Time is the only real currency we have • Hacker News Board

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#31

Post by nemetroid » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

> - Purchase and checkout items while you shop, rather than waiting in line at a cash register.

In Sweden, this has been a thing in most larger grocery stores for more than 10 years, e.g. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#32

Post by amelius » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

Interesting thought. The GDP would be replaced by GDTS, gross domestic time saved and the country with the highest GDTS would have the most flourishing economy. An ounce of gold would be worthless.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#33

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

ct520 wrote: post #29

keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

This is pretty much my life to the extent of how much I can control it in society. I never do any singular thing with the exception of work. I won’t leave the house unless I can divide and group that time into multiple objectives thus spreading the overhead of time lost against many achievements. If not in a meeting I have my pleasureable conversations via car phone when I commute some where. If I’m not in a meeting…

Make sure to stop and smell the roses. Research shows people on their death bed always regret working too much and not enough time with loved ones (if you’re a data driven sort of person).

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#34

Post by cryptica » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:32 PM UTC

Unfortunately, in essentially all big corporations, the incentives encourage developers to waste as much time as possible - Mostly by focusing their attention on creating elaborate and ever-changing development processes and constantly adding unnecessary software complexity at the same time. This doesn't work well at all when you also allow individuals to detach themselves from any responsibility over the code that they produce.

The culture of wasting time is so pervasive that the vast majority of developers who practice it don't even realize that they're doing it - Ironically, they're often the same people who write long articles about how to be productive and who brag about how organized and full their schedule is and how they're using all the latest productivity tools and how high their test coverage % is and how good their workflow and CI pipeline is... I call BS on all this.

People who spend most of their time explicitly thinking about processes are bureaucrats. Truly productive people don't need to think about processes, they evolve naturally through sweat and tears; good processes are the byproduct (emphasis on the word 'byproduct') of a focused mindset of desperately wanting to achieve specific goals, not the mindset of ticking-off boxes from a static checklist where you don't even understand the underlying purpose of the work.

You cannot be productive without a clear sense of purpose and goals. Unfortunately most software jobs today lack purpose - In this case it makes no sense to even talk about productivity. How can you know how productive (how fast you're moving towards your goal) you are if you don't even know what the end goal is. Finishing something is not a goal, it's a task. A goal is about a deeper purpose.

Also if your goal is to help your company earn more money, this is only a worthy goal if you have a way to check your personal progress towards that goal. Usually this is not possible to do in a big company because there are too many people working towards different goals within the same company (sometimes even conflicting goals); the reality is that your work probably doesn't matter so there is no such thing as productivity in a corporate environment because it's not possible to measure the impact of your work in relation to achieving a real company goal... However, if your goal is to maximize your personal ranking or salary within the company, this is a goal against which it is easy to measure progress; that's why personal goals trump company goals every time.

KPIs are a ridiculous, completely futile attempt to fix this problem.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#35

Post by t0mislav » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

We could optimize (probably we will) lot of things like you mentioned.

But then, we will still waste 20 times more looking at stupid things on internet.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#36

Post by ciconia » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

Somehow the idea that time is our only currency is conflated with efficiency. Yes, time is the most limited resources we have, and therefore the most precious, but does this mean we have to squeeze every last bit of productivity from our time? Do we really have to keep running all the time, always optimising for more efficiency?

I would say the exact opposite. If time is our most precious asset, let's rather spend it on what's really important: family, friends, community, environment, happiness, harmony. Let's pass our time doing things we love just the pleasure of doing it, rather than chasing after money, success of whatever. Let's live in the moment, for the moment.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#37

Post by easytiger » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

ct520 wrote: post #29

keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

This is pretty much my life to the extent of how much I can control it in society. I never do any singular thing with the exception of work. I won’t leave the house unless I can divide and group that time into multiple objectives thus spreading the overhead of time lost against many achievements. If not in a meeting I have my pleasureable conversations via car phone when I commute some where. If I’m not in a meeting…

A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#38

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #25

lucb1e wrote: post #8

The movie "in time" (2011) kind of explores this. At the time, I wrote: > it gets you thinking. What prevents time from being used as currency? Or are we really doing the same by paying people an hourly rate instead of based on their accomplishments? Not to mention how many lives that million years capsule must have cost.

This explores it in a rather poor way. Once you and all your friends have a hundred year on your accounts, why not just stop working in this society and just go build a new civilization using bottle caps as means of exchange? Why being slaves to people who fix prices for everything all the time? Also. Economy there had no sense. Every person is passively using 24h worth of 'money' every day by simply existing. That m…

[deleted]

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#39

Post by seventytwo » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

Parameters of the universe are currency. Time is one of them, space (or area on earth’s surface) is another, and energy is a third. How these three things are used is what generates value to human beings. Each of the fundamental items can be traded individually, but money is used as a proxy for value. The most common trade is when a person can trade their time and their body’s energy. They produce some level of value using those two inputs, and receive money (a proxy for that value) in exchange. A person who can generate more value with the same amount of time and energy should be receiving more money than someone who generates less value, as money is only a proxy for value.

People can also secure space. We’re used to thinking in terms of real estate, which always prices in the value of a structure or natural resources or potential on top of the raw spatial resource. But the raw three dimensional space can be traded as well, just like time or energy, as it is finite for humans.

Money is just a tangible abstraction later on top of these fundamental parameters of the universe we trade. Providing lots of energy in a small space in a short period of time is incredibly valuable to humans, and so money reflects that. Using energy and time and space in a more efficient way to produce something in a factory is valuable, so money reflects that.

It’s not that money isn’t real currency, it’s just an abstraction layer for tradable natural commodities like time, and energy, and space.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#40

Post by dudul » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

ct520 wrote: post #29

keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

This is pretty much my life to the extent of how much I can control it in society. I never do any singular thing with the exception of work. I won’t leave the house unless I can divide and group that time into multiple objectives thus spreading the overhead of time lost against many achievements. If not in a meeting I have my pleasureable conversations via car phone when I commute some where. If I’m not in a meeting…

Quite frankly, this all sounds pretty sad.

Being able to stop and just do nothing once in a while is important. And I do mean "nothing". Not play on one's phone or be idle in front of the TV. Nothing, as in sit down and just be left alone with your thoughts.