5 ms·

> I think the inability to find a price here also has to do with value. To develop a relationship with someone requires that you offer value in the form of conv

by ardy42 7y ago

> I think the inability to find a price here also has to do with value. To develop a relationship with someone requires that you offer value in the form of conversation, entertainment, etc. I think part of the problem here is forcing everything to be viewed through the lens of market economics and trying to make every human activity a kind of market exchange. Markets are a powerful paradigm in some contexts, but they're not the end-all-be-all of human behavior. Loneliness may be a product of marketization of social relationships, so market-thinking won't offer a path out.

Invictus0 7y ago
Perhaps where the market thought model breaks down is that in a marketplace, the value of the product offered is compared against the price and the transaction goes forward or does not. Friendship requires some sustained investment and so might be modelled more like a chemical reaction: high activation energy to gain new friends with comparatively lesser energy going into the interaction once the friendship has been established. With this model, it makes sense that individuals would seek to maintain existing friendship instead of acquiring new ones because the energy expenditure is much lower in the former than the latter.
akurzon 7y ago
I'm glad you bring up this perspective; I feel that reducing these kinds of subjects to some analogy of market forces ends up being really dehumanizing. Especially with things like loneliness and social interaction, it seems that portraying it as trades and estimates of value will sanitize the subject so much that it stops being helpful. A similar topic (dating on Tinder becoming a market) was covered pretty well recently by The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-dating-odds-economy-apps-tinder-math/606982/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-da...
- luckylion 7y ago
  Does it stop being helpful though? I somewhat understand the idea of "you can't talk about humans like that", but in the end I don't buy it. If it accurately describes the situation and enables you to think about it and get ideas by transferring what we know about other markets/interactions etc, isn't that better than putting human interaction, mental health etc into a corner of "this is so special that we must not think about it in trivial terms"? Of course, the usefulness depends on how well the market concept fits the situation, but I don't feel like rejecting the idea on principle is helpful. It's similar to the idea of "you can't put a price tag on a human life", when of course we're doing that and we need to do it.
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    " If it accurately describes the situation and enables you to think about it and get ideas by transferring what we know about other markets/interactions etc, isn't that better than putting human interaction, mental health etc into a corner of "this is so special that we must not think about it in trivial terms"?" Consider the following: It doesn't accurately describe the situation and that is what people are arguing.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      I don't really see that argument, it looks more like "you shouldn't think of humans in those terms". Not "this doesn't work, look, that model has no predictive power", just "it's not okay to think like that". To me, that's mostly just closing your eyes and wishing really hard that human reality isn't profane and cannot be (roughly) described by (relatively) simple models. I see similar reactions in discussions about free will (or lack thereof) where some people seem to be insulted by the idea that humans aren't special and fundamentally different from animals, not just (much) smarter versions with opposable thumbs.
      - watwut 7y ago
        If the person you are speaking with don't think about the people in such terms, don't treat them as such and socializes primary with people who don't treat him in such a way, then that person is not closing eyes from anything. His interactions with others are not like you described. Instead, that person is expressing moral, ethical or emotional base for his own behavior and thinking when he objects with "you shouldn't think of humans in those terms". One does not have to be able to make full fledged philosophical theory about own behavior and behavior of chosen acquaintances in order to know that what you say does not match his experience. And this is the case where your believes influence your experience and outcomes. And more importantly, the prevalent believe in community you are in heavily influences peoples experience and outcome. Whether you are able to express them neatly or not, whether you are able to perform well in debate or not.
        7y ago
cvlasdkv 7y ago
I agree the commodification of social relations definitely results in bad outcomes for mental health. Terms like the "sexual marketplace" are particularly abhorrent.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
bobcostas55 7y ago
>'It’s a fact, I mused to myself, that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women, others with none. It’s what’s known as ” the law of the market”. In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.'
_jal 7y ago
Yes. The market lens is deeply distorting, frequently obscuring more than it illuminates. You can try to shove anything involving scarcity into the economic analysis framework. And doing so might tell you something interesting! But it frequently will say nothing about other major aspects. Taking a strictly biological view of relationship formation is just as valid. And doing so might tell you something interesting! But... For some reason, a lot of folks get econ brain worms and start discounting other modes of analysis. It is really too bad; economic analysis has a lot of non-obvious insight, but ends up frequently being blinkered.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > Taking a strictly biological view of relationship formation is just as valid. What would that look like?
  - stuxnet79 7y ago
    From the gene-centred view, it follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense (at the level of the genes) it makes for them to behave selflessly with each other [1] [1] Richard Dawkins - Selfish Gene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)
    - luckylion 7y ago
      Wouldn't that still fit nicely in a market concept? Considering it as a market with options (in this case: different degrees of relatedness?) where every actor tries to optimize their success works well with the valuation of options being defined by an external metric.
rland 7y ago
This exchange triggered me: I'm so sick of the "market" paradigm. It's seeped so deeply into every cultural value we have blinded us to many parts of life. Everything is a market now. Every waking moment your time is on the market. Every thought you have is either contributing to "value" or worthless. Every social interaction is an exchange of value. Every relationship is "optimized." Everyone is an atomized economic actor. This idea has completely outlived its usefulness and is like a sort of cultural grey goo that corrodes humanity from the inside out. Sorry, rant over.
- ardy42 7y ago
  > Everything is a market now. Every waking moment your time is on the market. Every thought you have is either contributing to "value" or worthless. Every social interaction is an exchange of value. Every relationship is "optimized." Everyone is an atomized economic actor. You might want to check out The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi. I'm about 3/4 of the way through, and it's been eye-opening.

