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Time is the only real currency we have

blog.theboringtech.io

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Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#211

Post by WalterBright »

Barrin92 wrote: post #206
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…

>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 fee…

We went to agriculture because otherwise we'd starve. Mechanized agriculture has virtually eliminated starvation. I don't want to live like medieval people did. If you think their lives were better because of no machines, I frankly cannot understand that.

My lawn is mostly wild, I just mow it once a month or so to keep it from being an impenetrable tangle of blackberry pushes about 8 feet high. Cutting those bushes by hand is an exhausting process. I finally got a weed whacker and replaced the string on it with a blade, which knocks them down to a size where the mower can finish them off.

Much as I dislike gardening, I dislike being buried in blackberry bushes even more. I also keep the brush down around the house because it's a fire hazard, and it gives cover for mice to get in the house, and provides avenues for insects to get in the house.

Grass also does a good job of keeping the erosion of the hill I'm on down - blackberries don't. Keeping the grass from going to seed reduces my problems with being allergic to grass pollen.

So yes, there are reasons other than impressing the neighbors.

If I ever do sell the joint, however, I'll have to have it properly landscaped, as I'm sure that'll increase the value of the property far more than it would cost.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#212

Post by idavidrein »

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…

You're not thinking broadly enough about the utility maximization framework. What's wrong with just including bread baking, hanging out with friends, etc. as things you find valuable, and then try and maximize those jointly with the value you find in productivity and working?

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#213

Post by downshun »

smnplk wrote: post #175
downshun wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://hackaday.com/2017/08/22/self-playing-violin-eighth-w... https://youtu.be/gA03iyI3yEA > can't be automated away

sorry, but no AI can come close to any decent composer

"No computer can beat a chess grandmaster"

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#214

Post by TeMPOraL »

WalterBright wrote: post #211
Barrin92 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 fee…

We went to agriculture because otherwise we'd starve. Mechanized agriculture has virtually eliminated starvation. I don't want to live like medieval people did. If you think their lives were better because of no machines, I frankly cannot understand that. My lawn is mostly wild, I just mow it once a month or so to keep it from being an impenetrable tangle of blackberry pushes about 8 feet high. Cutting those bushes b…

Nitpick section:

> We went to agriculture because otherwise we'd starve. (...) If you think their lives were better because of no machines, I frankly cannot understand that.

It's not like that. We were forced to start doing agriculture by competitive pressure; the people who did could conquer the people who didn't. Agriculture essentially gave us everything we consider achievements and civilization, so I'm glad that it happened, but there is a point made by some historians that the transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture marked a significant quality-of-life decrease for individuals, and we've only rebounded from that in the last few centuries.

> Mechanized agriculture has virtually eliminated starvation.

+/- supply chains. As we're about to see with COVID-19, just because we can sow and reap efficiently, doesn't mean people won't starve.

--

Anyway, GP's point here isn't that cutting bushes by hand is somehow better - but that the reason most people worry about those bushes, or have a lawn in the first place, is technology. The point may not apply to houses on the countryside, which have to fight off the wilderness for practical reasons. But there's a curious co-dependency between lawnmowers and suburbs. The reason you need a lawnmower is to maintain your lawn. The reason you need to maintain your lawn as a flat sheet of grass is because your HOA wants to make the area look nice (to some standard of aesthetics). The reason they want that is because they can. The reason they can demand that is because cheap and available lawnmowers exist.

If I'm to believe Wikipedia[0], lawnmowers were created to help maintain sports grounds and large gardens. It seems reasonable to call the homogenized looks of modern suburbs to be in big part a side effect of that invention.

--

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_mower#History

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#215

Post by acituan »

jmeister wrote: post #200
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…

Counter-point: Kobe(RIP) on having time for friends: “I have "like minds." You know, I've been fortunate to play in Los Angeles, where there are a lot of people like me. Actors. Musicians. Businessmen. Obsessives. People who feel like God put them on earth to do whatever it is that they do. Now, do we have time to build great relationships? Do we have time to build great friendships? No. Do we have time to socialize…

A popular basketball player is hardly an authority in giving out wisdom on this matter. Not because of their profession, but because whatever wisdom they gathered through their exceptionally unique life situation is not going to be transferable to the life of 99.999..% of the world. This is not sound advice for how most of us should orient ourselves in life.

