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> If it does you can always find a way to monetize it as people need it and ready to share their wealth for something they need I disagree with this entirely.

> If it does you can always find a way to monetize it as people need it and ready to share their wealth for something they need I disagree with this entirely. If this was true, the main question we would ask in a business is whether or not the output was useful. We don't ask that, we ask if it's "sustainable", "profitable", etc... We ask what the moat is around it. There are many useful things you can do that you won't be able to make money off of. I don't think it's uncommon either. Business is a great way of extracting value, I like business as a value extractor. But it's a specific way of extracting value. There are lots of things that are valuable that don't happen because it's not clear how they would be profitable. I mean, the simplest example here is you can build things for people who don't have money. It's not the only example, but it's a pretty obvious one. And you are not going to make a lot of money doing that unless you build a predatory or exploitative business. > or somebody else will "make money off of this" using what you have created I will also point out that if other people making money off of the things you do is a turn-off, it's not clear to me what value you think you're creating. I would argue that "meaningful work" very often benefits other people, that's... that's the point. If you're not giving people more value than you're taking from them, you probably aren't doing useful work. Are you arguing that it's less valuable if people are extracting extra value from the things we do?

vc8f6vVV 4y ago
Let's start from basics. People need to eat, so somebody needs to make food. Those people need tools. Somebody needs to make tools. Now for this to work they need to make extra food and exchange it for tools. This exchange has been in development since before human existed (look at wolves pack) -- never perfect, but kind of worked. So you want to make something you like and nobody needs? No problem, go for it. Where are you supposed to get food? Do you want a government to pay you the basic income? That means those who make food will give it to you for free, which means they won't get tools, which in turn means they won't be able to make that food. Oops. In a balanced system you are never "taking more than giving" or vice versa, because, as you know, price is a result of supply/demand. How do you know you Java library is worth a breakfast?
- danShumway 4y ago
  I'm not sure this has anything to do with the original comment or point I was trying to make. That being said: > In a balanced system you are never "taking more than giving" or vice versa, because, as you know, price is a result of supply/demand. Literally all of economic development and growth is predicated on the idea that this is not true. If work was actually zero-sum and all of the transactions gave you the exact value that you sold, there would be no point in forming a society around this. Society works because combined labor produces more value than is put into the process. That has always been the case. You get more food out of farming than you put into it, otherwise it wouldn't be worthwhile to farm. > That means those who make food will give it to you for free, which means they won't get tools, which in turn means they won't be able to make that food. Also, the only reason we're having this conversation is because the "tools" that are being made will (very theoretically) be made for practically free by AI. We're not talking about a world where the tools stop existing. This entire conversation started with someone asking "but what if there's no more need for humans to make the tools?"
  - vc8f6vVV 4y ago
    You are talking about added value and it's beyond "basics" :) The point was "if your work has no value, there is no breakfast to exchange it for".
    - danShumway 4y ago
      > You are talking about added value and it's beyond "basics" :) I don't know, I think it's pretty important to a conversation about automating jobs that we not treat jobs as if they're an optimized equivalent exchange. The whole premise there is that the machines are going to start producing a lot of value without any human input. If it happens, it's not going to be equivalent exchange. If we're not talking about added value, then there's nothing to worry about because then the machines can't automate the jobs, because that would be added value. > if your work has no value, there is no breakfast to exchange it for My point more specifically here is that there's a lot of value in the world that can't be exchanged for breakfast, something that (as far as I can tell from your other comments on this thread) you actually agree with, right? There's value that exists outside of traditionally monetarily compensated jobs. In a (again, entirely theoretical) world where AI gets rid of the need to earn your breakfast, that doesn't mean there's not going to be anything of value to do anymore and that everyone's life is going to be meaningless.
pb7 4y ago
>If this was true, the main question we would ask in a business is whether or not the output was useful. We don't ask that, we ask if it's "sustainable", "profitable", etc... To be fair, we do ask that: if you have no revenue, then you don't have a business, because the output is not useful. An output can be both useful and not sustainable. Giving away $100 to everyone that high fives you is not sustainable, for example, even though it's very useful to the recipient. It's certainly not profitable.
- danShumway 4y ago
  > if you have no revenue, then you don't have a business, because the output is not useful. I'm having some trouble reconciling this with the rest of your comment. You go on to describe an output (giving money away) that is useful but provides no revenue. I would agree that a useless product will very often have a hard time generating revenue, but I would not say that a lack of revenue is a strong signal that an organization is not producing useful output. I mean, the software industry is filled with examples of projects that are wildly useful to everyone but are perpetually underfunded and produce very little money for the people working on them. I would definitely agree with the truism that "if you have no revenue then you don't have a business", but it's just not clear to me where the "because the output is not useful" addition to that truism is coming from.

