The category of "food" in economics is vast and absolutely includes things that humans don't need to live. Nobody dies if they can't buy clothing, except in very extreme cases, yet clothing is generally considered "essential". Meanwhile, people do die because they can't get jobs and become homeless, and you need an internet connection to get a job, but internet access is very rarely considered "essential" (although I suspect this is changing).

Besides, the usual definition of "essential" in economics is more about price elasticity, how consistent demand is, how spending on the category changes as income changes, etc. But whatever your parameters for that definition are, if you actually measure these things you'll see things that surprise you, and most of your results are going to be artifacts of how you categorize things. Lots of entertainment shows low price elasticity. Should dried beans and rice be in the same "food" category as foie gras? Is a Disney+ subscription essential to a working single mother of young children? Is heroin essential to a heroin addict? Are opiates essential to someone in chronic pain? Is alcohol essential to an alcoholic? Some would literally die if it were suddenly unavailable!

The category is murky, nobody can agree on what is or is not essential, nor even what its definition is: low price elasticity? necessary for life? necessary for a fulfilling life? able to be temporarily deferred in a crisis? All of these result in different lists.

> You sure have a weird definition of it.

As I feel like I've made quite clear: I do not have any definition of it, and neither do any of you. So let's not make policy decisions and economic predictions based on what is or is not "essential", please. People want GPUs, and you'll find lots of people who are more willing to give up their clothing and restaurant food than their GPUs.

▲

pyrale 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I do not have any definition of it

Fair enough.

> and neither do any of you

Is this a kind of linguistical scorched-earth policy? I would like to know, because if we're going to be dishonest, there's plenty of other words we could start claiming have no meaning, until no meaningful conversation can happen.

	▲	feoren 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		You're right that I have a general issue with how people use words versus how they think they use words. Yes, there are plenty of words that have this problem. People reach for definitions as some sort of argument-ender, without realizing how much those definitions rely on what are essentially arbitrary categorizations by an arbitrary authority. Those are two other peeves of mine: bad categorization and arbitrary authority. There is actually a theory behind all this, based largely on the critically important fact that all models are wrong, but some models are useful. But yes, I recognize the futility of trying to fight this war in comment-sized battles in tangentially related Hacker News threads. > until no meaningful conversation can happen I believe accepting "all models are wrong, but some models are useful" is in fact a prerequisite for meaningful conversation, because otherwise people simply aren't even arguing about the same thing. What appears to you as a "linguistical scorched-earth policy" is something I can trace logically from that statement. Most arguments are actually arguments about definitions and categories, and therefore useless. I am trying to get people to abandon the category of "essential vs. non-essential" because it, like so many others, is arbitrary.

▲

ifyoubuildit 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> The category of "food" in economics is vast and absolutely includes things that humans don't need to live

Yeah, but if the whole category goes away, not many of us survive. Isn't that what makes it essential?

> Nobody dies if they can't buy clothing

Huh? How do you figure?