4 ms·

Monetary value is real value. That's literally the entire point of money, a physical and finite object to represent the value people place in the items they pur

Monetary value is real value. That's literally the entire point of money, a physical and finite object to represent the value people place in the items they purchase. Where you spend your time and money is what you value.

tomashubelbauer 4y ago
I spend a lot of my spare time in VS Code working on stuff that never goes public or makes a single cent. I value that time a lot. I freaking love writing code and prorotyping my random ideas. This is completely outside the realm of the monetary. Similarly, I like taking walks, especially in the fall and winter. No one pays me to do it and I don't have to pay to do it. I am not saying what you said is wrong, but it is certainly incomplete.
- parineum 4y ago
  Money is compensation for your free time spent doing things you don't want to do. Your free time spent is valued at the opportunity cost of using it not making money. Money isn't the only source of value but it is directly related to both how much time you spend earning it and what you choose to spend it on. Money is just the common language you and I use to express what we personally value.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > Money is just the common language you and I use to express what we personally value. It is, but we do not have equal opportunity to express that value. Some people have thousands of times more money than others, and thus the things they value are over-represented by monetary value. Furthermore, due to marginal utility, the things we first spend money on tend to much more valuable to us than the things we spend extra spare money on, the money spent by the rich tend to be less representative of actual value than that spent by the poor. As that is a huge proportion of the total money spent in our current society (see for example https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-richest-people-own-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-ri...), money ends up not being that great a measure of true value as defined by the things that people want and need.
    - parineum 4y ago
      > Some people have thousands of times more money than others I don't think it works that way, at least that's not the way I think about it/find it useful to think about it. You have to consider each individual in a vacuum with what they can get and how they can earn money. The money that another person has is largely irrelevant to the individual (aside from the macro economic effects). >money ends up not being that great a measure of true value as defined by the things that people want and need. "Not that great" as compared to what? It's the only measure I know of.
      - nicoburns 4y ago
        > You have to consider each individual in a vacuum with what they can get and how they can earn money. The money that another person has is largely irrelevant to the individual Ah, but how they can earn money is to a great extent determined by those who have large amounts of wealth (more specifically those who control large amounts of wealth which includes those who own and also those who invest on behalf of others (such as hedge fund managers). Consider how many people are employed by Meta to work on metaverse products, and how much those people earn. Is that because those products have proved themselves on the open market? No, it's because they are the pet project of Mark Zuckerberg who has accrued large amounts of wealth. These kind of projects constitute a significant proportion of our economy. > "Not that great" as compared to what? It's the only measure I know of. Not that great compared to a hypothetical measure that was actually accurate. You said "monetary value is real value". And it isn't because it's not an accurate measure. There doesn't need to be a more accurate measure for that to be true. What this means in practice is that one might be able to make a judgement that say a software job in a renewable energy company produces more value than software job creating a blockchain (even though that job is paid less), or that social worker produces more value than drug dealer even though that pays less. This judgement may or may not be correct, but one cannot rebut it simply by saying "it can't be more valuable, because if it was then it would be more highly paid". Lots of things are not compensated their true worth, and many things are over compensated.
        parineum 4y ago

tomashubelbauer 4y ago

I spend a lot of my spare time in VS Code working on stuff that never goes public or makes a single cent. I value that time a lot. I freaking love writing code and prorotyping my random ideas. This is completely outside the realm of the monetary. Similarly, I like taking walks, especially in the fall and winter. No one pays me to do it and I don't have to pay to do it. I am not saying what you said is wrong, but it is certainly incomplete.

parineum 4y ago
Money is compensation for your free time spent doing things you don't want to do. Your free time spent is valued at the opportunity cost of using it not making money. Money isn't the only source of value but it is directly related to both how much time you spend earning it and what you choose to spend it on. Money is just the common language you and I use to express what we personally value.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > Money is just the common language you and I use to express what we personally value. It is, but we do not have equal opportunity to express that value. Some people have thousands of times more money than others, and thus the things they value are over-represented by monetary value. Furthermore, due to marginal utility, the things we first spend money on tend to much more valuable to us than the things we spend extra spare money on, the money spent by the rich tend to be less representative of actual value than that spent by the poor. As that is a huge proportion of the total money spent in our current society (see for example https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-richest-people-own-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-ri...), money ends up not being that great a measure of true value as defined by the things that people want and need.
  - parineum 4y ago
    > Some people have thousands of times more money than others I don't think it works that way, at least that's not the way I think about it/find it useful to think about it. You have to consider each individual in a vacuum with what they can get and how they can earn money. The money that another person has is largely irrelevant to the individual (aside from the macro economic effects). >money ends up not being that great a measure of true value as defined by the things that people want and need. "Not that great" as compared to what? It's the only measure I know of.
    - nicoburns 4y ago
      > You have to consider each individual in a vacuum with what they can get and how they can earn money. The money that another person has is largely irrelevant to the individual Ah, but how they can earn money is to a great extent determined by those who have large amounts of wealth (more specifically those who control large amounts of wealth which includes those who own and also those who invest on behalf of others (such as hedge fund managers). Consider how many people are employed by Meta to work on metaverse products, and how much those people earn. Is that because those products have proved themselves on the open market? No, it's because they are the pet project of Mark Zuckerberg who has accrued large amounts of wealth. These kind of projects constitute a significant proportion of our economy. > "Not that great" as compared to what? It's the only measure I know of. Not that great compared to a hypothetical measure that was actually accurate. You said "monetary value is real value". And it isn't because it's not an accurate measure. There doesn't need to be a more accurate measure for that to be true. What this means in practice is that one might be able to make a judgement that say a software job in a renewable energy company produces more value than software job creating a blockchain (even though that job is paid less), or that social worker produces more value than drug dealer even though that pays less. This judgement may or may not be correct, but one cannot rebut it simply by saying "it can't be more valuable, because if it was then it would be more highly paid". Lots of things are not compensated their true worth, and many things are over compensated.
      - parineum 4y ago