vc8f6vVV 4y ago

Let's start from basics. People need to eat, so somebody needs to make food. Those people need tools. Somebody needs to make tools. Now for this to work they need to make extra food and exchange it for tools. This exchange has been in development since before human existed (look at wolves pack) -- never perfect, but kind of worked. So you want to make something you like and nobody needs? No problem, go for it. Where are you supposed to get food? Do you want a government to pay you the basic income? That means those who make food will give it to you for free, which means they won't get tools, which in turn means they won't be able to make that food. Oops. In a balanced system you are never "taking more than giving" or vice versa, because, as you know, price is a result of supply/demand. How do you know you Java library is worth a breakfast?

danShumway 4y ago
I'm not sure this has anything to do with the original comment or point I was trying to make. That being said: > In a balanced system you are never "taking more than giving" or vice versa, because, as you know, price is a result of supply/demand. Literally all of economic development and growth is predicated on the idea that this is not true. If work was actually zero-sum and all of the transactions gave you the exact value that you sold, there would be no point in forming a society around this. Society works because combined labor produces more value than is put into the process. That has always been the case. You get more food out of farming than you put into it, otherwise it wouldn't be worthwhile to farm. > That means those who make food will give it to you for free, which means they won't get tools, which in turn means they won't be able to make that food. Also, the only reason we're having this conversation is because the "tools" that are being made will (very theoretically) be made for practically free by AI. We're not talking about a world where the tools stop existing. This entire conversation started with someone asking "but what if there's no more need for humans to make the tools?"
- vc8f6vVV 4y ago
  You are talking about added value and it's beyond "basics" :) The point was "if your work has no value, there is no breakfast to exchange it for".
  - danShumway 4y ago
    > You are talking about added value and it's beyond "basics" :) I don't know, I think it's pretty important to a conversation about automating jobs that we not treat jobs as if they're an optimized equivalent exchange. The whole premise there is that the machines are going to start producing a lot of value without any human input. If it happens, it's not going to be equivalent exchange. If we're not talking about added value, then there's nothing to worry about because then the machines can't automate the jobs, because that would be added value. > if your work has no value, there is no breakfast to exchange it for My point more specifically here is that there's a lot of value in the world that can't be exchanged for breakfast, something that (as far as I can tell from your other comments on this thread) you actually agree with, right? There's value that exists outside of traditionally monetarily compensated jobs. In a (again, entirely theoretical) world where AI gets rid of the need to earn your breakfast, that doesn't mean there's not going to be anything of value to do anymore and that everyone's life is going to be meaningless.

pb7 4y ago

>If this was true, the main question we would ask in a business is whether or not the output was useful. We don't ask that, we ask if it's "sustainable", "profitable", etc... To be fair, we do ask that: if you have no revenue, then you don't have a business, because the output is not useful. An output can be both useful and not sustainable. Giving away $100 to everyone that high fives you is not sustainable, for example, even though it's very useful to the recipient. It's certainly not profitable.

danShumway 4y ago
> if you have no revenue, then you don't have a business, because the output is not useful. I'm having some trouble reconciling this with the rest of your comment. You go on to describe an output (giving money away) that is useful but provides no revenue. I would agree that a useless product will very often have a hard time generating revenue, but I would not say that a lack of revenue is a strong signal that an organization is not producing useful output. I mean, the software industry is filled with examples of projects that are wildly useful to everyone but are perpetually underfunded and produce very little money for the people working on them. I would definitely agree with the truism that "if you have no revenue then you don't have a business", but it's just not clear to me where the "because the output is not useful" addition to that truism is coming from.