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Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job (our means of survival) is a luxury. If a person can't provide for themselves the rest goes out the wind

Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job (our means of survival) is a luxury. If a person can't provide for themselves the rest goes out the window fast. The only way to ease the anxiety in people isn't with fluff about their 'human worth', but rather to help them envision other tangible and plausible ways in which they can provide for themselves. The cold reality, in my opinion, is that the things we value about ourselves are generally not that valuable to others. I love my own personality and humanity, my soul if you will, but nobody's paying me for it, and so I have to value it accordingly. Hell, let me go even darker: there are billions of souls on this planet. They're not a rare thing like say, gold. They're very easily produced, by two people getting it on. That leads to a harsh conclusion: human beings aren't that valuable as individuals. We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. Those living in the first world have been shielded from that harsh reality for some time, but it's starting to show up on our doorstep and we don't like it, and due to our inexperience with it we haven't learned how to adapt to it. It scares me too, but I refuse to be in denial about it.

throwaway-11-1 7mo ago
They aren’t valuable to markets, but like I have neighbors who are treasured by the community and genuinely bring joy to everyone. But no, I guess they aren’t economically important. I actually don’t like how every soul has been reduced to an efficiency metric, surprised how much I find forums like this accept that framing.
- abcde666777 7mo ago
  True as well. I've had similar communal experiences where you get a taste of the old way, the way humans would have operated when we lived in tribes. And on that level I think we are capable of valuing each other as beings - the instinct to look out for each other kicks in. But this modern society we live in... it's just not structured that way anymore. Most of us live in little silos now: our job and our atomic family. And we've become so used to depending on it that it looks very unlikely to change until/unless shit hits the fan. Your average person doesn't know how to grow their own food or build their own shelter, and even if they do it's far less convenient than just getting a paycheck and relying on the supermarket. It's often amazing to me that the whole edifice of it functions as long as it does. Sometimes when I'm in the CBD here in Melbourne, I sit there marveling at the thousands of people I see wandering the streets, all of whom are somehow employed by someone to do something such that they have enough money to keep afloat.
  - encrypted_bird 7mo ago
    > Your average person doesn't know how to grow their own food And, you know the sad part? A lot of places don't allow you to even try to learn. For example, my current place that I rent has a yard (it's a nice little trailer home), but I'm not allowed to have a garden. They even chopped down the nice tree that was growing in the yard when I first moved in. Oh, I can certainly try to grow stuff inside in containers, but that means I gotta get containers (which I can't afford) and I get an increased risk of bugs & dirt being in the house (not a fan thanks).
    - BobbyJo 7mo ago
      To be fair, growing your own food is incredibly inefficient. Agriculture is one of the places where economies of scale shine very very brightly.
      - praddlebus 7mo ago
        [dead]
      - wolvesechoes 7mo ago
        > To be fair, growing your own food is incredibly inefficient Life is not an optimization problem.
        amiga386 7mo ago
        However, had we not tried optimising, Malthus would be right and we'd all be dead. So let's hear it for optimisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolutio...
        BobbyJo 7mo ago
        No, but staying alive is, and food is for staying alive.
      - kuerbel 7mo ago
- BobbyJo 7mo ago
  > But no, I guess they aren’t economically important. I actually don’t like how every soul has been reduced to an efficiency metric, surprised how much I find forums like this accept that framing. Efficiency is the metric of nature. Thinking about human life in any other terms than input and output is objectively a luxury, afforded only to societies with surplus resources. Calling it "framing" feels a little disingenuous.
  - MegagramEnjoyer 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - wolvesechoes 7mo ago
    > Thinking about human life in any other terms than input and output is objectively a luxury, afforded only to societies with surplus resources Even a little bit of anthropological study shows this is false.
  - ajb 7mo ago
    Okay, so when you, BobbyJo, become too old or unwell to work; other people should just shoot you in the head and take your stuff, right? It would only be efficient. Or does this 'harsh reality" only apply to other people?
    - BobbyJo 7mo ago
      Modern society has the luxury of surplus resources at the moment, and we are able to take care of the old and weak, which we indeed choose to do. If/when that ceases to be the case, the harsh reality will apply to everyone, me included, yes.
      - necovek 7mo ago
        Another thing humans are arguably good at is making a longer term plan and investment: if we see that old people simply get shot, we won't be investing surplus value into our retirement funds — at least not of the same sort. Perhaps we'll be building fortresses when younger, accumulating wealth to be able to pay soldiers to protect us etc... Wait, that's exactly what has happened, except it has evolved into a more systemic solution (our taxes and social contributions pay for police, courts; bigger accumulated wealth allows for more options...).
- beeflet 7mo ago
  You and your neighbors might mutually provide joy for each other, but there is a third party in this exchange: the massive industrial complex that provides the food and shelter you need to live. Unfortunately the industrial complex does not accept joy as a form of payment, so this whole system isn't going to work out.
  - wobfan 7mo ago
    It does not work as long as you stay strongly intertwined with the capitalist complex, correct. But I'd argue that in basically every region of the world, you have the choice. It may be harder or easier, but you have it.
    - beeflet 7mo ago
      the capitalist complex is strongly intertwined with reality and power. You have the choice to stick your head in the sand for a while and try to ignore it, but eventually your sand castle will get bulldozed by a group of people that don't.
- charcircuit 7mo ago
  Doesn't that work its way into property values. People want to live in a good neighborhood and community and are willing to pay more for it.
  - wobfan 7mo ago
    Yes, if you try to force a material value on everything, you will get a material value. I would pay a shit ton to have loving and supporting friends, but this is not how it works. Because loving and supporting friends don't want money in exchange, but your true love and support. This works for "good" neighborhoods if you replace "good" with "low-crime", as people with a higher income tend to do less crimes, if we count out tax evasion and other anti-society behaviours. But this is not what it's about. You reap what you sow. You try to increase your value for people to like you and want to be friends with you? This can work, but the price for it is (1) purely extrinsical motivation which more often then not does leave you feel empty and (2) friends who will leave you as soon as your worth decreases, e.g. with age or illness, or if a different person with more value comes around and offers their friendship.
    - charcircuit 7mo ago
      >Because loving and supporting friends don't want money in exchange, but your true love and support. The money would go to the "matchmaker" who would connect people with the right people.
      - wobfan 7mo ago
        > The money would go to the "matchmaker" who would connect people with the right people. Making friends = paying a service to find friends for me?
MathMonkeyMan 7mo ago
> The cold reality, in my opinion, is that the things we value about ourselves are generally not that valuable to others. I love my own personality and humanity, my soul if you will, but nobody's paying me for it, and so I have to value it accordingly. Maybe this was Diogenes's observation.
mathieuh 7mo ago
Isn't this exactly Marx's criticism of capitalism through the theory of alienation? Human relationships get mediated and hidden as relationships between commodities and money.
- abcde666777 7mo ago
  Probably a valid criticism. Of course coming up with a better alternative is always where the devil's at.
  - 9rx 7mo ago
    We know how to come up with better alternatives, but as Marx also pointed out, the capitalists won't sit back and idly watch their world crumble. So putting anything else into practice is effectively impossible. About the only time all the pieces fell into place to even begin to see anything else was Revolutionary Catalonia. However, the USSR quickly waged war with it to ensure its demise, and within no more than a few years it was no more. The capitalists who seized all the capital in the USSR under the guise of pretending to move away capitalism didn't want the people to realize that the USSR was still under capitalism all the same. That would threaten the capitalists who controlled the capital.
