6 ms·

Parameters of the universe are currency. Time is one of them, space (or area on earth’s surface) is another, and energy is a third. How these three things are u

Parameters of the universe are currency. Time is one of them, space (or area on earth’s surface) is another, and energy is a third. How these three things are used is what generates value to human beings. Each of the fundamental items can be traded individually, but money is used as a proxy for value. The most common trade is when a person can trade their time and their body’s energy. They produce some level of value using those two inputs, and receive money (a proxy for that value) in exchange. A person who can generate more value with the same amount of time and energy should be receiving more money than someone who generates less value, as money is only a proxy for value. People can also secure space. We’re used to thinking in terms of real estate, which always prices in the value of a structure or natural resources or potential on top of the raw spatial resource. But the raw three dimensional space can be traded as well, just like time or energy, as it is finite for humans. Money is just a tangible abstraction later on top of these fundamental parameters of the universe we trade. Providing lots of energy in a small space in a short period of time is incredibly valuable to humans, and so money reflects that. Using energy and time and space in a more efficient way to produce something in a factory is valuable, so money reflects that. It’s not that money isn’t real currency, it’s just an abstraction layer for tradable natural commodities like time, and energy, and space.

kator 6y ago
The only currency you're born with is time. The rest are acquired by the application of time.
- jandrese 6y ago
  Lots of people are born with wealth. In fact that biggest factor in how much wealth you have is how much you are born with.
- IggleSniggle 6y ago
  Really though? During that time, you occupy a space, and the spaces afforded you by the society you are born into define the constraints within which you can apply your time. That is, all of your "currency you are born with" is really "futures". Even the time on Earth you are allotted at birth is constrained by the environment you are born into.
  - loco5niner 6y ago
    You also consume space to gain energy.
- seventytwo 6y ago
  It’s certainly the most valuable natural resource a person is born with, by far, but I’d argue there’s also technically space and energy there, too. The space a baby consumes is almost valueless, and the energy output is also (though thoughts of babies being harvested in The Matrix come to mind).
  - tdy721 6y ago
    You haven’t seen a baby consume space in your significant others life? Guessing not a woman? That actually sacrifices personal space (breasts) for baby? They consume and change boobies, and mommies time! Man mommy rant </>
    - seventytwo 6y ago
      Good point!
- manmal 6y ago
  Energy - or rather, the ability to convert it between various forms, like food > kinetic energy - is also a currency that we are born with. If you have grown very old, even having a week on hand will not help you lift a sledge hammer.
  - contravariant 6y ago
    Well, even that is not quite right. The amount of energy we can actually use is small relative to the total amount of available energy. We're born with a relative lack of entropy, which is the only thing that allows us to do anything. Eventually we inevitably return to equilibrium.
- frostwhale 6y ago
  I'd say you're also born with energy if you're born with time.
- tdy721 6y ago
  Spacetime is a better description, and it’s full of real estate. Mammals at least are born with a deed or a need for a boobie, or in big trouble. It’s all linked!
- kazagistar 6y ago
  People are born with significant variance in other "currencies".
abnry 6y ago
Was going to make the point about energy, but you made the point way better than me and added space which I didn't think about!
bitKong 6y ago
Thanks for the great summary, you made the whole point so easy Thanks
jessriedel 6y ago
You're using "energy" as a pseudoscientific gloss. A human being provides an extremely meager amount of energy in the physics sense of the word. That energy could be purchased much more cheaply. The economic value of human labor is more closely tied to human intelligence/dexterity. More reasons to think your comment is more about making the reader feel the insight is deep: there are other important conserved quantities in physics like charge; shouldn't that play a foundational role in economics if your analysis was correct? Will you next say that business leadership is really about "taking charge"?
- elcomet 6y ago
  I like to think that the human work is to minimize entropy. So the currency would be entropy minimization.
  - kylek 6y ago
    Hah. You must be new to humans. Ordered destruction is a thing. (Alas, so is chaotic creation. Hail Eris!)
    - nipponese 6y ago
      Usually it performed to add the concept of risk to scenarios where people think there is no consequence for squandering said currencies.
  - jessriedel 6y ago
    You're relying your intuitive concept of entropy ("disorder"....of things people care about) rather than the actual definition of the thermodynamic concept. Entropy can not be reduced, only produced, and the work people do does not look anything like what you'd do if you were trying to minimize entropy production.
- kzrdude 6y ago
  > You're using "energy" as a pseudoscientific gloss. A human being provides an extremely meager amount of energy in the physics sense of the word. That energy could be purchased much more cheaply. The economic value of human labor is more closely tied to human intelligence/dexterity. Indeed humans provide very little energy. I've always used this to understand the value of oil to our society. Value, not the current price! :) A barrel of oil fed into a machine can replace the work of hundreds of laborers. In this perspective, oil is ridiculously cheap, alternatively viewed, it provides us with a lifestyle that is luxiurious and some feats that are otherwise impossible (transoceanic flight).
Balgair 6y ago
Yeah, and the exchange rates are terrible. Time goes as 1/(1-V^2)^0.5 in this market. Everything is pretty good until you really want time to stop, then, blammo! The Energy goes to infinity and the Space pretty much looses a dimension. It's especially bad, because it the dimension you're walking along! Trust me, fella, stick with dollars, at least you can print new ones. What a racket! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_factor
clairity 6y ago
that’s kind of (not as eloquently) how i came to land on the labor theory of value needing to be more prominent in economic policy. our application of energy (both physical and mental) transforms matter and collects/redirects ambient energy to productive use. that’s what generates value—gold in the ground is essentially worthless until we use labor to extract it. that it’s rare and has other interesting properties that make people trade more for it should be reflected in the labor value rather than some coercive capital value.
- didericis 6y ago
  Time is easily wasted, though. The labor theory of value ignores this, and ignores the value of cleverness as a result. If I need to grind wheat for bread every day, I could spend hours a day working hard to grind it by hand, or I could spend a month or so to build a very basic water wheel/grindstone and free up all that time. The resultant bread is still bread either way. If someone chooses to spend all their time doing the old/inefficient type of grinding, by the labor theory of value, they should be able to demand more money for the result. But why pay more money for something that took more time to make than an equivalent product made with automation? We value bread for being tasty and filling, not by how much time went into making it that way. Some level of labor is almost always required to get raw material into a valuable state, but the amount of labor does not determine the value. Labor just regulates supply; if something takes a lot of work to make, the supply will be lower than if it were easy to make, which affects value.
  - neilwilson 6y ago
    That’s the paradox of productivity. You create a machine to make bread and all that happens is that bread gets cheaper in time terms once you strip away the money abstraction. You can see this by comparing production relative to something that can’t be automated away but is still valued over time - like a violin player. The machine forces people in the same business down to your level, but people in a less automated arena go up in value relative to your bread.
    - 6y ago
Wistar 6y ago
Although a bit of a tangent, The British Museum created this well-crafted 4:36 video about the short-lived concept of a time-based currency from the early 1800s. This is currency based on the notion that wages and prices are measured in hours instead of units of precious metal. https://youtu.be/0Q3qcutiIwo https://youtu.be/0Q3qcutiIwo
choward 6y ago
> Time is one of them, space (or area on earth’s surface) is another, and energy is a third I would combine the last two and call them "mass" and that currency is just an abstraction for how much mass you "own". > The most common trade is when a person can trade their time and their body’s energy. With this example I would say they are trading time and sometimes mass. They are trading time by the duration they work for and in certain jobs taking time off the years of their life. They may also move somewhere for a job even though they don't like the place and they spend their time in an non-ideal location. They mass comes into effect when they are using their own car and gas to get to work, if they have to pay for their own work clothes, etc.

