a chance at a discussion had Deadfire not come in and shit all over it. Quit being a wanker.
i agree with mage.
No, of course it does not exist. Have you not heard of The Law of Conservation of Mass?
and all those times I got ripped off....
The law of conservation of mass states that the mass of a closed system of substances will remain constant, regardless of the processes acting inside the system.
That has nothing to do with The Law of Equivalent Trade
getting definitions off of wikipedia doesn't help either. Nothing can be made or destroyed, thus how are you supposed to give and recieve the same "whatever". I dunno, it makes sense to me, or maybe I'm trying to sound smart.
I believe that the principle of Equivalent Exchange does indeed exist in this world of ours.
In fact, I wouldn't have been able to read and respond to this thread without expending 2 minutes of my time!
KIMOCHI~II
FMA's "Equivalent Exchange" is closer to the first law of thermodynamics: in a closed system, entropy always increases.
However, it's not a valid metaphor for a lot of things in life, and isn't an ironclad law for the way in which the world works.
Economics considers trade in one of two paradigms: the zero-sum game and the nonzero-sum game. In a zero-sum game, for someone to win, someone else has to lose. This is the idea that toka-kokan is based on, and is grounded in the idea that value is an absolute.
Modern economics recognizes that value is NOT absolute, not an intrinsic property of an object, and thus that the value I ascribe to something can be substantially different than your evaluation of the same thing. If I can find something of yours that has little value to you but great value to me, and you can do the same for me, we can exchange them and both achieve a net gain in value. This is a positive-sum game, and is the foundation of liberal economics (free markets, capitalism as a whole).
In the world, there are zero-sum, positive-sum, and negative-sum situations. Wars of attrition are pretty much never positive-sum: even with a low value to human life, the mere economic cost of such a war is often heavier than the benefits associated with winning it. Free markets are positive-sum, and universal conservation of mass-energy is a zero-sum situation. Saying that any one paradigm defines all given circumstances is patently incorrect.
Incidentally, FMA addresses this towards the end, questioning toka-kokan and its veracity. In the case of human-conjuring, the 'game' was very clearly negative-sum. In the case of other alchemy, it was positive-sum (ie: you got order for free by practicing alchemy, it was essentially free energy).
Although that was a very good post, I was going for something along the lines of past personal experiences. Not like, I bought a tomato for 25 cents. Something more personal. Like maybe something that affected your life in a good or bad way? If you dont seem to have anything then don't post. But if you can recall anything that goes along the lines of or against equivalency then post here.
I'll give an example of something from my life that I don't know the answer to yet. Last year I started learning how to play tennis. Since about 6 months ago, I have started to get serious about the game and have been training really hard to become better. Tomorrow afternoon I have my first tournament. So tomorrow I will see how I do in the tournament and if equivalency worked for me.
.........
lol?
Please dude, use your words. Contentless posts are exactly why DF wanted to close threads like this one...
If you don't have anything significant to say or if you're not gonna follow the rules of the thread, don't post.
-m
Last edited by masamuneehs; Fri, 08-04-2006 at 12:08 AM.
so you're saying you ... want to keep the thread at the shallowest possible level?
Meh, whatever... I'm already getting bored with it. Clearly it doesn't work for me: I have traded my perspective and time for what amounts to "no, I mean don't think about things in any sort of depth." I certainly don't consider these to be of equivalent value ... I haven't even gotten entertainment value back!
It does work compy, just that you don't nessecarily get the benefit, but your effort did create benefit in the world, namely benefiting me by letting me laugh at Mizuchi that much more efficiently.
i think this topic is a viable one, but basing it on a theme from an anime makes it very slippery. You can take this seriously, or you can say, "Dude I watched FMA twice and i still don't fucking know what Equivalent Trade is exactly". I elect to do both.
it was left very unclear (at least to me) at the end of the anime FMA series, how exactly the whole setup of Equivalent Trade worked. Maybe I'm just easily confused, but I felt like there were times it was applied and others it wasn't (therby not makeingit a Law of any kind)...
as for karma and dharma and all that stuff. I have one thing to say: If this don't help explain it all, nothing will
so, yeah, let this topic stay open and let people not swurve off of it
Humans are different from animals. We must die for a reason. Now is the time for us to regulate ourselves and reclaim our dignity. The one who holds endless potential and displays his strength and kindness to the world. Only mankind has God, a power that allows us to go above and beyond what we are now, a God that we call "possibility".
I subscribe to what's called the "sawdust" philosphy. This has a little to do with Thermaldynamics, but it's over-simplified.
Let's say that you have a four-foot-long board, and you want to have two two-foot-long boards. By sawing the board in half you "exchange" the single four-foot-long board for the two two-foot-long boards. But wait, there's a problem: when you measure your boards you realize that you have two boards that only measure One foot, eleven and three quarter inches.
After you get done swearing you realize what happened to the extra wood: sawdust. You always lose something in the transfer. You can try to lose less by using a thinner blade, but you can't ever come out quite even. No matter what you do, you're screwed.
"Samsonlonghair - The Defender of the Oppressed And Shunned!" -Kraco
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