helloplanets 7mo ago
> We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. To your friends and family as well? Or just your employer? You're describing things that may well be true for a lot of employers, but fall apart outside of that context.
- throwawaygod 7mo ago
  That may be true for a lot of families and friends as well. They may not dispose you outright but they will try to cut you off every chance they get.
  - atmosx 7mo ago
    But it may not be true for family or of employers… so we are back to square one I suppose.
- serial_dev 7mo ago
  For some rare once-in-a-lifetime friendships, you are not disposable, and if anything were to happen to you, you would be missed. I can count those on one hand. For most casual acquaintances (that some people incorrectly label as friends), it's certainly true. On the family's side: only parents, siblings, children, maybe some aunt or grandparent. Second distant cousin you saw 3 times in life?
  - missingdays 7mo ago
    Is that not enough?
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
    - serial_dev 7mo ago
      It is (and even if it is not, it's just the way it is...). what I'm arguing is that it's not only the workspace where we all are disposable and replaceable. It happens in friends and family context, too. What to do with this information... I'm not sure. But usually it's a good first step to see things clearly.
codemog 7mo ago
Hey you’re welcome to your view. In my view that’s an insanely disgusting devaluation of human life that’s been put into peoples brains by propaganda. Capitalism and materialism sure is great huh.
- abcde666777 7mo ago
  Well here's a thing - I don't think it's capitalism which made me think this way, or even living in the first world. The first world in my experience is big on preaching the dogma that we're all special and valuable (whether it practices what it preaches aside). Rather my view actually came from observing violence - between humans, but also in nature, and deeper still as a product of reality. We exist in these fragile bags of flesh and bone. To a hungry lion we'd just be food. And we behave the same - take for example the eating of meat. I'm a meat eater myself so this isn't anything preachy, but consider this - many animals are quite beautiful beings, possessed of their own personalities (we see it in our pets). But that instrinsic value they have doesn't stop us from turning them into steaks. On the one hand I wish you were right - I wish the world were beautiful and our souls along with it, and that I could sing that song. But it doesn't always look that way. And worse still, I think it all started at the level of nature, not at the level of capitalism. We attribute too much significance to the human race when we lay such woes only at our own feet.
- raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
  And Christians founded a nation where Black people were counted as a 3/5th of a person and my still living parents grew up in the segregated south - that was upheld by a Supreme Court made up of people who were religious.
ThrowawayR2 7mo ago
Reminds me of a very old essay on Cracked that says something very similar: https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...
- stuxnet79 7mo ago
  An old classic. Thanks for reminding me about this article.
- sph 7mo ago
  Good god, serious life advice targeted at young men (but applicable to anybody) before the manosphere, incels and culture wars took over. Unimaginable stuff today. What a relic.
  - bigDinosaur 7mo ago
    This article seems to hinge on a rhetorical flourish whereby the literal meaning of 'you are not your job' is substituted with a criticism of 'you are not what you do'. Well, of course it doesn't make sense and isn't true if you redefine it like that - the original aphorism is instead more literal: your identity should not be conflated with the identity of your employer. The substituted argument leads to some fascinating philosophy, but doesn't deal with the more literal fact that plenty of things you can do for value to the world are still negatives, either net negative for the world or to the individual. Conflating one's identity with an employer is the latter, since the employer and the employee almost always have different requirements for well-being (in the case of a corporation then of course the employer in that sense has no requirement for well-being at all).
  - watwut 7mo ago
    That article is crating the ground for manosphere, incels and culture wars. It tells the men they have no value and don't really matter as people. Have young men read that article, believe it and you will end up with them joining manosphere, incels and culture wars. Also, it does in fact matter whether a guy is nice.
yakshaving_jgt 7mo ago
> We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. Gerasimov? Is it you?
atmosx 7mo ago
True. But tbh, you can find ppl making time for themselves or not, in most salary ranges. Extreme poverty is another issue ofc. That’s why we have social welfare, to avoid extreme poverty.
johnisgood 7mo ago
BTW YouTubers get paid for... generally themselves alone. I mean come on, many are getting paid for reacting to other people's videos. Wild.
- adrianN 7mo ago
  Many more don’t get paid at all.
- abcde666777 7mo ago
  I'd argue they get paid for their ability as performers and entertainers. It's a craft that often has be developed well beyond their innate personality, and often involves a lot of acting as well.
  - johnisgood 7mo ago
    I agree, but many rich YouTubers are terrible. People get entertained by someone watching a video and comment here and there but stays silent for the most part. No acting here. The majority of the people who get entertained are kids, FWIW.
krystalgamer 7mo ago
it's a very modern idea, too. historically people names were associated with their profession. for the op, it might not define you but it does define you for others.
hunter67 7mo ago
> I love my own personality and humanity, my soul if you will, but nobody's paying me for it, and so I have to value it accordingly. Don't let capitalism do this to you. Not everything with value is paid in this system, only things which make the buyer more money.
taffronaut 7mo ago
I'd respectfully challenge that your opinion reflects reality. Nihilism [1] is just one philosophy amongst many. It's no more 'the one truth' than any of the others. Many of the other philosophies have evolved in the light of folks living for centuries through harsher reality than most of us are experiencing today. You might consider other philosophies to be delusional (as others consider nihilism to be delusional), but even in that different delusion they provide a framework to relate your love of your own personality and humanity with the same feelings that a lot of other people also feel about themselves and also each other. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism
- pdimitar 7mo ago
  Philosophy is the theory and we are discussing the practice here. Be a non-nihilist; belong to any school of thought you like. Ultimately, out there, people value you by just 5-6 things and almost never they are your beliefs or personal values. So your respectful challenge seems to be missing the point. Your beliefs are not challenged here. But you cannot change how other people value you.
  - jplusequalt 7mo ago
    >Ultimately, out there, people value you by just 5-6 things and almost never they are your beliefs or personal values. This is such a rigid world view that is demonstrably wrong. I won't even argue with you because others have already pointed out why this cannot be true elsewhere. What I will say is that I hope you're doing alright.
    - pdimitar 7mo ago
      I have no idea what's your goal with that message. I would love to live in your world but I am fairly sure that wherever I was geographically (5 countries), it does not exist there.
titanomachy 7mo ago
Our society used to have religious beliefs that put special value on human lives / souls / whatever. Now for many people, capitalism and materialism is the only religion, and in this religion humans are reduced to their dollar value. But you should recognize that this is not a neutral choice: you have in fact chosen one of many possible value systems, and others may choose differently. Much of human behavior is not explained by economic incentives: for example, many elderly people are cared for by their children out of a love or a sense of familial duty.
- pdimitar 7mo ago
  Zero to do with religion, I knew quite a lot of atheists / agnostics who were extremely wholesome and caring people.
  - skandinaff 7mo ago
    While that could be true, it's important to remember that these people probably grew up in a culture that had religion influence for thousands of years. In order to become atheist, one needs to renounce god, therefore have the idea of god, therefore, have some background knowledge of or about religion. That is to say, that these processes a not as simple, as one might think: take soviet union as an example - official atheist state - yet so much on interpersonal level remained based on humane values formed by thousand years of east orthodox chiristianity. And even though measly 70 years are not enough to make a significant dent in human behaviour - it did produced a lot of cynicism and misanthropy before going out the window.