kator 6y ago

The only currency you're born with is time. The rest are acquired by the application of time.

jandrese 6y ago
Lots of people are born with wealth. In fact that biggest factor in how much wealth you have is how much you are born with.
IggleSniggle 6y ago
Really though? During that time, you occupy a space, and the spaces afforded you by the society you are born into define the constraints within which you can apply your time. That is, all of your "currency you are born with" is really "futures". Even the time on Earth you are allotted at birth is constrained by the environment you are born into.
- loco5niner 6y ago
  You also consume space to gain energy.
seventytwo 6y ago
It’s certainly the most valuable natural resource a person is born with, by far, but I’d argue there’s also technically space and energy there, too. The space a baby consumes is almost valueless, and the energy output is also (though thoughts of babies being harvested in The Matrix come to mind).
- tdy721 6y ago
  You haven’t seen a baby consume space in your significant others life? Guessing not a woman? That actually sacrifices personal space (breasts) for baby? They consume and change boobies, and mommies time! Man mommy rant </>
  - seventytwo 6y ago
    Good point!
manmal 6y ago
Energy - or rather, the ability to convert it between various forms, like food > kinetic energy - is also a currency that we are born with. If you have grown very old, even having a week on hand will not help you lift a sledge hammer.
- contravariant 6y ago
  Well, even that is not quite right. The amount of energy we can actually use is small relative to the total amount of available energy. We're born with a relative lack of entropy, which is the only thing that allows us to do anything. Eventually we inevitably return to equilibrium.
frostwhale 6y ago
I'd say you're also born with energy if you're born with time.
tdy721 6y ago
Spacetime is a better description, and it’s full of real estate. Mammals at least are born with a deed or a need for a boobie, or in big trouble. It’s all linked!
kazagistar 6y ago
People are born with significant variance in other "currencies".

