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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

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
        We're talking past each other a bit because we're talking about different things when we say "value". > 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. What I'm talking about is value to one person. For example, if you were the person you were talking about working for the blockchain v. renewable company. If blockhain job pays 150k and renewable job pays 120k yet you choose the 120k job instead, I can say that the extra value you get from working for a renewable energy company vs a blockchain is at least 30k dollars. I can then take that 30k dollars and use that as a proxy for anything else you can get for 30k for the basis of comparison. For example, you have to buy a home with 200 less square feet or you have to send your kids to a different and worse college. The value you place on those two homes or those two colleges is also worth 30k. This logic works for any group of people as well. The US population as a whole spends X dollars and Amazon and X dollars on climate change > This judgement may or may not be correct I'd argue that this judgement can't possibly be incorrect for the individual that makes it (at the time it was made. regret is possible later) and that any other context you try and call it "correct" doesn't provide any insight that can tell you something new. If money didn't exist as a proxy for value and you were instead compensated a brand new car every year at job 1 and a new house every 3 years at job 2, it'd be a hell of a lot harder to figure out how much you valued your children's education. The way you're talking about value is using your moral priorities to say what's wrong or right and calling what's right valuable. There is certainly plenty of room for a discussion of good and/or right but I think it's a distinct conversation than what people actually value (as demonstrated by their actions). It's philosophy vs economics. > You said "monetary value is real value". And it isn't because it's not an accurate measure. In the economic sense, monetary value is a precisely accurate measure that shows how people valued things in the past. I think you're talking about what people do with their money and it's societal value (as determined by your ethics) which is, as you say, not an accurate measure.

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
      We're talking past each other a bit because we're talking about different things when we say "value". > 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. What I'm talking about is value to one person. For example, if you were the person you were talking about working for the blockchain v. renewable company. If blockhain job pays 150k and renewable job pays 120k yet you choose the 120k job instead, I can say that the extra value you get from working for a renewable energy company vs a blockchain is at least 30k dollars. I can then take that 30k dollars and use that as a proxy for anything else you can get for 30k for the basis of comparison. For example, you have to buy a home with 200 less square feet or you have to send your kids to a different and worse college. The value you place on those two homes or those two colleges is also worth 30k. This logic works for any group of people as well. The US population as a whole spends X dollars and Amazon and X dollars on climate change > This judgement may or may not be correct I'd argue that this judgement can't possibly be incorrect for the individual that makes it (at the time it was made. regret is possible later) and that any other context you try and call it "correct" doesn't provide any insight that can tell you something new. If money didn't exist as a proxy for value and you were instead compensated a brand new car every year at job 1 and a new house every 3 years at job 2, it'd be a hell of a lot harder to figure out how much you valued your children's education. The way you're talking about value is using your moral priorities to say what's wrong or right and calling what's right valuable. There is certainly plenty of room for a discussion of good and/or right but I think it's a distinct conversation than what people actually value (as demonstrated by their actions). It's philosophy vs economics. > You said "monetary value is real value". And it isn't because it's not an accurate measure. In the economic sense, monetary value is a precisely accurate measure that shows how people valued things in the past. I think you're talking about what people do with their money and it's societal value (as determined by your ethics) which is, as you say, not an accurate measure.