    - necovek 7mo ago
      It might be the other way around: religions came to be _because_ humans have values that became the backbone of religions. The evolution of "gods" is obvious in retrospect as well (a tale of some good deeds passed on through generations gets added to with every retelling and suddenly Joe who gave a child an apple and protected it from a rabid dog was walking around feeding everone and killing dragons that stole everyone's sheep). I recommend reading literature, philosophical and historical works from more than 2000 years ago.
tock 7mo ago
Huh? I value myself and my family at infinity. Meaning no-one else or no amount of money can replace them. So no we are in fact extremely non disposable and non replaceable to the people we love.
sph 7mo ago
> The cold reality, in my opinion, is that the things we value about ourselves are generally not that valuable to others. I love my own personality and humanity, my soul if you will, but nobody's paying me for it, and so I have to value it accordingly. A good example of what tribes did better vs civilization: if you can do anything to help the tribe survive (I am a good hunter, you can create good bows), you are a prized member. If you can't do anything, at least we still love you because you are kin.
- Ectiseethe 7mo ago
  > [Within tribes, if] you can't do anything, at least we still love you because you are kin. That's a nice sentiment, but do you have sources for the claim that tribes universally "loved" non-productive members just because they were kin?
  - xdertz 7mo ago
    There are many instances of braces and artificial limbs or that were found or fossilised bones that showed crippled people that grew into old-age, which provides evidence that people cared for 'non-productive' members.
    - rapnie 7mo ago
      Indeed. If one is crippled their 'value' for the tribe doesn't suddenly disappear. A person has their wit, their positive spirit, their wisdom and skills, their empathy, care and understanding for others that is important for the tribe's wellbeing. Etcetera.
    - giantg2 7mo ago
      Finding evidence that disable people existed does not provide evidence that they were not able to contribute in some way. It's incredibly ableist to assume they couldn't.
      - graemep 7mo ago
anoplus 7mo ago
Seems like people forget that work is not the goal, but economical freedom is. And its all about politics. Humanity reached a production capacity that human work is barely needed to sustain everyone. But there is greed and wars. Also, humans are social creatures, we still need one another for relationships. Hell, removing work will let us enjoy our relationships even more. Also, as long as there are wars, rest assured there are plenty of jobs. War is, sadly, a huge industry
ear7h 7mo ago
Throughout this diatribe I think you had multiple opportunities to see the value of human life. That you didn't, makes me think you actually don't value your own life and while that's entirely your right. But, to project onto others that they're "in denial" for valuing their own, their families', or complete strangers' lives isn't the radical ultra-rational flex you think it is. To pick one mere point where you might have chosen to value life otherwise: > They're not a rare thing like say, gold. You mean the gold that's a relatively common chemical in the universe? You're comparing the elementary particle formed by astronomical processes to somethings which (even if metaphorically) exists only within organisms so complex we have yet to find signs of similar complexity in the universe. What you say is cold, but hardly truth.
- abcde666777 7mo ago
  I don't presume to be able to know the value of human life. There are too many unknowns and I'm not omniscient. Perhaps we're immensely valuable - sparks of divinity. Perhaps we're not - mere bags of sentient meat. I don't know which of those statements is more true. Either/neither/both?
dudefeliciano 7mo ago
and then they said it's socialism that kills the individual identity of people...
keybored 7mo ago
> Hell, let me go even darker: there are billions of souls on this planet. They're not a rare thing like say, gold. They're very easily produced, by two people getting it on. That leads to a harsh conclusion: human beings aren't that valuable as individuals. Not valuable to what or whom? > We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. Disposable and replaceable to what or whom? The Planet doesn’t care whether we exist. But then again the planet would not need to replace us either. So what could this be about? Only humans want or need automation of human labor. Are there then some special kind of humans that are entitled to (by might or other means) the output of the “disposable humans”?
watwut 7mo ago
> Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job (our means of survival) is a luxury. If a person can't provide for themselves the rest goes out the window fast. It is other way round. The sort of person who sees themselves as their job only are good when they are well off. That sort of person copes badly with when being poor. Having no self to draw from outside of work and feeling like constant failure in unsatisfying work leads to issues like alcoholism, violence, gambling.
jaapz 7mo ago
> The cold reality, in my opinion, is that the things we value about ourselves are generally not that valuable to others. I love my own personality and humanity, my soul if you will, but nobody's paying me for it, and so I have to value it accordingly. This is only true if by "value" you mean monetary value. Your personality and humanity may not be valuable to the person paying you to do your job, it still has value for the people around you.
- Gareth321 7mo ago
  There is an intractable problem is economics which is how to assign value to a thing. It's probably more of a philosophical debate. One arm of the debate is something called marginal utility. That is, a think is worth a different amount to different people. I value a particular guitar more than my neighbour does. I think it's worth $100. He thinks it's worth $50. Who is right? Authoritarian nations use top-down economic methods to dictate the value. In this case, they would make the guitar worth $1 (so "everyone can afford a guitar now"). Under capitalism, we allow individual to negotiate, and the highest bidder determines the price. Apologies for the long-winded context, but I think it's important to address your point. You're alluding to some kind of intrinsic, self-evident value, and I would like to challenge you on that. Prove to me that this value exists. Prove to me it can be measured. To pre-empt your reply, I don't think you can. You might value a person in a certain way, but you can't ensure everyone else does. In fact you even accept this in your last sentence. A small group of people known to that individual would value them more than the other 8 billion people on the planet. Which is more or less what the person you replied to was explaining.
  - jplusequalt 7mo ago
    >Prove to me that this value exists. Prove to me it can be measured. To pre-empt your reply, I don't think you can. Why does any of this matter? Do you require a person proves their utility to you before you hold the door open for them? When a child falls and scrapes their knee, do you ask about their grades in school, or parents net worth, before lending them a hand? My point: human society is deeply interwoven with sentimental behaviors that make zero sense in economic theory. You can try to apply all the models you want to model human compassion and it will get you nil. But that doesn't mean we should optimize that out of societies. I think it's the most wonderful part of our societies, and if we were to remove it, we'd stop being humans.
VoodooJuJu 7mo ago
[dead]
weinzierl 7mo ago
But isn't it the other way around. The more wealthy you get the more valuable things become and the people around you become less valuable. Superficially it sounds counterintuitive and yet it is what we observe, even if it is a not very flattering observation about human nature. I realized this first when I travelled Latin America as a young person. It was quite surprising to me never to get asked about my job but often about a family thousands of kilometers away and without any chance for the stranger speaking to me to ever meet any of them. Only if you see yourself defined by the friends and family that surround you it suddenly makes sense.
atoav 7mo ago
I agree with every fact you said yet my conclusion is that humans are valuable. Why? Because your frame of reference is the world, mine is the known universe. Humans are so fucking unlikely. Matter that somehow can experience its own (and others) being is so crazy unlikely I feel anything other than valuing it is just wrong. In German we have a word called "Zweckoptimismus" that would translate to purposeful optimism. It is the optimism of someone who knows the world isn't good, but accepting it as bad would make it even worse, so you operate under a defiant optimism without ignoring the reality of the world.
