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Time is the only real currency we have

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Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#301

Post by loco5niner »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #64
kator wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only currency you're born with is time. The rest are acquired by the application of time.

Really though? During that time, you occupy a space, and the spaces afforded you by the society you are born into define the constraints within which you can apply your time. That is, all of your "currency you are born with" is really "futures". Even the time on Earth you are allotted at birth is constrained by the environment you are born into.

You also consume space to gain energy.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#302

Post by soulofmischief »

acituan wrote: post #293
soulofmischief wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Discrediting him based on his profession would be saying "don't listen to a basketball player about work". That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying "don't give much credence to an immensely popular and powerful basketball player about work, because he is an outlier of outliers". He could have been an immensely popular and rich plumber for all I care, I still wouldn't put much weight to the fact that he "liked work". If…

I'm sorry, but I can't understand why you don't see the utility in listening to what a highly successful person has to say about their personal work ethic.

Reread the quote again. He wasn't giving advice. He was explaining his own mentality. You jumped the gun and started criticizing him as if he is proselytizing on the streets.

If there are any criticisms to be had about what Kobe said, they could be made in good faith without an unnecessary mention of his career as a limiting factor of his experience.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#303

Post by jodrellblank »

ImaCake wrote: post #249
jodrellblank wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no surprise that you like what you have; people like whatever it is that they have, whether they originally wanted it or not: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_surprising_science...

Tell that to anyone who is poor in an economic depression. Or anyone who has a serious illness. I once spent three months bedridden from an autoimmune illness. I never once "liked" what I had.

And yet "wartime spirit" is a thing. "We were poor but happy" is a cliche'd phrase for a reason. I'm not going to tell you that you enjoyed your serious illness, but it's not a claim that everyone feels happy all the time (clearly false) or that people wouldn't always change things if they could, it's about what studies repeatedly find from people's self-reported happiness.

That we vastly over estimate how happy success will make us, and how miserable illness and failure will make us. That 6 months after winning the lottery or becoming paraplegic people self-report being equally happy with their lives compared to before. That people become happier when stuck with a thing they can't change, than they do with a thing they feel they can change. That we don't know this about ourselves makes us make choices that make us less happy overall. And that these are surprising results is the reason the talk is worth watching.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#304

Post by jodrellblank »

WalterBright wrote: post #260
jodrellblank wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no surprise that you like what you have; people like whatever it is that they have, whether they originally wanted it or not: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_surprising_science...

> It's no surprise that you like what you have Of course, as I've gotten rid of stuff I don't like and replaced it with stuff I do. As a hunter-gatherer, though, I wouldn't have such options.

In the scale of internet discussions, this isn't responding to the strongest form of the claim; yes getting rid of things you dislike and replacing them with things you like feels good, but the claim from Prof. Gilbert is that if you can't get rid of things you dislike, then you change to like them more, is so much more significant.

The idea that, if you were a hunter gatherer and didn't have options you would be less happy is the what the talk and the described research is calling false; instead we demonstrably adjust to become happy when faced with no options, which means people like what they have more than they predicted they would not just because they got to choose it, but even if they couldn't choose it.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#305

Post by ImaCake »

jodrellblank wrote: post #303
ImaCake wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to anyone who is poor in an economic depression. Or anyone who has a serious illness. I once spent three months bedridden from an autoimmune illness. I never once "liked" what I had.

And yet "wartime spirit" is a thing. "We were poor but happy" is a cliche'd phrase for a reason. I'm not going to tell you that you enjoyed your serious illness, but it's not a claim that everyone feels happy all the time (clearly false) or that people wouldn't always change things if they could, it's about what studies repeatedly find from people's self-reported happiness. That we vastly over estimate how happy succ…

I think this is important nuance that I did not address in my comment above this one. It is very true that the problem space of choosing things to maximise happiness is filled with unknowns and hazards.

Thanks, I take no offence and I understand your intention here. It is important to understand that suffering and happiness are not mutually exclusive, and for some people the intersection might be larger for where happiness intersects with suffering than for happiness or suffering by themselves.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#306

Post by maxpshaw »

hackeryogi wrote: post #79
carapace wrote: post #61

This is great! In re: time is money, it's even worse than that: attention is money. The quality of time varies with the "self-remembrance" if you will. - - - - Take time to "pop the 'why?' stack. In practice many of us are "yak shaving" and wasting a lot of time and effort on "low-leverage" actions. > yak shaving > [MIT AI Lab, after 2000: orig. probably from a Ren & Stimpy episode.] Any seemingly pointless activity…

Does xkcd even need attribution? I was sure most readers would recognise the art (if not the comic) :) Point taken and corrected (noob blogger mistakes!) Thanks!

You mentioned "if one person on a team of 10 engineers spends 3 whole days shaving off even 30 seconds on a task done by everyone only 5 times a day, we would have gotten a complete return on investment over a period of just 6 months".

How did you get 6 months? can you shed some light on the calculation? Thanks!

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#307

Post by dhruvkar »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #81
dhruvkar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Where? Would love to know how to get access to this.

At least some of the Ahold Delhaize subsidiaries (Food Lion, Hannaford, Giant, Stop&Shop) have handheld scanner kiosks you can checkout when you enter. I know Giant and Stop&Shop also offer a smartphone app that operates the same way as the kiosk units using your smartphone camera to scan. I've seen the kiosk system at Kroger in the midwest. Sam's Club offers a mobile app scanner. Perhaps it's just the places I frequ…

Thanks!

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#308

Post by dhruvkar »

bananamerica wrote: post #287
chadcmulligan wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats one thing the pandemic has made clear - how many jobs are unnecessary.

Depends on your criteria for necessity. I’d argue that if a job is required to give a person a living wage, than it is necessary.

really? A job is necessary insofar as the value it provides in it's context. If bagging is not providing value, then the job isn't necessary.

Jobs (unfulfilled value) don't exist to provide a living wage.

A living wage is earned by doing something of value (a job).

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#310

Post by bonoboTP »

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…

> It seems reasonable to call the homogenized looks of modern suburbs to be in big part a side effect of that invention.

Europe has lawn mowers too, but people still don't live in soulless unwalkable dystopian suburbs as Americans. It has to do with a lot more than automation. It's partially crimes, partially race relations, inequality, crime, a cultural desire for large living space deriving from manifest destiny and the dream of the wild west, extreme individualism, sparse population etc.

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