by ardy42 7y ago

Invictus0 7y ago

Perhaps where the market thought model breaks down is that in a marketplace, the value of the product offered is compared against the price and the transaction goes forward or does not. Friendship requires some sustained investment and so might be modelled more like a chemical reaction: high activation energy to gain new friends with comparatively lesser energy going into the interaction once the friendship has been established. With this model, it makes sense that individuals would seek to maintain existing friendship instead of acquiring new ones because the energy expenditure is much lower in the former than the latter.

akurzon 7y ago

I'm glad you bring up this perspective; I feel that reducing these kinds of subjects to some analogy of market forces ends up being really dehumanizing. Especially with things like loneliness and social interaction, it seems that portraying it as trades and estimates of value will sanitize the subject so much that it stops being helpful. A similar topic (dating on Tinder becoming a market) was covered pretty well recently by The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-dating-odds-economy-apps-tinder-math/606982/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/modern-da...

luckylion 7y ago
Does it stop being helpful though? I somewhat understand the idea of "you can't talk about humans like that", but in the end I don't buy it. If it accurately describes the situation and enables you to think about it and get ideas by transferring what we know about other markets/interactions etc, isn't that better than putting human interaction, mental health etc into a corner of "this is so special that we must not think about it in trivial terms"? Of course, the usefulness depends on how well the market concept fits the situation, but I don't feel like rejecting the idea on principle is helpful. It's similar to the idea of "you can't put a price tag on a human life", when of course we're doing that and we need to do it.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  " If it accurately describes the situation and enables you to think about it and get ideas by transferring what we know about other markets/interactions etc, isn't that better than putting human interaction, mental health etc into a corner of "this is so special that we must not think about it in trivial terms"?" Consider the following: It doesn't accurately describe the situation and that is what people are arguing.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    I don't really see that argument, it looks more like "you shouldn't think of humans in those terms". Not "this doesn't work, look, that model has no predictive power", just "it's not okay to think like that". To me, that's mostly just closing your eyes and wishing really hard that human reality isn't profane and cannot be (roughly) described by (relatively) simple models. I see similar reactions in discussions about free will (or lack thereof) where some people seem to be insulted by the idea that humans aren't special and fundamentally different from animals, not just (much) smarter versions with opposable thumbs.
    - watwut 7y ago
      If the person you are speaking with don't think about the people in such terms, don't treat them as such and socializes primary with people who don't treat him in such a way, then that person is not closing eyes from anything. His interactions with others are not like you described. Instead, that person is expressing moral, ethical or emotional base for his own behavior and thinking when he objects with "you shouldn't think of humans in those terms". One does not have to be able to make full fledged philosophical theory about own behavior and behavior of chosen acquaintances in order to know that what you say does not match his experience. And this is the case where your believes influence your experience and outcomes. And more importantly, the prevalent believe in community you are in heavily influences peoples experience and outcome. Whether you are able to express them neatly or not, whether you are able to perform well in debate or not.
      - 7y ago

cvlasdkv 7y ago

I agree the commodification of social relations definitely results in bad outcomes for mental health. Terms like the "sexual marketplace" are particularly abhorrent.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

bobcostas55 7y ago

>'It’s a fact, I mused to myself, that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women, others with none. It’s what’s known as ” the law of the market”. In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.'

_jal 7y ago

Yes. The market lens is deeply distorting, frequently obscuring more than it illuminates. You can try to shove anything involving scarcity into the economic analysis framework. And doing so might tell you something interesting! But it frequently will say nothing about other major aspects. Taking a strictly biological view of relationship formation is just as valid. And doing so might tell you something interesting! But... For some reason, a lot of folks get econ brain worms and start discounting other modes of analysis. It is really too bad; economic analysis has a lot of non-obvious insight, but ends up frequently being blinkered.

luckylion 7y ago
> Taking a strictly biological view of relationship formation is just as valid. What would that look like?
- stuxnet79 7y ago
  From the gene-centred view, it follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense (at the level of the genes) it makes for them to behave selflessly with each other [1] [1] Richard Dawkins - Selfish Gene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Wouldn't that still fit nicely in a market concept? Considering it as a market with options (in this case: different degrees of relatedness?) where every actor tries to optimize their success works well with the valuation of options being defined by an external metric.

rland 7y ago

This exchange triggered me: I'm so sick of the "market" paradigm. It's seeped so deeply into every cultural value we have blinded us to many parts of life. Everything is a market now. Every waking moment your time is on the market. Every thought you have is either contributing to "value" or worthless. Every social interaction is an exchange of value. Every relationship is "optimized." Everyone is an atomized economic actor. This idea has completely outlived its usefulness and is like a sort of cultural grey goo that corrodes humanity from the inside out. Sorry, rant over.

ardy42 7y ago
> Everything is a market now. Every waking moment your time is on the market. Every thought you have is either contributing to "value" or worthless. Every social interaction is an exchange of value. Every relationship is "optimized." Everyone is an atomized economic actor. You might want to check out The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi. I'm about 3/4 of the way through, and it's been eye-opening.