mathgeek 7mo ago
> That leads to a harsh conclusion: human beings aren't that valuable as individuals. We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. Wait until you get to the part of philosophy that hinges on this being an invention of our own making. Human beings have decided that human beings are disposable. Just like we decided that gold was valuable (and to many, more valuable).
tvier 7mo ago
This comment defines value as what people pay for things, then comes to the conclusion that they way to value people must be based on what people will pay for them. That's not insightful, that's just circular reasoning, and it fails to explain normal human behavior. Does a child have no value to it's parents because it's "easily produced"[1] and "disposable and replaceable"? [1] I imagine OP has never given birth
- abcde666777 7mo ago
  Just going to poke you a little for the statement about not having children ;). It strikes me as a little elitist and I'll tell you why: You don't need to have had children to have loved people and to have lost people, and to fully understand the depth and weight of those things.
  - tvier 7mo ago
    I didn't mean to imply that you hadn't cared, or felt loss. That would definitely be presumptuous. I was only commenting on the "easily produced" comment. I don't think I've heard someone describe pregnancy and childbirth that way ;)
  - Dibes 7mo ago
    I believe they were trying to push back on the easily word in "easily produced". While, thank god, modern medicine makes birthing dramatically safer than at any time in history, it is still an incredibly taxing process on the human body and still fundamentally dangerous. It is not "easy" per-se.
    - isjcjsjcnjd 7mo ago
      C’mon now, let’s not be intentionally obtuse to try and sound smart adding “yes, but” to a perfectly solid argument. Children are easily produced, that’s a fact. The process of child bearing is not in question, but rather the availability of willing partners (hell, even unwilling, if we’re getting that dark) and how little effort it generally takes to get the conception process going. They were making a point that it’s much easier to generate a human being than it is actually generating economically meaningful value. One needs a few minutes of your time and gets you feeling really good at the end of the process, and the other can (and often does) require years of effort, toil and sweat (all of which can catastrophically fail rendering your efforts moot). Generating a new human is, indeed, comparatively easy.
mr_toad 7mo ago
> They're very easily produced, by two people getting it on. Something like 360-380 thousand births every day. We’re insignificant even just compared to the delta.
maerF0x0 7mo ago
You're right, if you've diminished yourself to a generic "consumer", and haven't interleaved yourself into a fabric of value beyond economic. Relationships are worth a lot and can't really be bought. Do/Will you care for someone? Do/Will they care for you? This can make you far more valuable than your economic outputs, and also worth economic inputs if you ever lack.
- scottLobster 7mo ago
  The ability to care for someone in any material sense requires economic resources. Even having free time is a form of wealth that not all enjoy.
  - maerF0x0 7mo ago
    "All" is a pretty high bar. I think a huge proportion of the developed world has a lot of choice and is repeatedly choosing stuff/experiences over people. Not sure how we'd find data to resolve that... People living paycheck to paycheck, or not having $400 to cover a bill is not really proof without understanding how they're spending money... As far as I can tell a lot of today's economic woes in the developed world is self inflicted through lifestyle inflation. We live in bigger houses (more sq ft per person), more alone, eat out a lot more, drive cars with far more horsepower, and have a supercomputer in their pocket.
    - mancerayder 7mo ago
      Yes and we love urban areas. Urban areas like NYC, Boston, SF are extremely expensive, with one bedroom apartments renting for 5K and selling for 1M. Not everyone wants a 1 hr long commute, and since we took away remote work we're stuffing everyone into expensive cities where people spend the remainder of their 50 percent not taken by taxes on housing (and health too in some cases) It's a disaster.
      - maerF0x0 7mo ago
        Yes, NIMBY-ism has done hard things to those specific areas. At least as far as we trust chatgpt, but people are still living in more median sq ft per person today than long ago (think 50-100 yrs ago). Of course rent per person will go up if we're renting 50-100% more space than in the past.
catoAppreciator 7mo ago
Grotesque.
pasquinelli 7mo ago
> We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. we are, but that doesn't mean we're not valuable. everything is disposable, everything is replacable. the idea that an individual human life isn't very valuable and that it's only first-worlders that have trouble understanding that is projection. that is the modern, first world (read capitalist) view of human life. you think you're thinking but you're actually regurgitating the ideology you've received.
altmanaltman 7mo ago
I mean, if you are willing to sell your personality, humanity and your soul, I am sure you will find a lot of bidders. Thats literally why slavery was a thing. There is a definite economic value to it. What does not is your consioisness that you experience since nobody else can use it.
interroboink 7mo ago
> there are billions of souls on this planet. They're not a rare thing > like say, gold. They're very easily produced, by two people getting it > on. That leads to a harsh conclusion: human beings aren't that valuable > as individuals. We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. I appreciate the perspective you're offering here, and I don't entirely disagree, especially from an economic angle. But I do want to offer a counterpoint: Lumps of gold are largely interchangeable. It's just a mass of gold atoms that we don't differentiate between, so one lump of gold is as good as another. But people are not like that. If you were to painstakingly transform a lump of gold into a beautiful sculpture, it would be worth more than its face value. And if a person transforms from the lump of flesh they are born as into a unique individual, they are worth something more, too. Two gold sculptures would not be interchangeable, to an art aficionado, and two people are not interchangeable in that way, either. On the gross large scale, yes, we're all lumps of flesh squidging around on the planet; a uniform slimy patina on a tiny ball of dirt. And our various large-scale systems and policies (economic, political, etc) treat people in this way, too, in varying degrees. But you are living your one and possibly only life (just like everyone else). And you have taken a unique path through that life (just like everyone else), and I'd just encourage you and/or others reading to cherish that, both in yourself and others, even if (or especially if) the systems in which we live don't seem to. It is something that can't be taken from you, because it is intrinsic to you, and that is a value beyond "what someone will pay for." Just my 2¢
dragontamer 7mo ago
I mean, Jack London was pretty famously a professional hobo, wandering the country looking for a place to stay. He got good at storytelling so that he'd have something to give to the families who took him in and fed him. Eventually Jack London writes Call of the Wild and becomes stupidly rich. Was Jack London the famous author, living off of all the money (writing less popular stories, like White Fang) more valuable because of all the money he made? Was Jack London the hobo less valuable because he didn't write the bestseller Call to the Wild yet? Or maybe, the entire concept of valuing people off a monetary lens is just bullshit.
- satisfice 7mo ago
  Comments like this are what I hope to see whenever I visit. Spurring thought. Challenging the obvious.
kelseyfrog 7mo ago
> Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job (our means of survival) is a luxury. Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job is the examined life. It what makes life worth living. We should be incredibly skeptical of a social system whose default is to have individuals primary identify by the work they do. That necessarily sets people up for continuous identity foreclosure and psychic famine in a self re-enforcing feedback loop. Frankly it's cringe to primarily identify by profession.
turtlesdown11 7mo ago
[flagged]
hackable_sand 7mo ago
You refuse to be in denial about your personal fears?
yunwal 7mo ago
> there are billions of souls on this planet. They're not a rare thing like say, gold. They're very easily produced, by two people getting it on. You've clearly never been through childbirth. Women go through incredible amounts of pain, and good parents make incredible sacrifices for their kids. They're not doing that because they're guaranteed some payoff.
booleandilemma 7mo ago
Your view is disgusting and the fact that your comment is the top one here shows how broken society is.
skrlet13 6mo ago
[dead]

