6 ms·

False dichotomy. Money is the medium through which societies (attempt to) measure such contributions and meaning. And this includes abstract and indirect ways,

by Radim 8y ago

False dichotomy. Money is the medium through which societies (attempt to) measure such contributions and meaning. And this includes abstract and indirect ways, like art, fun, future potential, etc.

coldtea 8y ago
>Money is the medium through which societies (attempt to) measure such contributions and meaning. False axiom. Money is a very bad medium for that purpose. Money was created to measure exchange value, and it should stick to that role, and not even try to touch meaning. A person who made $10 billion selling poisonous crap to consumers, paying researches to mark it, and advertisers to brainwash them (e.g. a cigarette maker) does not contribute to society more than a doctor who found a cure for a disease that killed millions but made no profits off it.
- Radim 8y ago
  "Valuable contribution according to coldtea" is not a thing. And without irony, I'll add thankfully. What is a good vs bad contribution to society is played out over periods of time and using millions of independents actors (aka society). No single individual or small "central committee" can impose that judgement, simply because they do not know the final end result down the road. It's toothless virtue-signalling. Worse, if they try too hard, history teaches us to expect a murderous genocide.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >"Valuable contribution according to coldtea" is not a thing. And without irony, I'll add thankfully. Here's where you're wrong though. "Valuable contribution according to coldtea" is a thing -- it describes my personal estimation of the worth of things. In fact not only it's a thing, but everybody has the same thing (their own value estimations of things), I'll add thankfully. And few would let money dictate their personal estimation of the worth of things especially (as we discuss here) concerning meaning (Ebenezer Skroutz comes to mind). It would influence their actions, sure, but not their idea of meaning and value in toto. It's "valuable contribution according to money" that's not a thing. Money just measure how much profit one can extract, not the value of how they extracted it. Crime, for one, generates tons of money as well. Few would agree it contributes lots of value, unless (as some do) we twist the meaning of value to be a tautology for demand. But while individuals sometimes do that thing (which you also seem to propose), that is constrained their definition of value to monetary profit, no society has ever done that. Value and meaning, for societies and for most individuals, are ethical considerations that go beyond "makes us money". >What is a good vs bad contribution to society is played out over periods of time and using millions of independents actors (aka society). No single individual or small "central committee" can impose that judgement, simply because they do not know the final end result down the road. It's toothless virtue-signalling. Which is neither here not there. I didn't propose that "a single individual or small "central committee"" imposes their judgement. Just that money influx (or lack thereof) can't substitute for that judgement. To use your words, "What is a good vs bad contribution to society is played out over periods of time and using millions of independents actors (aka society)", and this involves moral considerations, collaboration, and personal judgement of those actors, not just their monetary exchanges -- that would be a caricature of reductionistic 18th century economics, where money defines all that's good.
    - Radim 8y ago
      That I can agree with. It is your earlier posts where you say "Money … should … not even try to touch meaning" and "The question is not if these jobs make money … but if they contribute anything to the society" that raise the red flag. While money and social contribution are not equivalent (which nobody claimed), they are massively interlinked and correlated—by design, by necessity. Good individual intentions can lead to social hell, bad intentions can lead to social progress; good intentions can help, bad intentions can hurt. We're notoriously bad at predicting social outcomes from our individual preferences. It's often downright counter-intuitive, as the two breathe at completely different scales. I'd take "social value according to money" over "social value according to coldtea" any time, when evaluating long-term societal contributions. Not ideal but it's a distributed process honed over millenia, with many costly experiments and some non-obvious failures and successes. We don't have to follow that blindly of course, but we better learn from it. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water by introducing such false dichotomies.