If you bake a cupcake, the world has one more cupcake. If you become a circus clown, the world has one more squirt of seltzer down someone's pants. But if you win an Olympic gold medal, the world will not have one more Olympic gold medalist. It will just have you instead of someone else.
Steven E. Landsburg, The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics
baking, clowns, economics, olympics, value