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

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#201

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #133

I agree with the sentiment of this article, but strongly disagree with the title, and the advice to learn to type fast. The title is abuse (or misunderstanding) of the word "currency". Currency is an accounting mechanism. Time is, well, something else. It's an incredibly valuable commodity, a necessary (but not sufficient) ingredient for any activity and hence any kind of progress, and one which you cannot make more…

> I never learned proper touch-typing

That's kind of sad. The most productive 2 week class I ever took was a touch typing class in 8th grade. We learned on mechanical typewriters where you really had to hammer the keys. This has paid off for me enormously.

> quite slow by coder standards

I spend very little time typing code in, that's not where my typing time is spent. For example, I am typing this while looking at the screen, not the keyboard. I catch and fix mistaeks much faster. When I'm transcribing text, touch typing doubles the speed because I read the original while typing.

I also try and optimize my code for readability, not minimal keystrokes.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#202

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:07 PM UTC

folli wrote: post #196

WalterBright wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of the machine rather than the other way around. I remember an article a while back where archaeologists examined the bones of pre-Columbian women in America. The bones showed the signs of long term debilitating, repetitive work from kneeling and grinding, by hand, corn into flour. Just last night I watched a…

Not everything is a dichotomy. Technology has certainly massively improved our lives, but that doesn't mean one cannot point out that there are also drawbacks.

That's why I wrote "largely free'd us", not "absolutely 100% in every case free'd us".

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#203

Post by clairity » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:11 PM UTC

didericis wrote: post #190

clairity wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're presuming the value and price are static in that example. once the capital investment has been made, the price of the bread will go down because less labor will be used to make it, as the marginal cost of the bread goes down. the labor in the capital investment will be amortized over time in the price. the capital investment itself should only capture the riskiness portion of the project, not the majority of t…

I’m not making any statements about current practices or what value is typically assigned to labor vs initial capital investments, just to be clear. And I know prices go down due to less labor being needed, meaning more supply results from less investment, but my point is that it’s wrong to assume labor is the underlying source of value. Labor has no intrinsic value. It’s only valuable in relation to output. For some…

> "...it’s wrong to assume labor is the underlying source of value. Labor has no intrinsic value."

primarily a value judgment stated axiomatically, rather than proof.

you could also argue that labor is the only intrinsic value, with all other value being projected onto the output as fashion.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#204

Post by janderland » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

acituan wrote: post #186

I 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…

Work has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I’ve always been obsessed with building stuff. Really, exploring, building, & optimizing things is a vital part of my humanity.

I’m sorry if others have tried to force their version of humanity on you, but what’s de-humanizing to one is the humanity of another.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#205

Post by clairity » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:19 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…

broadly speaking, you could argue waiting (in lines or other queues) in many instances is an externalized cost placed on consumers to the benefit of commerce/bureacracy. it allows the business/agency to optimize its operations at the expense of the customer. this isn't generally considered when making productivity and efficient allocation arugments in politics/economics.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#206

Post by Barrin92 » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #193

Barrin92 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> In an attempt to operate a machine the person has itself to act mechanical and to comply with the interface of the machine rather than the other way around. I remember an article a while back where archaeologists examined the bones of pre-Columbian women in America. The bones showed the signs of long term debilitating, repetitive work from kneeling and grinding, by hand, corn into flour. Just last night I watched a…

>I'd much rather mow my lawn with a mower than a pair of scissors.

I think you didn't go far enough with the implications of Carse's statement. It's not just that a machine mows your lawn quicker, it's that you have a homogenous lawn in the first place because it is a thing that can mechanically mowed.

For example, why instead of a lawn do more people not have a wild garden, with uneven terrain? Why did everyone feel compelled to put a green square, empty plot of land in front of their houses? is there anything interesting or alive in it, or does it exist because it can be mechanically operated? Given that mowing the lawn is something 'you want to get over with', is it not more accurate to say the lawnmower needs you shoving it around in a system that efficiently maximises lawn-mower production?

To understand the implication of what Carse is saying is to understand that machines don't just enter your environment, they shape your entire perception in a way that makes it conducive to be further operated by machines.

Is living in estranged suburbs with lawns really positive for human flourishing, or is it in a sense the logic of the car and the lawnmower operating on people rather than the other way around?

Is all the corn really part of a diverse diet and ecosystem, or have we adopted the diet because it is the thing that can be mass-produced?

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#207

Post by kortilla » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:39 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…

How did you justify writing this comment? No snark intended, I’m just actually curious how one justifies time wasted commenting on this site.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#208

Post by dfischer » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

What if Karma is real and that’s the only currency we need?

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#209

Post by bo1024 » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

pipingdog wrote: post #137

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…

The pedestrian signal is a time set aside to meditate on one's humility and patience.

Whereas the car signal is time set aside to check one's texts and notifications.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#210

Post by zelly » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 8:52 PM UTC

This article is a real failure in the rule of Profile Before Optimizing. Changing your editor or whatever is a micro-optimization. Among professions where typing is involved, programmers type the least number of keystrokes. Secretaries and data entry clerks type much more and often much faster than programmers. Also, a lot of typing is not even characters into the editor but keyboard shortcuts.

The real time killers are mental--fatigue, boredom, procrastination, anxiety, and so on. How many hours do you spend a week on HN or social media? How long are you going to take to do that big refactor you've been putting off? How long do you spend in useless meetings or chats you're not persuasive enough to get out of? At what point is RTFMing too long procrastination? How long do you spend watching N*tflix at home if you really want to get that side project done?

The bottleneck is never your typing speed or your editor commands. That is snake oil by script kiddies trying to sell you something.