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From: Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: bike light optics
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2024 12:57:23 -0400
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Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> writes:

> On 4/10/2024 10:55 AM, Radey Shouman wrote:
>> Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> writes:
>> 
>>> On 4/9/2024 4:41 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
>>>> Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On 4/8/2024 2:08 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
>>>>>> Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 4/5/2024 12:36 PM, sms wrote:
>>>>>>>>     What would be nice is a higher-end battery powered light that could
>>>>>>>> be charged with a dynamo, and operate at lower power directly from
>>>>>>>> the dynamo, but there is no such animal.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ISTM that the market generally finds a way to fill almost all real
>>>>>>> needs. If such a thing doesn't exist, it's probably a signal that the
>>>>>>> benefits are too minor to make it marketable.
>>>>>> That's just silly.  Do bicycles fill a real need?  If so, why did it
>>>>>> take millennia for the market to produce them?
>>>>>
>>>>> Are you serious? The answer is blatantly obvious: Because the science
>>>>> and the technology were not yet present to allow manufacture of
>>>>> bicycles.
>>>> It's funny how needs become "real" only when they can be satisfied.
>>>> I'm not sure what the alternative to "real" is, maybe "fake" needs?
>>>> Maslow claimed there was a hierarchy of needs, from basic food and
>>>> shelter on up to less pressing desires.  They're all real, but some are
>>>> more easily deferred than others.  Markets provide solutions for needs
>>>> when money can be made by selling them; that seems an odd way to define
>>>> reality.
>>>
>>> I think the market can be a useful tool to evaluate needs, albeit not
>>> a perfect one. This is part of the concept, or maybe a corollary, of
>>> the "Invisible Hand," is it not?
>> What is the difference between a need and a desire?  Nothing, as far
>> as
>> the invisible hand can tell.
>
> I'd say the Invisible Hand could tell based on what a person is
> willing to pay. We _needed_ to have a heating system in my house, and
> would have added one if the house somehow did not have one. We (or
> rather, my wife) _desired_ a fireplace as well; but we'd never have
> paid to install one.

That's a great example, because, of course, human beings didn't need to
heat most of the rooms of their houses until very recently, as
Mr. Slocomb can attest.  When they added indoor plumbing, they needed
central heat *in order to* prevent their pipes from freezing.

On the other hand, back when people didn't need central heat, they
needed fireplaces *in order to* have a place to cook their food.

>>> But did people "need" bicycles in, say, 1750, when they were
>>> impossible? I'd say no. Those people had other needs that were great
>>> enough that they made the need for personal human powered mobility
>>> (beyond walking) fairly negligible.
>> But if they had become available, with the roads on which to use
>> them,
>> people would have "needed" them quickly. 
>
> Your "if" points to an extremely hypothetical point. "If" there's a
> parallel universe where we can observe that situation, please show me.
>
> Really, even in this universe, most people don't "need" a bicycle at all.

Some people need a bicycle *in order to* get to and from work.  Maybe
not in your neighborhood, but the world is bigger than that.

--