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I think we need a class in school called 'Identifying and Creating Value in the 21st Century (like your great great grandparents did)." Let's be honest, that's

by noahc 15y ago

I think we need a class in school called 'Identifying and Creating Value in the 21st Century (like your great great grandparents did)." Let's be honest, that's where the jobs are going to come from and where they are going to go. The point of the class is to get people to go from "What do I want to be when I grow up" to thinking "How can I add value to some process that people will pay me for." This puts the responsibility for job creation on individuals, not governments, schools, societies, communities, or business. It amazes and frustrates me to see people who think their craft is so special that they think they should be paid because they are a good designer, programmer, artist. No! You're not paid because you're good at it, you're paid because you create value. Being good at it is only a secondary consideration. Some where along the line the wires got crossed and basically people became professional whatevers instead of value creators.

dbingham 15y ago
We need to leave behind the concept of "value". Value was created by scarcity. But scarcity is decreasing and, in some cases, disappearing entirely. If it costs me nothing to make a copy of something, then I have no incentive at all to pay money for it. It has no "value" to me. I can copy it instantly for free. And frankly, why should I pay money for it? Sure, someone had to do work to create it in the first place, but once it's created it takes on a life of its own. And, often, the people doing the creating will do it whether I pay them or not. They do the creating because they want to. Musicians make music because they want to make music. As a programmer, many of the programs I write are ones I want to see exist. Were it not for the necessity of having money to survive, I would happily keep creating and giving away. The necessity to make money to buy the goods and services I need to survive may be built into the current system. But as we automate more and more and produce a greater and greater surplus it's entirely possible that it could be removed from the system. It will take a change of culture, but there may come a point when we are efficient enough to produce everything we need simply by allowing people to pursue the creative endeavors that interest them and then sharing the results. We don't have starfleet replication technology. But with digital media, 3d printers, and modern construction means we're pretty damned efficient.
- noahc 15y ago
  You may very well be right about the future. You shouldn't try to get paid to do something that someone will do for free or cheap all day long. However, that doesn't mean you can't create value by being a musician, artist, programmer or designer. You just can't do it through the old way of scarcity. Maybe you give away the product, but the support or the t-shirt or whatever costs money. What used to be the product and scarce is now free or almost free. New products and new forms of scarcity will pop up as people focus on creating value instead of being good at being professionals. The problem is that we've been framing our value creation in terms of "I do x" instead of "I do whatever it takes to create value. I do x, y, and z when it is needed"
- timwiseman 15y ago
  You are using value in a nonstandard way. Value and price are only loosely coupled. I get enormous value from things that are free (Python, Firefox, etc). Also, I pay for things I could have gotten for free all the time. Sometimes this is to reward or encourage the person providing it and then it is called a tip or gratuitity (or sometimes donation, though that evokes charity in my mind rather than voluntary payment for something provided). Sometimes it is because paying for it is just more convenient than going out of my way to get the free version. [Edit: Slight rewording for clarity]
  - dbingham 15y ago
    I believe I was using the definition of value gleaned from the post above which pretty strongly linked value with getting paid for your work. Call it what you will, my point is that the economy is focused on producing something that people will pay money for. But current models are based on scarcity, which may be becoming obsolete. You're right that something can be free and abundant and still be of enormous value. I think my point is more that we should think about ways to restructure society around the sharing of valuable abundance.
    - rick888 15y ago
      "I believe I was using the definition of value gleaned from the post above which pretty strongly linked value with getting paid for your work. Call it what you will, my point is that the economy is focused on producing something that people will pay money for. But current models are based on scarcity, which may be becoming obsolete." Scarcity is still there. You can copy adobe photoshop, but you wouldn't be able to build it from scratch in your basement. This is the scarcity: the intelligence, creativity, and man-hours it takes to build it. You can copy it easily for free now, but the industry will eventually change. Internet is getting faster and faster and eventually (because of the people that feel they deserve software for free), we will only have software services. I am a developer and I don't create software applications anymore..only services. It's funny because if this wasn't the case, people could buy my apps for a flat-fee. Now they need to pay me money every month to use it.
kamaal 15y ago
Here in India, when I went to school 10 years back there was a subject called 'SUPW' - which expands to "Socially useful productive work'. They generally teach kids how to make some thing very simple which can actually be sell-able or used to solve a problem. I and my other friends like 5 other kids had made some 5-6 door mats from cigarette packs alone. And then we were taught how to go and sell them. I remember we had made some thing like 200 rupees back then(A pretty a big amount for kids). There were many such small projects, Many had woven designer baskets. Or some kind of a trivial sofa using cardboard. Unfortunately I heard, these days that subject is no longer being taught for more fancier things like karate, or learning parts of a computer. In short, in school they taught us how to hack. Generate wealth.
- samyzee 15y ago
  And some kids like me used to call it "some useful periods wasted"!!

