4 ms·

Isn't the whole point of an economy a method of resolving scarcity? Money is a proxy for participation; it keeps me from having to agree to paint the miller's f

Isn't the whole point of an economy a method of resolving scarcity? Money is a proxy for participation; it keeps me from having to agree to paint the miller's fence in exchange for some flour.

__MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
That's the perspective that our current systems are based on. And back when the majority of the problems that people were up against had to do with there being not enough of something to go around--when it took half of us working in the fields just to feed the rest of us--then the system worked relatively well. 9 times out of 10, when somebody got a loan (which is the event that injects dollars into the system) it had something to do with alleviating the not-enough-stuff problems that we faced. The quickest route to profitability had something to do with solving problems in ways that--by happenstance--let them stay solved. This is relevant since profitability is how banks decide whether to grant a loan, and loans are what cause USD to enter the system. Previously, we mostly had good reason to want people's ventures to succeed. But nowadays, most loans are for zero-sum ventures that have more to do with capturing a share of some fixed resource (attention/influence mostly), or building something that helps some of us at the expense of others (missiles, datacenters, planned obsolescence, surveillance, etc). It's no longer clear whether we're better off with the success or failure of a randomly chosen business venture. Maybe that venture seeks to harm us. The quickest route to profitability has changed. Now it's about making things worse for the many while benefiting the few (since it's the few who have all the money). Yet we're still treating dollars as valuable despite the fact that they're issued on the basis of profitability, a property that no longer has much to do with making our lives better. So I think we need a system that understands consent. When I accept some abstraction from my employer in exchange for my labor I need to be able to look at it and decide whether accpepting it helps people who are helping me, or whether it helps people who want to poison my drinking water for their mining endeavor. Dollars don't carry enough information to enable me to make that decision, and so far neither does crypto. We don't have to banish scarcity entirely before building monetary systems that are not based on it. Once we figure out the better way, it'll likely be crypto-shaped, except it won't ask you to buy it, it'll just ask you to use it. It'll be a rejection of the old ideas about value.
- win311fwg 4mo ago
  > When I accept some abstraction from my employer in exchange for my labor That abstraction is simple debt. Your employer is, in exchange for what you've given them, promising to return to you something of value (food, shelter, entertainment, etc.) in the future. Money is the account of the promise made. The alternative is to forgo the debt and trade something of equal value at the time of the transaction. However, any negative externalities associated with you choosing what item of value you want to trade for exists whether you demand it immediately or defer acceptance until some time in the future. Trying to find a new way to practice accounting isn't going to change anything.
  - __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
    Simple debt isn't cutting it anymore. The "Debt to whom, and what outcomes does that person value?" question is important. Ignoring it and continuing to buy and sell simple debt traps people in situations where their economic way forward involves contributing to outcomes that makes their material situation worse. It's time bomb, each generation has diminishing incentives to participate. > alternative is to forgo the debt and trade something of equal value "equal value" is only a well defined concept when we have shared interests. But when half of us are trying to go to Mars and the other half is trying to prevent the first half from going to Mars so we can instead dedicate those resources to healthcare... when we're fighting over the steering wheel rather than fighting against a common enemy... then we can't usefully coordinate around a single untyped notion of "value". We're just running in circles negating each other's efforts. Our current economy is mostly waste. New ways of accounting that don't obfuscate conflicts of interest the way that simple debt does will indeed change things.
    - win311fwg 4mo ago
      > The "Debt to whom, and what outcomes does that person value?" question is important. It may be, but it is one you, the employer, can easily ask during the interview. If a prospective employee doesn't align with your values, you don't have to hire them, and thus won't have to make them any promises to deliver anything that you don't feel comfortable with. This isn't only theoretical. "Cultural fit" is considered by a large swath of employers to be one of the most important aspects of hiring. I know the typical HN account loves to over-engineer solutions to mundane things, but you really don't have to invent some new type of accounting for this. All you have to do is talk to the people in your life.
inigyou 4mo ago
Used to be, but now it's agree to paint Musk's fence in exchange for nothing, or else you aren't even allowed to exist, because the system has been thoroughly gamed. Usually when a metric becomes too gamed it's imperative that we stop using it as a metric (Goodhart's law) or else very bad things happen.
- bigfishrunning 4mo ago
  I live a perfectly fine, productive life not contributing to musk's empire. Are y'all really buying Teslas and blue twitter checks? The fact that he has a bunch of money really has no bearing on me.
  - __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
    Somebody sells a tesla and then buys something from you with that money... and now you're contributing to musk's empire. Our money is set up so that you're not in a position to consent to it or even be aware of it.
    - bigfishrunning 4mo ago
      Sounds like I sold something and therefore made money! glad to hear my business is doing well.
      - __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
        Sure, but at what cost? Maybe you made $10, by doing so did you enable musk to do $9 of harm to you, or was it $11?
        Dylan16807 4mo ago
        Almost certainly less than $1. What kind of harm do you have in mind here?
        4mo ago
port11 4mo ago
A lot of people seem to conflate currency with The Economy. These are not the same at all, but plenty of comments don’t make that distinction. The twisted perversion of Capitalism that is in effect today is dramatically dissociated from the idea of currency as a stable means of, yes, measuring participation. Perverting the value of participation and economic contribution is, perhaps, what the cancerous elite can be mostly said to have done to destroy the true purpose of an economy.

