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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 cou

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 7y ago
I like to think that the human work is to minimize entropy. So the currency would be entropy minimization.
- kylek 7y ago
  Hah. You must be new to humans. Ordered destruction is a thing. (Alas, so is chaotic creation. Hail Eris!)
  - nipponese 7y ago
    Usually it performed to add the concept of risk to scenarios where people think there is no consequence for squandering said currencies.
- jessriedel 7y 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 7y 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).
seventytwo 7y ago
No I’m not. I’m talking about energy quite literally. The chemical energy in food is converted into work output. Of course there are more efficient ways to harness energy, but not to power a human body. We use those more efficient method where we can, hence automation and machinery and tools. This is all reflected in the abstraction layer of money.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  You are. You said > The most common trade is when a person can trade their time and their body’s energy. They are not "trading their body's energy". They a performing a task which requires innumerable inputs, among them energy, vitamins, oxygen, correct ambient temperatures, training, tools, etc. Energy has a preferred fundamental status in physics but it does not have such a status in this economic transaction. There is no reason to emphasize over any of the other inputs. You are bringing it up because of the aura attached to it in in physics.
  - adamsbriscoe 7y ago
    > You are bringing it up because of the aura attached to it in in physics. I didn't get that out of the original comment, and wouldn't presume to apply intent. I think most learned professionals here understand what is meant when they hear or say (for example) "that task took a lot of energy" or "I spent a lot of energy doing xyz..." without having to spell it out in academic terms.
    - jessriedel 7y ago
      Huh? First, look at the context. He's starts with "time", "space", and "energy", and discusses them in the context of the "parameters of the universe". Second, he specifically says in his reply to me he intended to mean the physics concept of ”energy", not the everyday notion as you suggest.
dang 7y ago
Please edit acerbic swipes out of your posts to HN. Your comment would be just fine without the swipey bits at the start of each paragraph. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jessriedel 7y ago
  I can't edit my comment any longer, and I appreciate the rope of moderators in maintaining civil discourse, but for the record I stand behind my use of the term "pseudoscientific". The comment I critiqued uses the trappings of science but not the content. I also purposefully did not insult the commenter's character, but restricted my reply to the comment itself.

elcomet 7y ago

I like to think that the human work is to minimize entropy. So the currency would be entropy minimization.

kylek 7y ago
Hah. You must be new to humans. Ordered destruction is a thing. (Alas, so is chaotic creation. Hail Eris!)
- nipponese 7y ago
  Usually it performed to add the concept of risk to scenarios where people think there is no consequence for squandering said currencies.
jessriedel 7y 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 7y 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).

seventytwo 7y ago

No I’m not. I’m talking about energy quite literally. The chemical energy in food is converted into work output. Of course there are more efficient ways to harness energy, but not to power a human body. We use those more efficient method where we can, hence automation and machinery and tools. This is all reflected in the abstraction layer of money.

jessriedel 7y ago
You are. You said > The most common trade is when a person can trade their time and their body’s energy. They are not "trading their body's energy". They a performing a task which requires innumerable inputs, among them energy, vitamins, oxygen, correct ambient temperatures, training, tools, etc. Energy has a preferred fundamental status in physics but it does not have such a status in this economic transaction. There is no reason to emphasize over any of the other inputs. You are bringing it up because of the aura attached to it in in physics.
- adamsbriscoe 7y ago
  > You are bringing it up because of the aura attached to it in in physics. I didn't get that out of the original comment, and wouldn't presume to apply intent. I think most learned professionals here understand what is meant when they hear or say (for example) "that task took a lot of energy" or "I spent a lot of energy doing xyz..." without having to spell it out in academic terms.
  - jessriedel 7y ago
    Huh? First, look at the context. He's starts with "time", "space", and "energy", and discusses them in the context of the "parameters of the universe". Second, he specifically says in his reply to me he intended to mean the physics concept of ”energy", not the everyday notion as you suggest.

dang 7y ago

Please edit acerbic swipes out of your posts to HN. Your comment would be just fine without the swipey bits at the start of each paragraph. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jessriedel 7y ago
I can't edit my comment any longer, and I appreciate the rope of moderators in maintaining civil discourse, but for the record I stand behind my use of the term "pseudoscientific". The comment I critiqued uses the trappings of science but not the content. I also purposefully did not insult the commenter's character, but restricted my reply to the comment itself.