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

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#231

Post by jessriedel » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

adamsbriscoe wrote: post #166

jessriedel wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are. You said > The most common trade is when a person can trade their time and their body’s energy. They are not "trading their body's energy". They a performing a task which requires innumerable inputs, among them energy, vitamins, oxygen, correct ambient temperatures, training, tools, etc. Energy has a preferred fundamental status in physics but it does not have such a status in this economic transaction. Ther…

> You are bringing it up because of the aura attached to it in in physics. I didn't get that out of the original comment, and wouldn't presume to apply intent. I think most learned professionals here understand what is meant when they hear or say (for example) "that task took a lot of energy" or "I spent a lot of energy doing xyz..." without having to spell it out in academic terms.

Huh? First, look at the context. He's starts with "time", "space", and "energy", and discusses them in the context of the "parameters of the universe". Second, he specifically says in his reply to me he intended to mean the physics concept of ”energy", not the everyday notion as you suggest.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#232

Post by dempedempe » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:14 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…

I don't think this "time saving" argument is only applicable to productivity. It works when applied to happiness as well.

You can't deny that there are many things we have to do in modern society that we would rather not do (e.g., taxes). If we can minimize or remove doing these things, then we can spend more time doing the things we enjoy.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#233

Post by acituan » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

lsorber wrote: post #228

acituan wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because humans are complex emergent systems with inherent information asymmetry. We are not transparent to ourselves in that what will make us satisfied in life. Worse yet, our reward mechanisms have evolved as best-guess proximal reinforcers. For example we find food tasty (proximal force) because nutrition makes us survive (ultimate force). But our taste can be and is hijacked by hyperpalatable food that now we are…

I sympathize with your views in that a formalisation of meaning in life would seem to take away from it somewhat. However, your response also comes across as putting a stake in the ground and thereby closing your mind as to what the utility framework has to offer. These are some of the problems with utility I took away from your comment: 1. Short term utility maximisation does not necessarily align with long term uti…

Thanks for the engaging response, it helps me think more clearly. I actually agree with all of your points.

I would actually love to have a formalized utility framework. I think cognitive science is attempting at this from first principles.

I also think the sense of your use of the word utility here sufficiently encapsulates what I want it to mean. And I think we as humanity have been actually working on these problems for such a long time, though without the formalization as we aspire to. Fairy tales, myths, religions, other wisdom traditions, philosophy schools, states, nations, they’ve been all trying to formulate some part of this utility maximization problem, albeit with abstract, indirect, symbolical etc language, and many many digressions in between.

The name of the game is wisdom; what is meaningful, what should we be doing in life, how not to get stuck in local maxima of our meaning making (i.e. bullshit ourselves).

But right now we have a discontinuity; we have long lost authority of religion, after WWII we’ve lost trust in power of the state, now we are only left with the market to make sense of our lives. For all the fantastic attributes it has, market can’t solve our general utility maximization problem, and that is why I was aversive to use it as a tool anymore.

As for your point on latent utility, I had dreamed about this too, but maximizing with imperfect information is an inseparable part of the game. Like you allude, there needs to be regularization to our maximization endeavors, simply because there might be inherent limits to its computability. There is certain information you will have only after participated in a situation e.g. choosing to be a parent, having a terminal illness etc, which also drastically changes your utility function. Or there are very weird components of the function like the nature of consciousness, problem of free-will etc. that again drastically changes the computation. Or mini-enlightenments after mystical experiences (e.g. psychedelic use) seem to change the utility function itself to approximate reality “better”, which would make that person’s prior computations faulty. In other words, what are trying to do is to actually approximate to that ideal latent utility function by getting more and more wise. And we might have exhausted what market can offer in this regard anymore.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#234

Post by jessriedel » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #176

jessriedel wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're using "energy" as a pseudoscientific gloss. A human being provides an extremely meager amount of energy in the physics sense of the word. That energy could be purchased much more cheaply. The economic value of human labor is more closely tied to human intelligence/dexterity. More reasons to think your comment is more about making the reader feel the insight is deep: there are other important conserved quantiti…

Please edit acerbic swipes out of your posts to HN. Your comment would be just fine without the swipey bits at the start of each paragraph. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I can't edit my comment any longer, and I appreciate the rope of moderators in maintaining civil discourse, but for the record I stand behind my use of the term "pseudoscientific". The comment I critiqued uses the trappings of science but not the content.

I also purposefully did not insult the commenter's character, but restricted my reply to the comment itself.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#235

Post by kilroy_jones » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:43 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…

Thanks for saying, and more eloquently than I likely could, exactly what I wanted to.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#236

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:45 PM UTC

allannienhuis wrote: post #109

gofarup wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s other ways to do it them having gigantic concrete bridges like Vegas. In downtown SF, you could put lower diagonal street bridges which would save an infinite amount of time for people driving.

Several large cities in China that I've been to tend to use pedestrian tunnels at many large intersections. It works pretty well - subway-like staircases at each corner, and nice wide hallway/tunnels going around the whole intersection. Occasionally with some shops. It has the advantage of being easy on the eyes above-ground. I can imagine in places with serious homelessness issues there could be problems, but the on…

These are fine if you're perfectly abled.

If you are disabled (permanently or temporarily), old, have strollers or luggage, then level-changes add quite some time in the best case or are completely unusable in the worst case.

In my experiences traveling with Asia, usually these systems were not outfitted with elevators.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#237

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:47 PM UTC

nouveaux wrote: post #174

fnord77 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, vegas has pedestrian overpasses and they are a tremendous waste of time - much worse than crosswalks. A better approach would be to keep the pedestrians at grade-level and have car under-passes

If you're talking about overpasses in general, I can see how car underpasses are more time efficient. I assume pedestrian over/under passes are cheaper to build. Regarding Vegas, it doesnt seem like crosswalks are more efficient, especially from the perspective of the driver. 1) Large intersections with crosswalks tends to have people linger in the middle of the street. This delays the flow of traffic. 2) Right turns…

The problem here is actually twofold;

- Crosswalks don't do well in overly large intersections

- Vegas over-concentrates traffic into large arterials that require large intersections in the first place.

A traditional American street grid, while requiring more stopping time, in general allows traffic to diffuse across many different routes, making large intersections with two ten lane roads unnecessary.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#238

Post by artsyca » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:52 PM UTC

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #30

I'd really like to get better at touch typing, is GNU Typist a solid recommendation, or are there better ones?

As a recommendation I'd suggest the typing of the dead hands down the funnest way to learn touch typing as well I recommend the DVORAK key layout because it's much more suited to touch typing as one's hands require far less travel and therefore less propensity for error

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#239

Post by ct520 » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #148

ct520 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you’re doing great, for what it’s worth.

thank you!

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#240

Post by soulofmischief » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 12:00 AM UTC

acituan wrote: post #215

jmeister wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Th…

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 other ways, learning about all the things you didn't have time to devote your life to.

Now imagine that you decide to share your own thoughts and opinions about say, cooking, or politics, or whatever, and you get shot down because a programmer's unique life skills isn't transferable to cooking or politics.

> 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

You can say this about literally any profession when you include the scope of the entire world and the people in it. And this is why we share our knowledge and wisdom with others, because we each only have a few pieces of the puzzle. Kobe shared his point of view so that others might gain some insight into the mind of a hard-working athlete, not so that someone might dismiss his thoughts based on his career (even though you try to claim it's not about his career, you start with the phrase "A popular basketball player", so it's fairly transparent what your meaning is).