throwaway-11-1 7mo ago

They aren’t valuable to markets, but like I have neighbors who are treasured by the community and genuinely bring joy to everyone. But no, I guess they aren’t economically important. I actually don’t like how every soul has been reduced to an efficiency metric, surprised how much I find forums like this accept that framing.

abcde666777 7mo ago
True as well. I've had similar communal experiences where you get a taste of the old way, the way humans would have operated when we lived in tribes. And on that level I think we are capable of valuing each other as beings - the instinct to look out for each other kicks in. But this modern society we live in... it's just not structured that way anymore. Most of us live in little silos now: our job and our atomic family. And we've become so used to depending on it that it looks very unlikely to change until/unless shit hits the fan. Your average person doesn't know how to grow their own food or build their own shelter, and even if they do it's far less convenient than just getting a paycheck and relying on the supermarket. It's often amazing to me that the whole edifice of it functions as long as it does. Sometimes when I'm in the CBD here in Melbourne, I sit there marveling at the thousands of people I see wandering the streets, all of whom are somehow employed by someone to do something such that they have enough money to keep afloat.
- encrypted_bird 7mo ago
  > Your average person doesn't know how to grow their own food And, you know the sad part? A lot of places don't allow you to even try to learn. For example, my current place that I rent has a yard (it's a nice little trailer home), but I'm not allowed to have a garden. They even chopped down the nice tree that was growing in the yard when I first moved in. Oh, I can certainly try to grow stuff inside in containers, but that means I gotta get containers (which I can't afford) and I get an increased risk of bugs & dirt being in the house (not a fan thanks).
  - BobbyJo 7mo ago
    To be fair, growing your own food is incredibly inefficient. Agriculture is one of the places where economies of scale shine very very brightly.
    - praddlebus 7mo ago
      [dead]
    - wolvesechoes 7mo ago
      > To be fair, growing your own food is incredibly inefficient Life is not an optimization problem.
      - amiga386 7mo ago
        However, had we not tried optimising, Malthus would be right and we'd all be dead. So let's hear it for optimisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolutio...
      - BobbyJo 7mo ago
        No, but staying alive is, and food is for staying alive.
    - kuerbel 7mo ago
BobbyJo 7mo ago
> But no, I guess they aren’t economically important. I actually don’t like how every soul has been reduced to an efficiency metric, surprised how much I find forums like this accept that framing. Efficiency is the metric of nature. Thinking about human life in any other terms than input and output is objectively a luxury, afforded only to societies with surplus resources. Calling it "framing" feels a little disingenuous.
- MegagramEnjoyer 7mo ago
  [dead]
- wolvesechoes 7mo ago
  > Thinking about human life in any other terms than input and output is objectively a luxury, afforded only to societies with surplus resources Even a little bit of anthropological study shows this is false.
- ajb 7mo ago
  Okay, so when you, BobbyJo, become too old or unwell to work; other people should just shoot you in the head and take your stuff, right? It would only be efficient. Or does this 'harsh reality" only apply to other people?
  - BobbyJo 7mo ago
    Modern society has the luxury of surplus resources at the moment, and we are able to take care of the old and weak, which we indeed choose to do. If/when that ceases to be the case, the harsh reality will apply to everyone, me included, yes.
    - necovek 7mo ago
      Another thing humans are arguably good at is making a longer term plan and investment: if we see that old people simply get shot, we won't be investing surplus value into our retirement funds — at least not of the same sort. Perhaps we'll be building fortresses when younger, accumulating wealth to be able to pay soldiers to protect us etc... Wait, that's exactly what has happened, except it has evolved into a more systemic solution (our taxes and social contributions pay for police, courts; bigger accumulated wealth allows for more options...).
beeflet 7mo ago
You and your neighbors might mutually provide joy for each other, but there is a third party in this exchange: the massive industrial complex that provides the food and shelter you need to live. Unfortunately the industrial complex does not accept joy as a form of payment, so this whole system isn't going to work out.
- wobfan 7mo ago
  It does not work as long as you stay strongly intertwined with the capitalist complex, correct. But I'd argue that in basically every region of the world, you have the choice. It may be harder or easier, but you have it.
  - beeflet 7mo ago
    the capitalist complex is strongly intertwined with reality and power. You have the choice to stick your head in the sand for a while and try to ignore it, but eventually your sand castle will get bulldozed by a group of people that don't.
charcircuit 7mo ago
Doesn't that work its way into property values. People want to live in a good neighborhood and community and are willing to pay more for it.
- wobfan 7mo ago
  Yes, if you try to force a material value on everything, you will get a material value. I would pay a shit ton to have loving and supporting friends, but this is not how it works. Because loving and supporting friends don't want money in exchange, but your true love and support. This works for "good" neighborhoods if you replace "good" with "low-crime", as people with a higher income tend to do less crimes, if we count out tax evasion and other anti-society behaviours. But this is not what it's about. You reap what you sow. You try to increase your value for people to like you and want to be friends with you? This can work, but the price for it is (1) purely extrinsical motivation which more often then not does leave you feel empty and (2) friends who will leave you as soon as your worth decreases, e.g. with age or illness, or if a different person with more value comes around and offers their friendship.
  - charcircuit 7mo ago
    >Because loving and supporting friends don't want money in exchange, but your true love and support. The money would go to the "matchmaker" who would connect people with the right people.
    - wobfan 7mo ago
      > The money would go to the "matchmaker" who would connect people with the right people. Making friends = paying a service to find friends for me?

MathMonkeyMan 7mo ago

mathieuh 7mo ago

Isn't this exactly Marx's criticism of capitalism through the theory of alienation? Human relationships get mediated and hidden as relationships between commodities and money.

abcde666777 7mo ago
Probably a valid criticism. Of course coming up with a better alternative is always where the devil's at.
- 9rx 7mo ago
  We know how to come up with better alternatives, but as Marx also pointed out, the capitalists won't sit back and idly watch their world crumble. So putting anything else into practice is effectively impossible. About the only time all the pieces fell into place to even begin to see anything else was Revolutionary Catalonia. However, the USSR quickly waged war with it to ensure its demise, and within no more than a few years it was no more. The capitalists who seized all the capital in the USSR under the guise of pretending to move away capitalism didn't want the people to realize that the USSR was still under capitalism all the same. That would threaten the capitalists who controlled the capital.

helloplanets 7mo ago

> We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. To your friends and family as well? Or just your employer? You're describing things that may well be true for a lot of employers, but fall apart outside of that context.

