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Ideological is close; If you are a billionaire, you didn't perform a billion dollars worth of labor; you got that way being the recipient of profits of signifi

by pryce 6y ago

Ideological is close; If you are a billionaire, you didn't perform a billion dollars worth of labor; you got that way being the recipient of profits of significant fractions of entire industries based predominantly on other people's labor. If you make money this way, untapped resources don't necessarily look like untapped oil fields, instead they might look like entire industries that (with friendly legislators) can suddenly be opened up private profit (especially yours), or industries that can be captured into monopolies, or nations whose current economic situation can be exploited in ways that put large amounts of money into your pocket.

nerfhammer 6y ago
according to the labor theory of value google should be rewarded less than altavista depending on which performed more labor
- rudolph9 6y ago
  Although those are both search engines altvista produced drastically different results than google and the comparison of the results is generally subjective. The quality of the search result is what largely drew people to google (I was very young at the time please correct me if I’m mistaken). Regardless of which entity delivers a package the quality of the result can generally be objectively judged (cost, duration, package care, etc). Depending on the entity delivering search results of e.g the term “bear” the quality is highly subjective (e.g black bear wiki, Chicago bears, polar bear wiki, bear Halloween Costume amazon page, Berenstain Bears, etc). Not to mention the results are continuously changing. I’m not really familiar with labor theory but I’m inclined to think your analogy isn’t applicable to the discussion of privatizing USPS. Could you rephrase your comment in terms of sorting algorithms? Say a bubble sort would be rewarded more than a merge sort? Maybe that would better articulate your point??
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nerfhammer 6y ago
    not really about USPS, just the idea that the Kochs want the USPS privatized because they personally want to steal the value of labor being performed there. there's no reason to believe the Koch's are interested in or would be good at running postal services; probably fedex/ups/dhl/amazon or someone else would be better at that, leaving no particular material advantage to the Kochs. the labor theory of value being espoused by the person I was replying to is just an easily skewered tangent in an emotionally colinear conspiratorial vein. as far as I can tell the Kochs are just ideologues.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  Google rose to prominence by capturing the labor of others (links created by users and site authors between sites) and accruing the value of that labor to itself through automation. It effectively swallowed up the value of unpaid labor that existed at a scale with which Altavista could never compete.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Altavista had access to the same web that Google had. Google created a better mousetrap and the world beat a path to its door.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      I agree entirely, but the premise was that more labor went into Altavista’s indexing than Google’s, which is inaccurate. Google was better at capturing the value of labor external to itself, which was far more labor than was ever used to build Altavista.
      - nerfhammer 6y ago
        hmm this may be a good point. is it really capturing value or is it creating value? people made links because they wanted to make links anyway. the value of links to a search engine doesn't exist without a search engine, and the existing value of links isn't diminished by that (except for the specific case of a manually curated link directory, e.g. the original yahoo).
        claudeganon 6y ago
        The links were the prerequisite of Google/page rank, so Google only realizes that value once they had been created. They added value to that labor by making visible and accessible a dimension of this underlying network to others, but then channeled that mostly to themselves and ultimately disrupted, perhaps even destroyed (depending on your perspective), the signaling they observed. They were not alone in this, but it’s hard to compare their impact on the web to say, various forms of cataloging of works in library networks, and come away seeing them as impartially additive.
- simoom22 6y ago
  I'm not an expert on the labor theory of value, but I do know that's not a valid interpretation of it. For one thing, I believe it applies only at a macro, or sectoral, level.
  - darawk 6y ago
    The point is, the labor theory of value has been rejected by economists for a really long time now, because it's a totally incoherent way of valuing things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_the_labour_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_the_labour_theor...
deadcommies 6y ago
In your view, is there a middle ground between labor theory and corrupt capitalism?
toolz 6y ago
A more charitable interpretation might be that someone who wants postal to be private might want a more focused central public organization. If our representatives aren't thinking about postal services maybe they'll be better at other, more important things. Not sure if a charitable interpretation is warranted but I can imagine good intentions leading to the same actions.

by pryce 6y ago

nerfhammer 6y ago

according to the labor theory of value google should be rewarded less than altavista depending on which performed more labor

rudolph9 6y ago
Although those are both search engines altvista produced drastically different results than google and the comparison of the results is generally subjective. The quality of the search result is what largely drew people to google (I was very young at the time please correct me if I’m mistaken). Regardless of which entity delivers a package the quality of the result can generally be objectively judged (cost, duration, package care, etc). Depending on the entity delivering search results of e.g the term “bear” the quality is highly subjective (e.g black bear wiki, Chicago bears, polar bear wiki, bear Halloween Costume amazon page, Berenstain Bears, etc). Not to mention the results are continuously changing. I’m not really familiar with labor theory but I’m inclined to think your analogy isn’t applicable to the discussion of privatizing USPS. Could you rephrase your comment in terms of sorting algorithms? Say a bubble sort would be rewarded more than a merge sort? Maybe that would better articulate your point??
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nerfhammer 6y ago
  not really about USPS, just the idea that the Kochs want the USPS privatized because they personally want to steal the value of labor being performed there. there's no reason to believe the Koch's are interested in or would be good at running postal services; probably fedex/ups/dhl/amazon or someone else would be better at that, leaving no particular material advantage to the Kochs. the labor theory of value being espoused by the person I was replying to is just an easily skewered tangent in an emotionally colinear conspiratorial vein. as far as I can tell the Kochs are just ideologues.
claudeganon 6y ago
Google rose to prominence by capturing the labor of others (links created by users and site authors between sites) and accruing the value of that labor to itself through automation. It effectively swallowed up the value of unpaid labor that existed at a scale with which Altavista could never compete.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Altavista had access to the same web that Google had. Google created a better mousetrap and the world beat a path to its door.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    I agree entirely, but the premise was that more labor went into Altavista’s indexing than Google’s, which is inaccurate. Google was better at capturing the value of labor external to itself, which was far more labor than was ever used to build Altavista.
    - nerfhammer 6y ago
      hmm this may be a good point. is it really capturing value or is it creating value? people made links because they wanted to make links anyway. the value of links to a search engine doesn't exist without a search engine, and the existing value of links isn't diminished by that (except for the specific case of a manually curated link directory, e.g. the original yahoo).
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        The links were the prerequisite of Google/page rank, so Google only realizes that value once they had been created. They added value to that labor by making visible and accessible a dimension of this underlying network to others, but then channeled that mostly to themselves and ultimately disrupted, perhaps even destroyed (depending on your perspective), the signaling they observed. They were not alone in this, but it’s hard to compare their impact on the web to say, various forms of cataloging of works in library networks, and come away seeing them as impartially additive.
simoom22 6y ago
I'm not an expert on the labor theory of value, but I do know that's not a valid interpretation of it. For one thing, I believe it applies only at a macro, or sectoral, level.
- darawk 6y ago
  The point is, the labor theory of value has been rejected by economists for a really long time now, because it's a totally incoherent way of valuing things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_the_labour_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_the_labour_theor...

deadcommies 6y ago

In your view, is there a middle ground between labor theory and corrupt capitalism?

toolz 6y ago

A more charitable interpretation might be that someone who wants postal to be private might want a more focused central public organization. If our representatives aren't thinking about postal services maybe they'll be better at other, more important things. Not sure if a charitable interpretation is warranted but I can imagine good intentions leading to the same actions.