He was the top or close to the top of a zero-sum system. There can only be a limited number of hyper-popular NBA players deified in our collective consciousness. Of course he is going to be biased on his work/life satisfaction. The relevant bit is, we are not Kobe. I am not Kobe. You are not Kobe. We never will be Kobe. Now, what is meaningful for us to do?

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#216

Post by slowmovintarget »

Barrin92 wrote: post #206
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…

>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 fee…

> is there anything interesting or alive in it

I watch the robins foraging for worms on mine. I can look out the window and see fat bumblebees lazily weave among the patches of clover in the late morning. In the afternoon, I get to see my child scrambling across it looking for dandelion flowers to make a bouquet.

If it were a wild garden, we'd have none of that, and I'd have much worse insect (ticks, mosquitoes) and deer problems.

I enjoy the sight of my small mini-field. The wilderness brings me disease and pestilence, which I'd prefer to keep at a distance from where my family rests their heads.

I'll take the mower, thank you.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#217

Post by didericis »

clairity wrote: post #203
didericis wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The proof was in the counter example I provided, which is one of many. There are clearly instances where labor is present, but there isn't any value being generated. If labor had intrinsic value, that would not be the case.

I'm not discounting the value of labor relative to output, and it's clearly related to how we assign value to that output, but I think the labor theory of value is too simplistic and places too much value on labor and not enough value on utility.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#218

Post by WalterBright »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #214
WalterBright wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We went to agriculture because otherwise we'd starve. Mechanized agriculture has virtually eliminated starvation. I don't want to live like medieval people did. If you think their lives were better because of no machines, I frankly cannot understand that. My lawn is mostly wild, I just mow it once a month or so to keep it from being an impenetrable tangle of blackberry pushes about 8 feet high. Cutting those bushes b…

Nitpick section: > We went to agriculture because otherwise we'd starve. (...) If you think their lives were better because of no machines, I frankly cannot understand that. It's not like that. We were forced to start doing agriculture by competitive pressure; the people who did could conquer the people who didn't. Agriculture essentially gave us everything we consider achievements and civilization, so I'm glad that…

Hunter-gatherers regularly starve, because food resources are inconsistent. When you get too old to follow the herd with the tribe, you get left behind to die. You get a crippling injury, you get left behind to die. Hunting and killing game is always a high risk activity for injury and death.

Starvation greatly limited the number of humans.

Me, I like consistent, varied, cheap food. I like living in a heated dwelling in winter. I like cotton undies. I like being dry in the rain. I like having teeth that last. I like having corrective lenses. I like disco music. I like my office. I like playing with my hot rod. I like knowing that the doc can likely patch me up if I get injured. I don't want to deal with horses. I like glass windows.

All this complaining about modern technology "dehumanizing" people makes me laugh. It's like complaining about a door ding in your Ferrari.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#219

Post by TeMPOraL »

downshun wrote: post #213
smnplk wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, but no AI can come close to any decent composer

"No computer can beat a chess grandmaster"

It's not that. I can easily believe a good DNN could today generate better (by any kind of objective standard) music than one created by top composers.

But here is where we discover another component of value that exists in arts: the connection to human mind. Given a piece of music you like that you don't know the provenance of, you'll probably value it different after learning it was composed by a human vs. generated by an algorithm on the spot. It's irrational, but that's how things are with people.

A similar case would be of story generation in games. I don't know about you, but for me, learning that a story or a quest line was procedurally generated essentially destroys my suspension of disbelief on the spot.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#220

Post by WalterBright »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #216
Barrin92 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 fee…

> is there anything interesting or alive in it I watch the robins foraging for worms on mine. I can look out the window and see fat bumblebees lazily weave among the patches of clover in the late morning. In the afternoon, I get to see my child scrambling across it looking for dandelion flowers to make a bouquet. If it were a wild garden, we'd have none of that, and I'd have much worse insect (ticks, mosquitoes) and…

Yeah, I forgot to mention that mowing gets rid of the lyme disease ticks, too.
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