throwawaygod 7mo ago
That may be true for a lot of families and friends as well. They may not dispose you outright but they will try to cut you off every chance they get.
- atmosx 7mo ago
  But it may not be true for family or of employers… so we are back to square one I suppose.
serial_dev 7mo ago
For some rare once-in-a-lifetime friendships, you are not disposable, and if anything were to happen to you, you would be missed. I can count those on one hand. For most casual acquaintances (that some people incorrectly label as friends), it's certainly true. On the family's side: only parents, siblings, children, maybe some aunt or grandparent. Second distant cousin you saw 3 times in life?
- missingdays 7mo ago
  Is that not enough?
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - serial_dev 7mo ago
    It is (and even if it is not, it's just the way it is...). what I'm arguing is that it's not only the workspace where we all are disposable and replaceable. It happens in friends and family context, too. What to do with this information... I'm not sure. But usually it's a good first step to see things clearly.

codemog 7mo ago

Hey you’re welcome to your view. In my view that’s an insanely disgusting devaluation of human life that’s been put into peoples brains by propaganda. Capitalism and materialism sure is great huh.

abcde666777 7mo ago
Well here's a thing - I don't think it's capitalism which made me think this way, or even living in the first world. The first world in my experience is big on preaching the dogma that we're all special and valuable (whether it practices what it preaches aside). Rather my view actually came from observing violence - between humans, but also in nature, and deeper still as a product of reality. We exist in these fragile bags of flesh and bone. To a hungry lion we'd just be food. And we behave the same - take for example the eating of meat. I'm a meat eater myself so this isn't anything preachy, but consider this - many animals are quite beautiful beings, possessed of their own personalities (we see it in our pets). But that instrinsic value they have doesn't stop us from turning them into steaks. On the one hand I wish you were right - I wish the world were beautiful and our souls along with it, and that I could sing that song. But it doesn't always look that way. And worse still, I think it all started at the level of nature, not at the level of capitalism. We attribute too much significance to the human race when we lay such woes only at our own feet.
raw_anon_1111 7mo ago
And Christians founded a nation where Black people were counted as a 3/5th of a person and my still living parents grew up in the segregated south - that was upheld by a Supreme Court made up of people who were religious.

ThrowawayR2 7mo ago

Reminds me of a very old essay on Cracked that says something very similar: https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...

stuxnet79 7mo ago
An old classic. Thanks for reminding me about this article.
sph 7mo ago
Good god, serious life advice targeted at young men (but applicable to anybody) before the manosphere, incels and culture wars took over. Unimaginable stuff today. What a relic.
- bigDinosaur 7mo ago
  This article seems to hinge on a rhetorical flourish whereby the literal meaning of 'you are not your job' is substituted with a criticism of 'you are not what you do'. Well, of course it doesn't make sense and isn't true if you redefine it like that - the original aphorism is instead more literal: your identity should not be conflated with the identity of your employer. The substituted argument leads to some fascinating philosophy, but doesn't deal with the more literal fact that plenty of things you can do for value to the world are still negatives, either net negative for the world or to the individual. Conflating one's identity with an employer is the latter, since the employer and the employee almost always have different requirements for well-being (in the case of a corporation then of course the employer in that sense has no requirement for well-being at all).
- watwut 7mo ago
  That article is crating the ground for manosphere, incels and culture wars. It tells the men they have no value and don't really matter as people. Have young men read that article, believe it and you will end up with them joining manosphere, incels and culture wars. Also, it does in fact matter whether a guy is nice.

yakshaving_jgt 7mo ago

> We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. Gerasimov? Is it you?

atmosx 7mo ago

True. But tbh, you can find ppl making time for themselves or not, in most salary ranges. Extreme poverty is another issue ofc. That’s why we have social welfare, to avoid extreme poverty.

johnisgood 7mo ago

BTW YouTubers get paid for... generally themselves alone. I mean come on, many are getting paid for reacting to other people's videos. Wild.

adrianN 7mo ago
Many more don’t get paid at all.
abcde666777 7mo ago
I'd argue they get paid for their ability as performers and entertainers. It's a craft that often has be developed well beyond their innate personality, and often involves a lot of acting as well.
- johnisgood 7mo ago
  I agree, but many rich YouTubers are terrible. People get entertained by someone watching a video and comment here and there but stays silent for the most part. No acting here. The majority of the people who get entertained are kids, FWIW.

krystalgamer 7mo ago

it's a very modern idea, too. historically people names were associated with their profession. for the op, it might not define you but it does define you for others.

hunter67 7mo ago

> I love my own personality and humanity, my soul if you will, but nobody's paying me for it, and so I have to value it accordingly. Don't let capitalism do this to you. Not everything with value is paid in this system, only things which make the buyer more money.

taffronaut 7mo ago

I'd respectfully challenge that your opinion reflects reality. Nihilism [1] is just one philosophy amongst many. It's no more 'the one truth' than any of the others. Many of the other philosophies have evolved in the light of folks living for centuries through harsher reality than most of us are experiencing today. You might consider other philosophies to be delusional (as others consider nihilism to be delusional), but even in that different delusion they provide a framework to relate your love of your own personality and humanity with the same feelings that a lot of other people also feel about themselves and also each other. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism

pdimitar 7mo ago
Philosophy is the theory and we are discussing the practice here. Be a non-nihilist; belong to any school of thought you like. Ultimately, out there, people value you by just 5-6 things and almost never they are your beliefs or personal values. So your respectful challenge seems to be missing the point. Your beliefs are not challenged here. But you cannot change how other people value you.
- jplusequalt 7mo ago
  >Ultimately, out there, people value you by just 5-6 things and almost never they are your beliefs or personal values. This is such a rigid world view that is demonstrably wrong. I won't even argue with you because others have already pointed out why this cannot be true elsewhere. What I will say is that I hope you're doing alright.
  - pdimitar 7mo ago
    I have no idea what's your goal with that message. I would love to live in your world but I am fairly sure that wherever I was geographically (5 countries), it does not exist there.

titanomachy 7mo ago

Our society used to have religious beliefs that put special value on human lives / souls / whatever. Now for many people, capitalism and materialism is the only religion, and in this religion humans are reduced to their dollar value. But you should recognize that this is not a neutral choice: you have in fact chosen one of many possible value systems, and others may choose differently. Much of human behavior is not explained by economic incentives: for example, many elderly people are cared for by their children out of a love or a sense of familial duty.

pdimitar 7mo ago
Zero to do with religion, I knew quite a lot of atheists / agnostics who were extremely wholesome and caring people.
- skandinaff 7mo ago
  While that could be true, it's important to remember that these people probably grew up in a culture that had religion influence for thousands of years. In order to become atheist, one needs to renounce god, therefore have the idea of god, therefore, have some background knowledge of or about religion. That is to say, that these processes a not as simple, as one might think: take soviet union as an example - official atheist state - yet so much on interpersonal level remained based on humane values formed by thousand years of east orthodox chiristianity. And even though measly 70 years are not enough to make a significant dent in human behaviour - it did produced a lot of cynicism and misanthropy before going out the window.
  - necovek 7mo ago
    It might be the other way around: religions came to be _because_ humans have values that became the backbone of religions. The evolution of "gods" is obvious in retrospect as well (a tale of some good deeds passed on through generations gets added to with every retelling and suddenly Joe who gave a child an apple and protected it from a rabid dog was walking around feeding everone and killing dragons that stole everyone's sheep). I recommend reading literature, philosophical and historical works from more than 2000 years ago.

tock 7mo ago

Huh? I value myself and my family at infinity. Meaning no-one else or no amount of money can replace them. So no we are in fact extremely non disposable and non replaceable to the people we love.

sph 7mo ago

> The cold reality, in my opinion, is that the things we value about ourselves are generally not that valuable to others. I love my own personality and humanity, my soul if you will, but nobody's paying me for it, and so I have to value it accordingly. A good example of what tribes did better vs civilization: if you can do anything to help the tribe survive (I am a good hunter, you can create good bows), you are a prized member. If you can't do anything, at least we still love you because you are kin.