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >While money and social contribution are not equivalent (which nobody claimed), they are massively interlinked and correlated—by design, by necessity. Are they though? Adam Smith (and others) have argued that, but I think that the correlation is at best accidental. The mechanism that connects money with society is demand (money goes to those providing something people want). But society can demand all kinds of things that weaken or destroy it as well. Many had in the past, and many have today. It's not even about individual judgement vs society: in many cases the whole of society can agree that X is harmful, but tons of people will still demand it (and thus reward it with money) nonetheless (including the same persons that condemn it). It gets worse when a full scale, highly elaborate, mechanism of advertising, consumer manipulation, misinformation, etc is at play to make people want this or that. And we haven't even added monopolies, favoritism, etc to the list that much further skew money awarded as a measure of societal demand (as this demand can be artificially propped up)-- and even worse for societal value. So, my argument is that at best money counts demand (not the same thing as value), and that even that can be skewed. >I'd take "social value according to money" over "social value according to coldtea" any time, when evaluating long-term societal contributions. >Not ideal but it's a distributed process honed over millenia, with many costly experiments and some non-obvious failures and successes. I'm not sure it's that honed. For millennia economy took the backseat to other considerations (civic, religious, philosophical, moral, cultural, etc). To the point that individuals and societies would not follow certain money making paths against those considerations. It's only in the latest couple of centuries that economy took the seat front and center - and not necessarily for the better (and we have a long way to learn about the cost of the externalities we amassed while doing so, which might even leave the planet uninhabitable). Winning (and not even that easily -- it took almost 80 years) over a few communist countries with inflexible dictatorships starting from ex-rural / third-world conditions, is a pretty low bar to determine the effectiveness of the market/money as the measure of societal value.
  - thdxr 8y ago
    You shouldn't be getting down voted. People instinctively are interpreting what you're saying as greed. Money is a good decentralized way to determine where people's preferences truly lie. If you poll everyone we'd all agree teachers should get paid more. But the fact that they don't get paid more means we collectively don't really think they should. Asking people to stake money for their beliefs is a good way to eliminate posturing. No one is truly over or under paid on average
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
      Can you provide any argument for why given two possible measures for real value, money is the one that is correct? Seems like an unsubstantiated assertion to me the way you phrase it.
- prepend 8y ago
  Money is a bad medium for measuring purpose, it’s just the best way we have that is interoperable in a useful way. It is important not to attach too much meaning because of it, because, like you said, is the crap peddler more meaningful than the doctor? This certainly can’t be determined based on income. However, there’s no real other way that’s useful. Money at least forces prioritization and has supply and demand effects. A classic example is teachers being underpaid. Teachers should be paid more, but the reason they aren’t is because communities prioritize them lower than other costs. This isn’t a direct measure of value, but it certainly an indicator when teachers are paid less than administrators [0]. Unfortunately, there’s no meaningful way to assess meaning that is easily measureable and comparable universally. It’s not really possible to measure the impact of the doctor’s cure over time and compare that to a different doctor. Or a speech therapist. Or whatever. [0] highly variable of course, but here’s some California Data https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp
  - repolfx 8y ago
    Well, cigarette companies can't even be said to be "crap peddlers" really. Lots of people enjoy smoking, that's almost the problem - they enjoy it too much and can't stop. I think you could argue that addictive substances shouldn't be considered a normal part of capitalism, they're too far from the norms, but that quickly takes you down a complex path (is a water supply "addictive"? you sure do need one!). I fully agree that money is the best mechanism we have to decide if work done by someone is valuable or not. Teacher's wages are suppressed by the fact that it's not very hard and there are lots of people who want to do it. Whereas administration is (perceived as being) harder and not every teacher is willing to move into management.
TheCoelacanth 8y ago
You can make money by creating wealth or by capturing wealth. Both make money for the person doing it, but only the former benefits society.