abnry 6y ago

Was going to make the point about energy, but you made the point way better than me and added space which I didn't think about!

bitKong 6y ago

Thanks for the great summary, you made the whole point so easy Thanks

jessriedel 6y ago

You're using "energy" as a pseudoscientific gloss. A human being provides an extremely meager amount of energy in the physics sense of the word. That energy could be purchased much more cheaply. The economic value of human labor is more closely tied to human intelligence/dexterity. More reasons to think your comment is more about making the reader feel the insight is deep: there are other important conserved quantities in physics like charge; shouldn't that play a foundational role in economics if your analysis was correct? Will you next say that business leadership is really about "taking charge"?

elcomet 6y ago
I like to think that the human work is to minimize entropy. So the currency would be entropy minimization.
- kylek 6y ago
  Hah. You must be new to humans. Ordered destruction is a thing. (Alas, so is chaotic creation. Hail Eris!)
  - nipponese 6y ago
    Usually it performed to add the concept of risk to scenarios where people think there is no consequence for squandering said currencies.
- jessriedel 6y ago
  You're relying your intuitive concept of entropy ("disorder"....of things people care about) rather than the actual definition of the thermodynamic concept. Entropy can not be reduced, only produced, and the work people do does not look anything like what you'd do if you were trying to minimize entropy production.
kzrdude 6y ago
> You're using "energy" as a pseudoscientific gloss. A human being provides an extremely meager amount of energy in the physics sense of the word. That energy could be purchased much more cheaply. The economic value of human labor is more closely tied to human intelligence/dexterity. Indeed humans provide very little energy. I've always used this to understand the value of oil to our society. Value, not the current price! :) A barrel of oil fed into a machine can replace the work of hundreds of laborers. In this perspective, oil is ridiculously cheap, alternatively viewed, it provides us with a lifestyle that is luxiurious and some feats that are otherwise impossible (transoceanic flight).

Balgair 6y ago

Yeah, and the exchange rates are terrible. Time goes as 1/(1-V^2)^0.5 in this market. Everything is pretty good until you really want time to stop, then, blammo! The Energy goes to infinity and the Space pretty much looses a dimension. It's especially bad, because it the dimension you're walking along! Trust me, fella, stick with dollars, at least you can print new ones. What a racket! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_factor

clairity 6y ago

that’s kind of (not as eloquently) how i came to land on the labor theory of value needing to be more prominent in economic policy. our application of energy (both physical and mental) transforms matter and collects/redirects ambient energy to productive use. that’s what generates value—gold in the ground is essentially worthless until we use labor to extract it. that it’s rare and has other interesting properties that make people trade more for it should be reflected in the labor value rather than some coercive capital value.

didericis 6y ago
Time is easily wasted, though. The labor theory of value ignores this, and ignores the value of cleverness as a result. If I need to grind wheat for bread every day, I could spend hours a day working hard to grind it by hand, or I could spend a month or so to build a very basic water wheel/grindstone and free up all that time. The resultant bread is still bread either way. If someone chooses to spend all their time doing the old/inefficient type of grinding, by the labor theory of value, they should be able to demand more money for the result. But why pay more money for something that took more time to make than an equivalent product made with automation? We value bread for being tasty and filling, not by how much time went into making it that way. Some level of labor is almost always required to get raw material into a valuable state, but the amount of labor does not determine the value. Labor just regulates supply; if something takes a lot of work to make, the supply will be lower than if it were easy to make, which affects value.
- neilwilson 6y ago
  That’s the paradox of productivity. You create a machine to make bread and all that happens is that bread gets cheaper in time terms once you strip away the money abstraction. You can see this by comparing production relative to something that can’t be automated away but is still valued over time - like a violin player. The machine forces people in the same business down to your level, but people in a less automated arena go up in value relative to your bread.
  - 6y ago

Wistar 6y ago

Although a bit of a tangent, The British Museum created this well-crafted 4:36 video about the short-lived concept of a time-based currency from the early 1800s. This is currency based on the notion that wages and prices are measured in hours instead of units of precious metal. https://youtu.be/0Q3qcutiIwo https://youtu.be/0Q3qcutiIwo

choward 6y ago

> Time is one of them, space (or area on earth’s surface) is another, and energy is a third I would combine the last two and call them "mass" and that currency is just an abstraction for how much mass you "own". > The most common trade is when a person can trade their time and their body’s energy. With this example I would say they are trading time and sometimes mass. They are trading time by the duration they work for and in certain jobs taking time off the years of their life. They may also move somewhere for a job even though they don't like the place and they spend their time in an non-ideal location. They mass comes into effect when they are using their own car and gas to get to work, if they have to pay for their own work clothes, etc.