Ectiseethe 7mo ago
> [Within tribes, if] you can't do anything, at least we still love you because you are kin. That's a nice sentiment, but do you have sources for the claim that tribes universally "loved" non-productive members just because they were kin?
- xdertz 7mo ago
  There are many instances of braces and artificial limbs or that were found or fossilised bones that showed crippled people that grew into old-age, which provides evidence that people cared for 'non-productive' members.
  - rapnie 7mo ago
    Indeed. If one is crippled their 'value' for the tribe doesn't suddenly disappear. A person has their wit, their positive spirit, their wisdom and skills, their empathy, care and understanding for others that is important for the tribe's wellbeing. Etcetera.
  - giantg2 7mo ago
    Finding evidence that disable people existed does not provide evidence that they were not able to contribute in some way. It's incredibly ableist to assume they couldn't.
    - graemep 7mo ago

anoplus 7mo ago

Seems like people forget that work is not the goal, but economical freedom is. And its all about politics. Humanity reached a production capacity that human work is barely needed to sustain everyone. But there is greed and wars. Also, humans are social creatures, we still need one another for relationships. Hell, removing work will let us enjoy our relationships even more. Also, as long as there are wars, rest assured there are plenty of jobs. War is, sadly, a huge industry

ear7h 7mo ago

Throughout this diatribe I think you had multiple opportunities to see the value of human life. That you didn't, makes me think you actually don't value your own life and while that's entirely your right. But, to project onto others that they're "in denial" for valuing their own, their families', or complete strangers' lives isn't the radical ultra-rational flex you think it is. To pick one mere point where you might have chosen to value life otherwise: > They're not a rare thing like say, gold. You mean the gold that's a relatively common chemical in the universe? You're comparing the elementary particle formed by astronomical processes to somethings which (even if metaphorically) exists only within organisms so complex we have yet to find signs of similar complexity in the universe. What you say is cold, but hardly truth.

abcde666777 7mo ago
I don't presume to be able to know the value of human life. There are too many unknowns and I'm not omniscient. Perhaps we're immensely valuable - sparks of divinity. Perhaps we're not - mere bags of sentient meat. I don't know which of those statements is more true. Either/neither/both?

dudefeliciano 7mo ago

and then they said it's socialism that kills the individual identity of people...

keybored 7mo ago

> Hell, let me go even darker: there are billions of souls on this planet. They're not a rare thing like say, gold. They're very easily produced, by two people getting it on. That leads to a harsh conclusion: human beings aren't that valuable as individuals. Not valuable to what or whom? > We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. Disposable and replaceable to what or whom? The Planet doesn’t care whether we exist. But then again the planet would not need to replace us either. So what could this be about? Only humans want or need automation of human labor. Are there then some special kind of humans that are entitled to (by might or other means) the output of the “disposable humans”?

watwut 7mo ago

> Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job (our means of survival) is a luxury. If a person can't provide for themselves the rest goes out the window fast. It is other way round. The sort of person who sees themselves as their job only are good when they are well off. That sort of person copes badly with when being poor. Having no self to draw from outside of work and feeling like constant failure in unsatisfying work leads to issues like alcoholism, violence, gambling.

jaapz 7mo ago

> The cold reality, in my opinion, is that the things we value about ourselves are generally not that valuable to others. I love my own personality and humanity, my soul if you will, but nobody's paying me for it, and so I have to value it accordingly. This is only true if by "value" you mean monetary value. Your personality and humanity may not be valuable to the person paying you to do your job, it still has value for the people around you.

Gareth321 7mo ago
There is an intractable problem is economics which is how to assign value to a thing. It's probably more of a philosophical debate. One arm of the debate is something called marginal utility. That is, a think is worth a different amount to different people. I value a particular guitar more than my neighbour does. I think it's worth $100. He thinks it's worth $50. Who is right? Authoritarian nations use top-down economic methods to dictate the value. In this case, they would make the guitar worth $1 (so "everyone can afford a guitar now"). Under capitalism, we allow individual to negotiate, and the highest bidder determines the price. Apologies for the long-winded context, but I think it's important to address your point. You're alluding to some kind of intrinsic, self-evident value, and I would like to challenge you on that. Prove to me that this value exists. Prove to me it can be measured. To pre-empt your reply, I don't think you can. You might value a person in a certain way, but you can't ensure everyone else does. In fact you even accept this in your last sentence. A small group of people known to that individual would value them more than the other 8 billion people on the planet. Which is more or less what the person you replied to was explaining.
- jplusequalt 7mo ago
  >Prove to me that this value exists. Prove to me it can be measured. To pre-empt your reply, I don't think you can. Why does any of this matter? Do you require a person proves their utility to you before you hold the door open for them? When a child falls and scrapes their knee, do you ask about their grades in school, or parents net worth, before lending them a hand? My point: human society is deeply interwoven with sentimental behaviors that make zero sense in economic theory. You can try to apply all the models you want to model human compassion and it will get you nil. But that doesn't mean we should optimize that out of societies. I think it's the most wonderful part of our societies, and if we were to remove it, we'd stop being humans.

VoodooJuJu 7mo ago

[dead]

weinzierl 7mo ago

But isn't it the other way around. The more wealthy you get the more valuable things become and the people around you become less valuable. Superficially it sounds counterintuitive and yet it is what we observe, even if it is a not very flattering observation about human nature. I realized this first when I travelled Latin America as a young person. It was quite surprising to me never to get asked about my job but often about a family thousands of kilometers away and without any chance for the stranger speaking to me to ever meet any of them. Only if you see yourself defined by the friends and family that surround you it suddenly makes sense.

atoav 7mo ago

I agree with every fact you said yet my conclusion is that humans are valuable. Why? Because your frame of reference is the world, mine is the known universe. Humans are so fucking unlikely. Matter that somehow can experience its own (and others) being is so crazy unlikely I feel anything other than valuing it is just wrong. In German we have a word called "Zweckoptimismus" that would translate to purposeful optimism. It is the optimism of someone who knows the world isn't good, but accepting it as bad would make it even worse, so you operate under a defiant optimism without ignoring the reality of the world.

mathgeek 7mo ago

> That leads to a harsh conclusion: human beings aren't that valuable as individuals. We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. Wait until you get to the part of philosophy that hinges on this being an invention of our own making. Human beings have decided that human beings are disposable. Just like we decided that gold was valuable (and to many, more valuable).