by Radim 8y ago

False dichotomy. Money is the medium through which societies (attempt to) measure such contributions and meaning. And this includes abstract and indirect ways, like art, fun, future potential, etc.

coldtea 8y ago

>Money is the medium through which societies (attempt to) measure such contributions and meaning. False axiom. Money is a very bad medium for that purpose. Money was created to measure exchange value, and it should stick to that role, and not even try to touch meaning. A person who made $10 billion selling poisonous crap to consumers, paying researches to mark it, and advertisers to brainwash them (e.g. a cigarette maker) does not contribute to society more than a doctor who found a cure for a disease that killed millions but made no profits off it.

Radim 8y ago
"Valuable contribution according to coldtea" is not a thing. And without irony, I'll add thankfully. What is a good vs bad contribution to society is played out over periods of time and using millions of independents actors (aka society). No single individual or small "central committee" can impose that judgement, simply because they do not know the final end result down the road. It's toothless virtue-signalling. Worse, if they try too hard, history teaches us to expect a murderous genocide.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >"Valuable contribution according to coldtea" is not a thing. And without irony, I'll add thankfully. Here's where you're wrong though. "Valuable contribution according to coldtea" is a thing -- it describes my personal estimation of the worth of things. In fact not only it's a thing, but everybody has the same thing (their own value estimations of things), I'll add thankfully. And few would let money dictate their personal estimation of the worth of things especially (as we discuss here) concerning meaning (Ebenezer Skroutz comes to mind). It would influence their actions, sure, but not their idea of meaning and value in toto. It's "valuable contribution according to money" that's not a thing. Money just measure how much profit one can extract, not the value of how they extracted it. Crime, for one, generates tons of money as well. Few would agree it contributes lots of value, unless (as some do) we twist the meaning of value to be a tautology for demand. But while individuals sometimes do that thing (which you also seem to propose), that is constrained their definition of value to monetary profit, no society has ever done that. Value and meaning, for societies and for most individuals, are ethical considerations that go beyond "makes us money". >What is a good vs bad contribution to society is played out over periods of time and using millions of independents actors (aka society). No single individual or small "central committee" can impose that judgement, simply because they do not know the final end result down the road. It's toothless virtue-signalling. Which is neither here not there. I didn't propose that "a single individual or small "central committee"" imposes their judgement. Just that money influx (or lack thereof) can't substitute for that judgement. To use your words, "What is a good vs bad contribution to society is played out over periods of time and using millions of independents actors (aka society)", and this involves moral considerations, collaboration, and personal judgement of those actors, not just their monetary exchanges -- that would be a caricature of reductionistic 18th century economics, where money defines all that's good.
  - Radim 8y ago
    That I can agree with. It is your earlier posts where you say "Money … should … not even try to touch meaning" and "The question is not if these jobs make money … but if they contribute anything to the society" that raise the red flag. While money and social contribution are not equivalent (which nobody claimed), they are massively interlinked and correlated—by design, by necessity. Good individual intentions can lead to social hell, bad intentions can lead to social progress; good intentions can help, bad intentions can hurt. We're notoriously bad at predicting social outcomes from our individual preferences. It's often downright counter-intuitive, as the two breathe at completely different scales. I'd take "social value according to money" over "social value according to coldtea" any time, when evaluating long-term societal contributions. Not ideal but it's a distributed process honed over millenia, with many costly experiments and some non-obvious failures and successes. We don't have to follow that blindly of course, but we better learn from it. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water by introducing such false dichotomies.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >While money and social contribution are not equivalent (which nobody claimed), they are massively interlinked and correlated—by design, by necessity. Are they though? Adam Smith (and others) have argued that, but I think that the correlation is at best accidental. The mechanism that connects money with society is demand (money goes to those providing something people want). But society can demand all kinds of things that weaken or destroy it as well. Many had in the past, and many have today. It's not even about individual judgement vs society: in many cases the whole of society can agree that X is harmful, but tons of people will still demand it (and thus reward it with money) nonetheless (including the same persons that condemn it). It gets worse when a full scale, highly elaborate, mechanism of advertising, consumer manipulation, misinformation, etc is at play to make people want this or that. And we haven't even added monopolies, favoritism, etc to the list that much further skew money awarded as a measure of societal demand (as this demand can be artificially propped up)-- and even worse for societal value. So, my argument is that at best money counts demand (not the same thing as value), and that even that can be skewed. >I'd take "social value according to money" over "social value according to coldtea" any time, when evaluating long-term societal contributions. >Not ideal but it's a distributed process honed over millenia, with many costly experiments and some non-obvious failures and successes. I'm not sure it's that honed. For millennia economy took the backseat to other considerations (civic, religious, philosophical, moral, cultural, etc). To the point that individuals and societies would not follow certain money making paths against those considerations. It's only in the latest couple of centuries that economy took the seat front and center - and not necessarily for the better (and we have a long way to learn about the cost of the externalities we amassed while doing so, which might even leave the planet uninhabitable). Winning (and not even that easily -- it took almost 80 years) over a few communist countries with inflexible dictatorships starting from ex-rural / third-world conditions, is a pretty low bar to determine the effectiveness of the market/money as the measure of societal value.
- thdxr 8y ago
  You shouldn't be getting down voted. People instinctively are interpreting what you're saying as greed. Money is a good decentralized way to determine where people's preferences truly lie. If you poll everyone we'd all agree teachers should get paid more. But the fact that they don't get paid more means we collectively don't really think they should. Asking people to stake money for their beliefs is a good way to eliminate posturing. No one is truly over or under paid on average
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
    Can you provide any argument for why given two possible measures for real value, money is the one that is correct? Seems like an unsubstantiated assertion to me the way you phrase it.
prepend 8y ago
Money is a bad medium for measuring purpose, it’s just the best way we have that is interoperable in a useful way. It is important not to attach too much meaning because of it, because, like you said, is the crap peddler more meaningful than the doctor? This certainly can’t be determined based on income. However, there’s no real other way that’s useful. Money at least forces prioritization and has supply and demand effects. A classic example is teachers being underpaid. Teachers should be paid more, but the reason they aren’t is because communities prioritize them lower than other costs. This isn’t a direct measure of value, but it certainly an indicator when teachers are paid less than administrators [0]. Unfortunately, there’s no meaningful way to assess meaning that is easily measureable and comparable universally. It’s not really possible to measure the impact of the doctor’s cure over time and compare that to a different doctor. Or a speech therapist. Or whatever. [0] highly variable of course, but here’s some California Data https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp
- repolfx 8y ago
  Well, cigarette companies can't even be said to be "crap peddlers" really. Lots of people enjoy smoking, that's almost the problem - they enjoy it too much and can't stop. I think you could argue that addictive substances shouldn't be considered a normal part of capitalism, they're too far from the norms, but that quickly takes you down a complex path (is a water supply "addictive"? you sure do need one!). I fully agree that money is the best mechanism we have to decide if work done by someone is valuable or not. Teacher's wages are suppressed by the fact that it's not very hard and there are lots of people who want to do it. Whereas administration is (perceived as being) harder and not every teacher is willing to move into management.

TheCoelacanth 8y ago

You can make money by creating wealth or by capturing wealth. Both make money for the person doing it, but only the former benefits society.