4 ms·

Productivity? Literally the amount of stuff produced per unit population (or normalized for working time). You do need a common measurement to be able to aggre

Productivity? Literally the amount of stuff produced per unit population (or normalized for working time). You do need a common measurement to be able to aggregate items together (a tractor and a sandwich, for example), and we generally use dollars for that, but I wouldn’t call that recursive. You could also measure it in labor time, percentage of life people need to spend working, sea shells, or a variety of other measures depending on your aim.

convolvatron 5y ago
right. but when we use dollars we use 'this company made X dollars by making these kinds of goods more available in this area and providing technical support' as 'hah, I tricked this person into buying an NFT of a scribble'. if the NFT was sold for the yearly revenue of the distributor, do we really think they created the same amount of 'value', or are you saying 'yes, by defintion'. if its the latter its somewhat disingenuous to use that word with its broader connotation instead of just 'sale amount'
- nmhancoc 5y ago
  Sure, a straight GDP measure would have the methodological problem you point out One reply to that is to use different methodologies The canonical reply is probably something on the order of “people can’t sustainably engage in practices where they exchange $1 of value for $0.50 of value, as they still need to exchange labor for food and other real goods.” You normally see the latter play out through credit crises, where the benefits of some activity fail to materialize and therefore loans can’t be repaid, and a lot of pain follows. Under that view instantaneous measures of GDP don’t mean much, but measurements averaged over longer periods, credit crises, etc. take on some meaning.
  - convolvatron 5y ago
    ok. so that's kind of what I thought. instantaneously we can't actually ascribe comparative accurate value because ... weird stuff might be going on (a scam, a temporary change in shipping costs, etc) but we can assume that over time, and more importantly over many transactions, the 'true' value will surface (wash out all the weird signal).

convolvatron 5y ago

right. but when we use dollars we use 'this company made X dollars by making these kinds of goods more available in this area and providing technical support' as 'hah, I tricked this person into buying an NFT of a scribble'. if the NFT was sold for the yearly revenue of the distributor, do we really think they created the same amount of 'value', or are you saying 'yes, by defintion'. if its the latter its somewhat disingenuous to use that word with its broader connotation instead of just 'sale amount'

nmhancoc 5y ago
Sure, a straight GDP measure would have the methodological problem you point out One reply to that is to use different methodologies The canonical reply is probably something on the order of “people can’t sustainably engage in practices where they exchange $1 of value for $0.50 of value, as they still need to exchange labor for food and other real goods.” You normally see the latter play out through credit crises, where the benefits of some activity fail to materialize and therefore loans can’t be repaid, and a lot of pain follows. Under that view instantaneous measures of GDP don’t mean much, but measurements averaged over longer periods, credit crises, etc. take on some meaning.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  ok. so that's kind of what I thought. instantaneously we can't actually ascribe comparative accurate value because ... weird stuff might be going on (a scam, a temporary change in shipping costs, etc) but we can assume that over time, and more importantly over many transactions, the 'true' value will surface (wash out all the weird signal).