by noahc 15y ago

dbingham 15y ago

We need to leave behind the concept of "value". Value was created by scarcity. But scarcity is decreasing and, in some cases, disappearing entirely. If it costs me nothing to make a copy of something, then I have no incentive at all to pay money for it. It has no "value" to me. I can copy it instantly for free. And frankly, why should I pay money for it? Sure, someone had to do work to create it in the first place, but once it's created it takes on a life of its own. And, often, the people doing the creating will do it whether I pay them or not. They do the creating because they want to. Musicians make music because they want to make music. As a programmer, many of the programs I write are ones I want to see exist. Were it not for the necessity of having money to survive, I would happily keep creating and giving away. The necessity to make money to buy the goods and services I need to survive may be built into the current system. But as we automate more and more and produce a greater and greater surplus it's entirely possible that it could be removed from the system. It will take a change of culture, but there may come a point when we are efficient enough to produce everything we need simply by allowing people to pursue the creative endeavors that interest them and then sharing the results. We don't have starfleet replication technology. But with digital media, 3d printers, and modern construction means we're pretty damned efficient.

noahc 15y ago
You may very well be right about the future. You shouldn't try to get paid to do something that someone will do for free or cheap all day long. However, that doesn't mean you can't create value by being a musician, artist, programmer or designer. You just can't do it through the old way of scarcity. Maybe you give away the product, but the support or the t-shirt or whatever costs money. What used to be the product and scarce is now free or almost free. New products and new forms of scarcity will pop up as people focus on creating value instead of being good at being professionals. The problem is that we've been framing our value creation in terms of "I do x" instead of "I do whatever it takes to create value. I do x, y, and z when it is needed"
timwiseman 15y ago
You are using value in a nonstandard way. Value and price are only loosely coupled. I get enormous value from things that are free (Python, Firefox, etc). Also, I pay for things I could have gotten for free all the time. Sometimes this is to reward or encourage the person providing it and then it is called a tip or gratuitity (or sometimes donation, though that evokes charity in my mind rather than voluntary payment for something provided). Sometimes it is because paying for it is just more convenient than going out of my way to get the free version. [Edit: Slight rewording for clarity]
- dbingham 15y ago
  I believe I was using the definition of value gleaned from the post above which pretty strongly linked value with getting paid for your work. Call it what you will, my point is that the economy is focused on producing something that people will pay money for. But current models are based on scarcity, which may be becoming obsolete. You're right that something can be free and abundant and still be of enormous value. I think my point is more that we should think about ways to restructure society around the sharing of valuable abundance.
  - rick888 15y ago
    "I believe I was using the definition of value gleaned from the post above which pretty strongly linked value with getting paid for your work. Call it what you will, my point is that the economy is focused on producing something that people will pay money for. But current models are based on scarcity, which may be becoming obsolete." Scarcity is still there. You can copy adobe photoshop, but you wouldn't be able to build it from scratch in your basement. This is the scarcity: the intelligence, creativity, and man-hours it takes to build it. You can copy it easily for free now, but the industry will eventually change. Internet is getting faster and faster and eventually (because of the people that feel they deserve software for free), we will only have software services. I am a developer and I don't create software applications anymore..only services. It's funny because if this wasn't the case, people could buy my apps for a flat-fee. Now they need to pay me money every month to use it.

kamaal 15y ago

Here in India, when I went to school 10 years back there was a subject called 'SUPW' - which expands to "Socially useful productive work'. They generally teach kids how to make some thing very simple which can actually be sell-able or used to solve a problem. I and my other friends like 5 other kids had made some 5-6 door mats from cigarette packs alone. And then we were taught how to go and sell them. I remember we had made some thing like 200 rupees back then(A pretty a big amount for kids). There were many such small projects, Many had woven designer baskets. Or some kind of a trivial sofa using cardboard. Unfortunately I heard, these days that subject is no longer being taught for more fancier things like karate, or learning parts of a computer. In short, in school they taught us how to hack. Generate wealth.

samyzee 15y ago
And some kids like me used to call it "some useful periods wasted"!!