Conversation

I’ve realized the reason I’m not a socialist or communist is that they’re just as obsessed with money mattering more. They just want rich people to matter less. Hence ideas like MMT, progressive taxation, UBI, etc.
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I don’t mean ineffable priceless stuff or conviviality phlogiston. Just things like a fun cozyweb discord that makes good memes where money is somewhere between useless and negative value in partaking. Often, money-matters-less things are time-based things.
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This is one reason quiet quitting etc is do hilarious and fun. People literally mining a thing money can’t access: private time.
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Money has a legibilizing, flattening effect no matter the source. Whether it’s a rich guy buying a public space, a cartel of penny-ante fans patreonizing an artist, degens blowing up stimmy checks, or ubi or whatever. The problem is 90% money, 10% the source flavor.
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When people see the world through money, it’s honestly hard work to see them as human. Doesn’t matter if it’s a billionaire or a small-time influencer furiously shilling something and viewing the world through a conversion funnel. If your API is money you kinda self-dehumanize.
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It’s not all social. For eg one of my favorite beyond-money things to do is cook for myself. $2 worth of ingredients, ton of info about my own tastes that’s basically useless to the rest of the planet. An entire 1-person food economy. I could run it even if I was last human.
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Replying to
I should write a thing “the art of being useless” I mean I’m already the guy stanning mediocrity, it’s not like my reputation has much further to plummet 🤣 Notable that it’s the “money” people (all flavors) who seem most offended by my mediocrity-stanning
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Being mediocre is actually a great way to definancialize anything. 80-20 principle. The first 80% of utility is 20% of the financial value, the last 20% is 80%.
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Another way is to way overdo the excellence. 6-sigma to 9-sigma is high value. 1-sigma and 12-sigma are both generally low value. But 1-sigma is way easier.
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I’d estimate about 80% of the output of my life in the last decade is too shitposty to meter or monetize. That’s how I stick it to the Man. And the Masses.
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Note: “Free” is a monetary idea. If you want various things to be free, you’re still trapped in a money frame. “The best things in life are free” is bullshit. They tend to be valued in post-money ways.
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To be clear, I’ve always been like this, even when I had no money. This is not about the marginal value of money going towards zero as you get more with age and savings. It’s about having a higher dimensional space of value with non-money vectors.
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