some personal musings about the concept of money (500 words)
having been brought up by a dad who firmly believes in the superiority of capitalism has left be with quite a weird and flawed intuitive understanding of money
you see, in the eyes of the capitalist, money is an instrument through which one can obtain other, more direct forms of value
and interacting with the capitalistic system is the endeavor of attempting to maximize the amount of value you own and control
of course, the system through which you assign value to various things can be subjective, and indeed almost always will be.
but some things, especially intangible ones, can be hard to quantify in this mental model. which means that small, fleeting things are kinda discouraged by this understanding of money.
because their marginal utility is quite hard to measure and easily rounds to zero.
all this gets quite bad if I have no income whatsoever and have to rely on my savings. anything that I don't consider to be strictly necessary will be very hard to justify to myself.
paradoxically, a casual observer would see this and describe me as being good with money.
when i have a consistent stream of income, or at the very least a readily available way of exchanging labor for income with suitably low uncertainty and overhead, it gets a bit better.
still, it's a mindfuck.
one way I've been managing is by considering things to be donations even when they don't exactly fit this description.
you see, in the view of an economist, an entirely rational actor would have almost no reason whatsoever to donate money. and yet, it's a thing that kinda just happens, even relatively often.
while unnecessary spending is something that my mind is keen to consider a failing, a donation of the same amount is seen as a virtue.
so, the fares I'm paying for discretionary travel are henceforth donations towards the purpose of better public transit for our community. that visit at the cat cafe? it's not a needless cost, it's a donation towards the continued existence of that wonderful place. buying games? yeah i could pirate them, but it would be nicer to donate to the creator, who's probably trying to make a living. hell, admission for a conference? you bet it's a donation, of an amount thoughtfully determined by the organizers so I don't have to think about what's appropriate.
this also has the additional component in that it doesn't work for things that are outright consumerism — and I consider that to be a virtue. it's a good mechanism for subconsciously regulating myself away from things that aren't the leisure equivalent of nutritious.
in a way, through a lot of mental gymnastics, I've kind of recreated the way it's probably meant to function. some internal function of value still applies. but now, it's an entirely different type of things being valuable. one that has space for the intangible.
you see, in the eyes of the capitalist, money is an instrument through which one can obtain other, more direct forms of value
and interacting with the capitalistic system is the endeavor of attempting to maximize the amount of value you own and control
of course, the system through which you assign value to various things can be subjective, and indeed almost always will be.
but some things, especially intangible ones, can be hard to quantify in this mental model. which means that small, fleeting things are kinda discouraged by this understanding of money.
because their marginal utility is quite hard to measure and easily rounds to zero.
all this gets quite bad if I have no income whatsoever and have to rely on my savings. anything that I don't consider to be strictly necessary will be very hard to justify to myself.
paradoxically, a casual observer would see this and describe me as being good with money.
when i have a consistent stream of income, or at the very least a readily available way of exchanging labor for income with suitably low uncertainty and overhead, it gets a bit better.
still, it's a mindfuck.
one way I've been managing is by considering things to be donations even when they don't exactly fit this description.
you see, in the view of an economist, an entirely rational actor would have almost no reason whatsoever to donate money. and yet, it's a thing that kinda just happens, even relatively often.
while unnecessary spending is something that my mind is keen to consider a failing, a donation of the same amount is seen as a virtue.
so, the fares I'm paying for discretionary travel are henceforth donations towards the purpose of better public transit for our community. that visit at the cat cafe? it's not a needless cost, it's a donation towards the continued existence of that wonderful place. buying games? yeah i could pirate them, but it would be nicer to donate to the creator, who's probably trying to make a living. hell, admission for a conference? you bet it's a donation, of an amount thoughtfully determined by the organizers so I don't have to think about what's appropriate.
this also has the additional component in that it doesn't work for things that are outright consumerism — and I consider that to be a virtue. it's a good mechanism for subconsciously regulating myself away from things that aren't the leisure equivalent of nutritious.
in a way, through a lot of mental gymnastics, I've kind of recreated the way it's probably meant to function. some internal function of value still applies. but now, it's an entirely different type of things being valuable. one that has space for the intangible.