Money is technically just a proxy of other people time when you think about it.
Time is the only real currency we have
261–270 of 313 posts
Re: Time is the only real currency we have
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
> farms in Africa shipping cheap crop to us at the expense farms are not shipping cheap crops to us at their expense. They are trading. > reap the rewards of sweatshop labor in China These "sweatshops" brought them out of poverty in rural areas - they would've been a subsistence farmer and had less wealth. It feels unfair for them to only be paid pennies for an object that retail for over 50-60 bucks, but that's stil…
> farms are not shipping cheap crops to us at their expense. They are trading. I misplaced a word - at the expense of more local options in need of food. Either way I'd hope that'd be assumed, but I fixed it to not leave it to chance. > These "sweatshops" brought them out of poverty in rural areas - they would've been a subsistence farmer and had less wealth. It feels unfair for them to only be paid pennies for an ob…
Thinking it's technology doing that is a mistake. It's people doing that. Like the folks who ruined their Easter Island environment.
Technology has also saved us from environmental disasters. Whaling was stopped when oil was found. The denuding of trees from the landscape stopped when coal was discovered. (It's still going on in the Amazon, sadly.)
Re: Time is the only real currency we have
#263I’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…
> Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers That's because it's designed and run by the government, which has no interest in saving time. How many hours do we all waste waiting for a light to change when there's no cross traffic? having a "platoon" of cars come to a halt to let one car cross? having a light turn yellow at the last moment to slam on the brakes? How much g…
Roundabouts could replace most, although not all, instances of traffic lights. They're so pleasant to use.
Re: Time is the only real currency we have
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
Thanks for the comment. I do have a large family I take care of them as single source of income. I found I have to make a conscious effort to ensure I spend time with them. Since I have done that my quality of life improved greatly while still maintaining a hefty work schedule. A couple years back I audited how much time I was spending with my family/kids. It was embarrassing. Besides our normal routines I made the e…
Don't forget about art. That and human connections are what make life worth living.
Re: Time is the only real currency we have
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's like a defense mechanism. You value the work less because it was computer made rather than to admit to your flawed value assignment and vanity or human supremacism.
It's the difference between a friend giving you a note with words written on it, and finding a bunch of sticks arranged to the words by chance while strolling through the woods. There is nothing "flawed" about that valuing those things differently, how I judge things as valuable is entirely arbitrary, and entirely up to me. And with AI it's not even by chance, even mediocre results are produced only after processing…
[deleted]
Re: Time is the only real currency we have
#266> TurboCharge your Dev Environment This section feels like a stub where the author forgot to finish it. Was really hoping for some good ideas.
Thanks for the feedback. It does have a short write up on things to do. I have a lot more opinions on that, but was trying to balance out the overall length of the post. Will try having one out just on the dev environment :)
Looking at it again I didn’t realize the following sections were actually part of that header because the headers were the same size and style. I thought it was only that one paragraph about Jedi. That was my fault.
Re: Time is the only real currency we have
#267I hate this framing. It is pressuring, dehumanizing as it contextualizes human endeavor in transactional terms, usually in a market. I know this goes against the ethos of high-tech, but humans don't have an imperative to be as productive as possible. They don't have to make the most use of their time. They don't have to get as efficient as they could. These are metrics that work fine for our machines, our code. But h…
Yep. This attitude of being your own little manager of your own life and treating it like an incremental game is horrible. In James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games there one chapter on how the use of machines works both ways. It doesn't only shape the machine but it makes the person more 'machine-like'. In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of…
[deleted]
Re: Time is the only real currency we have
#268Jdowhwisvxslbxlzvsisvzsogdusu@12381%292\-272
Re: Time is the only real currency we have
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're doing essentially the opposite of appeal to authority. Imagine being a bright, capable mind, and a hard worker. You've decided to focus on a particular career which makes use of some of your skills, allows you a platform for recognition, and pays the bills. Say programming, or a dancer, or a top-tier professional athlete. Imagine that you still spend your free time satiating your intellectual curiosity in othe…
My choosing of phrase “A popular basketball player” is not to dismiss him on the basis of his profession but to contextualize his authority; that his authority comes from being good at sports but most importantly being enormously famous. This should not create undue relevance for him in this particular topic. But halo effects and whatnot, our stone age brains have the tendency to attribute importance to what he might…
> My choosing of phrase “A popular basketball player” is not to dismiss him on the basis of his profession but to contextualize his authority
So you admit, you're making an appeal to (lack of) authority. And it is based on his profession, or you wouldn't have brought up his profession while attempting to discredit his thoughts.
Re: Time is the only real currency we have
#270I hate this framing. It is pressuring, dehumanizing as it contextualizes human endeavor in transactional terms, usually in a market. I know this goes against the ethos of high-tech, but humans don't have an imperative to be as productive as possible. They don't have to make the most use of their time. They don't have to get as efficient as they could. These are metrics that work fine for our machines, our code. But h…
Yep. This attitude of being your own little manager of your own life and treating it like an incremental game is horrible. In James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games there one chapter on how the use of machines works both ways. It doesn't only shape the machine but it makes the person more 'machine-like'. In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of…
> Success today has to be defined in formal or quantifiable terms not because anyone actually consciously chose to do it, but because it's the only way you can put it in a computer, which actually was supposed to exist to empower people. It's pretty sad honestly.
Solution: make the computer better. On another note, what do we as a society want?
A. Society wants to survive for as long as it can.
Many decisions don't make much sense. Shouldn't reproduction be considered a crime as optimal population stands at 2-4 billion. If climate change progresses, we would all be dead sooner than later. And more people means more need for energy and construction and everything that accelerates climate change. We defy natural selection as well which we shouldn't given we don't need many people to begin with. Unemployment and automation - you wouldn't have to face that if there were only productive people. Only like 1% of people produce content on the internet, 99% are consumers. If we have less baggage, we would be able to do much more research and don't worry about trivial problems as those are solved through automation. There will be no need for UBI as low skilled folks don't exist. If someone doesn't want to help society survive for longer, they aren't needed.
That's not how the current world works so I am guessing A is partially false.
B. Society wants to survive as long as it can while enjoying hedonism to the fullest.
Might be true. I can't quantify the balance.
C. Survival is a zero sum game and there are many smaller societies coexisting like a network. Competition results in opposite ends for everyone.
This would explain the irrational wars.