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You can get exciting things for money (travelling for example is not always trivial financially). More to the point, both point of views have utility. I critic

by maayank 14y ago

You can get exciting things for money (travelling for example is not always trivial financially). More to the point, both point of views have utility. I criticize "my time has a numerical value" in the post, but it is useful to have some metric in order to get your fair market value (i.e. in negotiations) or when you are in a period where all you want is to gain monetary freedom. In my original draft I had the mentioned reasons titled "the factual" and I started another section titled "the existential" [reasons I find the principle problematic], where I started to delve more into why perhaps you don't want to put a price tag at all. But as the post deals more with concrete criticism and possible improvements of the application of such a price tag and assuming its existence, it felt out of place and I decided to explore it more in another post. EDIT: also, as another wrote here you do have situations/periods in life where you may need to apply such a metric and then proper application and self-reflection is important.

stephengillie 14y ago
It is useful to have a metric of how other humans value your time and ability, true. And storing enough resources so you don't have to go without essentials is just good planning. But it seems nonsensical to base your entire self-valuation as a human on that arbitrary number. "Monetary freedom" makes limited sense to me - free from what? Free from having to be productive (to other humans in society) in order to get food and keep your shelter?
- graeme 14y ago
  Free from doing work you'd rather not do. Free to take time off for travel or family when you want, rather than wait for set vacation days. And so on. Most people have some things they'd rather be free from, if they had more money. If you already have total monetary freedom, count yourself lucky.
eevilspock 14y ago
Sure, I get that it is useful to realize that spending 3 hours researching a better deal to save $20 is a poor use of time. But your examples were not at all like that, and you focused on things like factoring in tax consequences, which presumes what I consider a fallacy, that one can calculate opportunity cost to that degree of accuracy for something like life. When the iPhone App Store had just launched years ago, I saw that all of the tip calculators focused on exact calculations, even making a point of excluding the state tax from the tip. At least one went so far as to incorporate a state tax rate database! My idea was to write a tip calculator app that put things in perspective, that rounded and swagged, with the intention of making tipping and payment easy while influencing people's perspective and generosity (e.g. Just put down a $20 bill rather than $19.42 or if you're paying CC, tip $4 in cash rather than $3.91 on your card). Then I realized that by having people use a tip calculator I was undermining my own message! Anyone who is uncomfortable with "Just take the bill, divide by 10, then double, and round. If you aren't poor, be generous" just doesn't get it. What is the cost of living an anal, money-focused life? See my other comments.
- maayank 14y ago
  Different reasons for why the principle doesn't hold water resonate with different people. The tax issue was more about "if you already do this, beware of ...", not about why it's wrong (that's the rest of the post). eevilspock, who is obsessive about food, the anorexic saying "I don't need to focus on food" or the person saying "there are different ways of utilizing food, I should be thoughtful which is healthier for me and for my current goals"? There's a case to be made that being the third person who says "All my life are defined by the exact amount of calories I'm eating" is unhealthy like the first one, but saying that these are the only kind of people who gain value by food advice is a stretch.

by maayank 14y ago

stephengillie 14y ago

It is useful to have a metric of how other humans value your time and ability, true. And storing enough resources so you don't have to go without essentials is just good planning. But it seems nonsensical to base your entire self-valuation as a human on that arbitrary number. "Monetary freedom" makes limited sense to me - free from what? Free from having to be productive (to other humans in society) in order to get food and keep your shelter?

graeme 14y ago
Free from doing work you'd rather not do. Free to take time off for travel or family when you want, rather than wait for set vacation days. And so on. Most people have some things they'd rather be free from, if they had more money. If you already have total monetary freedom, count yourself lucky.

eevilspock 14y ago

Sure, I get that it is useful to realize that spending 3 hours researching a better deal to save $20 is a poor use of time. But your examples were not at all like that, and you focused on things like factoring in tax consequences, which presumes what I consider a fallacy, that one can calculate opportunity cost to that degree of accuracy for something like life. When the iPhone App Store had just launched years ago, I saw that all of the tip calculators focused on exact calculations, even making a point of excluding the state tax from the tip. At least one went so far as to incorporate a state tax rate database! My idea was to write a tip calculator app that put things in perspective, that rounded and swagged, with the intention of making tipping and payment easy while influencing people's perspective and generosity (e.g. Just put down a $20 bill rather than $19.42 or if you're paying CC, tip $4 in cash rather than $3.91 on your card). Then I realized that by having people use a tip calculator I was undermining my own message! Anyone who is uncomfortable with "Just take the bill, divide by 10, then double, and round. If you aren't poor, be generous" just doesn't get it. What is the cost of living an anal, money-focused life? See my other comments.

maayank 14y ago
Different reasons for why the principle doesn't hold water resonate with different people. The tax issue was more about "if you already do this, beware of ...", not about why it's wrong (that's the rest of the post). eevilspock, who is obsessive about food, the anorexic saying "I don't need to focus on food" or the person saying "there are different ways of utilizing food, I should be thoughtful which is healthier for me and for my current goals"? There's a case to be made that being the third person who says "All my life are defined by the exact amount of calories I'm eating" is unhealthy like the first one, but saying that these are the only kind of people who gain value by food advice is a stretch.