Isn't the whole point of an economy a method of resolving scarcity? Money is a proxy for participation; it keeps me from having to agree to paint the miller's fence in exchange for some flour.

__MatrixMan__ 4mo ago

That's the perspective that our current systems are based on. And back when the majority of the problems that people were up against had to do with there being not enough of something to go around--when it took half of us working in the fields just to feed the rest of us--then the system worked relatively well. 9 times out of 10, when somebody got a loan (which is the event that injects dollars into the system) it had something to do with alleviating the not-enough-stuff problems that we faced. The quickest route to profitability had something to do with solving problems in ways that--by happenstance--let them stay solved. This is relevant since profitability is how banks decide whether to grant a loan, and loans are what cause USD to enter the system. Previously, we mostly had good reason to want people's ventures to succeed. But nowadays, most loans are for zero-sum ventures that have more to do with capturing a share of some fixed resource (attention/influence mostly), or building something that helps some of us at the expense of others (missiles, datacenters, planned obsolescence, surveillance, etc). It's no longer clear whether we're better off with the success or failure of a randomly chosen business venture. Maybe that venture seeks to harm us. The quickest route to profitability has changed. Now it's about making things worse for the many while benefiting the few (since it's the few who have all the money). Yet we're still treating dollars as valuable despite the fact that they're issued on the basis of profitability, a property that no longer has much to do with making our lives better. So I think we need a system that understands consent. When I accept some abstraction from my employer in exchange for my labor I need to be able to look at it and decide whether accpepting it helps people who are helping me, or whether it helps people who want to poison my drinking water for their mining endeavor. Dollars don't carry enough information to enable me to make that decision, and so far neither does crypto. We don't have to banish scarcity entirely before building monetary systems that are not based on it. Once we figure out the better way, it'll likely be crypto-shaped, except it won't ask you to buy it, it'll just ask you to use it. It'll be a rejection of the old ideas about value.

win311fwg 4mo ago
> When I accept some abstraction from my employer in exchange for my labor That abstraction is simple debt. Your employer is, in exchange for what you've given them, promising to return to you something of value (food, shelter, entertainment, etc.) in the future. Money is the account of the promise made. The alternative is to forgo the debt and trade something of equal value at the time of the transaction. However, any negative externalities associated with you choosing what item of value you want to trade for exists whether you demand it immediately or defer acceptance until some time in the future. Trying to find a new way to practice accounting isn't going to change anything.
- __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
  Simple debt isn't cutting it anymore. The "Debt to whom, and what outcomes does that person value?" question is important. Ignoring it and continuing to buy and sell simple debt traps people in situations where their economic way forward involves contributing to outcomes that makes their material situation worse. It's time bomb, each generation has diminishing incentives to participate. > alternative is to forgo the debt and trade something of equal value "equal value" is only a well defined concept when we have shared interests. But when half of us are trying to go to Mars and the other half is trying to prevent the first half from going to Mars so we can instead dedicate those resources to healthcare... when we're fighting over the steering wheel rather than fighting against a common enemy... then we can't usefully coordinate around a single untyped notion of "value". We're just running in circles negating each other's efforts. Our current economy is mostly waste. New ways of accounting that don't obfuscate conflicts of interest the way that simple debt does will indeed change things.
  - win311fwg 4mo ago
    > The "Debt to whom, and what outcomes does that person value?" question is important. It may be, but it is one you, the employer, can easily ask during the interview. If a prospective employee doesn't align with your values, you don't have to hire them, and thus won't have to make them any promises to deliver anything that you don't feel comfortable with. This isn't only theoretical. "Cultural fit" is considered by a large swath of employers to be one of the most important aspects of hiring. I know the typical HN account loves to over-engineer solutions to mundane things, but you really don't have to invent some new type of accounting for this. All you have to do is talk to the people in your life.

inigyou 4mo ago

Used to be, but now it's agree to paint Musk's fence in exchange for nothing, or else you aren't even allowed to exist, because the system has been thoroughly gamed. Usually when a metric becomes too gamed it's imperative that we stop using it as a metric (Goodhart's law) or else very bad things happen.

bigfishrunning 4mo ago
I live a perfectly fine, productive life not contributing to musk's empire. Are y'all really buying Teslas and blue twitter checks? The fact that he has a bunch of money really has no bearing on me.
- __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
  Somebody sells a tesla and then buys something from you with that money... and now you're contributing to musk's empire. Our money is set up so that you're not in a position to consent to it or even be aware of it.
  - bigfishrunning 4mo ago
    Sounds like I sold something and therefore made money! glad to hear my business is doing well.
    - __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
      Sure, but at what cost? Maybe you made $10, by doing so did you enable musk to do $9 of harm to you, or was it $11?
      - Dylan16807 4mo ago
        Almost certainly less than $1. What kind of harm do you have in mind here?
        4mo ago

port11 4mo ago

A lot of people seem to conflate currency with The Economy. These are not the same at all, but plenty of comments don’t make that distinction. The twisted perversion of Capitalism that is in effect today is dramatically dissociated from the idea of currency as a stable means of, yes, measuring participation. Perverting the value of participation and economic contribution is, perhaps, what the cancerous elite can be mostly said to have done to destroy the true purpose of an economy.