Wealth

People commonly denote wealth by their net worth. At one time a millionaire was a very rare person who would have the aura of a liege. Now, the top 15 richest, according to Forbes, have a total net worth of just under $500 billion, more than the GDP of all but the top 70 countries.

The net worth of a person directly relates to their ownership of shares in companies. Take Bill Gates; as the value of Microsoft changes so does his net worth. The GDP of a country relates to the activity of humans within the nation’s contrived boundary. With changes to either production or acquisition of consumable goods then this figure also changes. Do these human derived metrics scale the value of our civilization?

A bankrupt company or bankrupt nation changes the perspective of people but does not change the essential basics. A company’s workforce and machinery still exist. A nation’s land and resources remain. Energy continually flows from the Sun and some stores remain in reservoirs under the Earth’s surface. As the numbers fail on spreadsheets, does this mean our civilization also fails or do we re-evaluate the worth of material and activity to enable our civilization to continue to advance?
Cold