tvier 7mo ago

This comment defines value as what people pay for things, then comes to the conclusion that they way to value people must be based on what people will pay for them. That's not insightful, that's just circular reasoning, and it fails to explain normal human behavior. Does a child have no value to it's parents because it's "easily produced"[1] and "disposable and replaceable"? [1] I imagine OP has never given birth

abcde666777 7mo ago
Just going to poke you a little for the statement about not having children ;). It strikes me as a little elitist and I'll tell you why: You don't need to have had children to have loved people and to have lost people, and to fully understand the depth and weight of those things.
- tvier 7mo ago
  I didn't mean to imply that you hadn't cared, or felt loss. That would definitely be presumptuous. I was only commenting on the "easily produced" comment. I don't think I've heard someone describe pregnancy and childbirth that way ;)
- Dibes 7mo ago
  I believe they were trying to push back on the easily word in "easily produced". While, thank god, modern medicine makes birthing dramatically safer than at any time in history, it is still an incredibly taxing process on the human body and still fundamentally dangerous. It is not "easy" per-se.
  - isjcjsjcnjd 7mo ago
    C’mon now, let’s not be intentionally obtuse to try and sound smart adding “yes, but” to a perfectly solid argument. Children are easily produced, that’s a fact. The process of child bearing is not in question, but rather the availability of willing partners (hell, even unwilling, if we’re getting that dark) and how little effort it generally takes to get the conception process going. They were making a point that it’s much easier to generate a human being than it is actually generating economically meaningful value. One needs a few minutes of your time and gets you feeling really good at the end of the process, and the other can (and often does) require years of effort, toil and sweat (all of which can catastrophically fail rendering your efforts moot). Generating a new human is, indeed, comparatively easy.

mr_toad 7mo ago

> They're very easily produced, by two people getting it on. Something like 360-380 thousand births every day. We’re insignificant even just compared to the delta.

maerF0x0 7mo ago

You're right, if you've diminished yourself to a generic "consumer", and haven't interleaved yourself into a fabric of value beyond economic. Relationships are worth a lot and can't really be bought. Do/Will you care for someone? Do/Will they care for you? This can make you far more valuable than your economic outputs, and also worth economic inputs if you ever lack.

scottLobster 7mo ago
The ability to care for someone in any material sense requires economic resources. Even having free time is a form of wealth that not all enjoy.
- maerF0x0 7mo ago
  "All" is a pretty high bar. I think a huge proportion of the developed world has a lot of choice and is repeatedly choosing stuff/experiences over people. Not sure how we'd find data to resolve that... People living paycheck to paycheck, or not having $400 to cover a bill is not really proof without understanding how they're spending money... As far as I can tell a lot of today's economic woes in the developed world is self inflicted through lifestyle inflation. We live in bigger houses (more sq ft per person), more alone, eat out a lot more, drive cars with far more horsepower, and have a supercomputer in their pocket.
  - mancerayder 7mo ago
    Yes and we love urban areas. Urban areas like NYC, Boston, SF are extremely expensive, with one bedroom apartments renting for 5K and selling for 1M. Not everyone wants a 1 hr long commute, and since we took away remote work we're stuffing everyone into expensive cities where people spend the remainder of their 50 percent not taken by taxes on housing (and health too in some cases) It's a disaster.
    - maerF0x0 7mo ago
      Yes, NIMBY-ism has done hard things to those specific areas. At least as far as we trust chatgpt, but people are still living in more median sq ft per person today than long ago (think 50-100 yrs ago). Of course rent per person will go up if we're renting 50-100% more space than in the past.

catoAppreciator 7mo ago

Grotesque.

pasquinelli 7mo ago

> We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. we are, but that doesn't mean we're not valuable. everything is disposable, everything is replacable. the idea that an individual human life isn't very valuable and that it's only first-worlders that have trouble understanding that is projection. that is the modern, first world (read capitalist) view of human life. you think you're thinking but you're actually regurgitating the ideology you've received.

altmanaltman 7mo ago

I mean, if you are willing to sell your personality, humanity and your soul, I am sure you will find a lot of bidders. Thats literally why slavery was a thing. There is a definite economic value to it. What does not is your consioisness that you experience since nobody else can use it.

interroboink 7mo ago

> there are billions of souls on this planet. They're not a rare thing > like say, gold. They're very easily produced, by two people getting it > on. That leads to a harsh conclusion: human beings aren't that valuable > as individuals. We are in fact very disposable and replaceable. I appreciate the perspective you're offering here, and I don't entirely disagree, especially from an economic angle. But I do want to offer a counterpoint: Lumps of gold are largely interchangeable. It's just a mass of gold atoms that we don't differentiate between, so one lump of gold is as good as another. But people are not like that. If you were to painstakingly transform a lump of gold into a beautiful sculpture, it would be worth more than its face value. And if a person transforms from the lump of flesh they are born as into a unique individual, they are worth something more, too. Two gold sculptures would not be interchangeable, to an art aficionado, and two people are not interchangeable in that way, either. On the gross large scale, yes, we're all lumps of flesh squidging around on the planet; a uniform slimy patina on a tiny ball of dirt. And our various large-scale systems and policies (economic, political, etc) treat people in this way, too, in varying degrees. But you are living your one and possibly only life (just like everyone else). And you have taken a unique path through that life (just like everyone else), and I'd just encourage you and/or others reading to cherish that, both in yourself and others, even if (or especially if) the systems in which we live don't seem to. It is something that can't be taken from you, because it is intrinsic to you, and that is a value beyond "what someone will pay for." Just my 2¢

dragontamer 7mo ago

I mean, Jack London was pretty famously a professional hobo, wandering the country looking for a place to stay. He got good at storytelling so that he'd have something to give to the families who took him in and fed him. Eventually Jack London writes Call of the Wild and becomes stupidly rich. Was Jack London the famous author, living off of all the money (writing less popular stories, like White Fang) more valuable because of all the money he made? Was Jack London the hobo less valuable because he didn't write the bestseller Call to the Wild yet? Or maybe, the entire concept of valuing people off a monetary lens is just bullshit.

satisfice 7mo ago
Comments like this are what I hope to see whenever I visit. Spurring thought. Challenging the obvious.

kelseyfrog 7mo ago

> Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job (our means of survival) is a luxury. Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job is the examined life. It what makes life worth living. We should be incredibly skeptical of a social system whose default is to have individuals primary identify by the work they do. That necessarily sets people up for continuous identity foreclosure and psychic famine in a self re-enforcing feedback loop. Frankly it's cringe to primarily identify by profession.

turtlesdown11 7mo ago

[flagged]

hackable_sand 7mo ago

You refuse to be in denial about your personal fears?

yunwal 7mo ago

> there are billions of souls on this planet. They're not a rare thing like say, gold. They're very easily produced, by two people getting it on. You've clearly never been through childbirth. Women go through incredible amounts of pain, and good parents make incredible sacrifices for their kids. They're not doing that because they're guaranteed some payoff.

booleandilemma 7mo ago

Your view is disgusting and the fact that your comment is the top one here shows how broken society is.

skrlet13 6mo ago

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