Bah. Everything is both. The bridge-builder is taking advantage of exclusivity of good crossing locations, to the exclusion of competing bridges. The troll keeps traffic down, making the bridge last longer. On reasonable time scales, most creations are built on top of so many prior components that it’s silly to think they wouldn’t be made by someone else if the world were slightly different in such a way that prevented it happening the way it did.
In the modern world of fractional share ownership, investment (capital), labor, and vision are entwined. It’s VERY easy for individuals to move between roles, and to hold multiple simultaneously.
Financial flows are purely based on extraction. There’s some government or natural exclusion capability that forces payment for use. Many things get created JUST in order to extract value from, but the extraction itself is based on exclusivity. Reputation does have some value, but it’s confused between actual capability, good luck, and active PR manipulation.
Everything is both. The bridge-builder is taking advantage of exclusivity of good crossing locations, to the exclusion of competing bridges. The troll keeps traffic down, making the bridge last longer. On reasonable time scales, most creations are built on top of so many prior components that it’s silly to think they wouldn’t be made by someone else if the world were slightly different in such a way that prevented it happening the way it did.
While I agree to a certain extent that everything is both, it can still be very useful to distinguish and label these things. And just because someone else would have made something doesn’t mean the person who actually did make it doesn’t deserve the credit.
In the modern world of fractional share ownership, investment (capital), labor, and vision are entwined. It’s VERY easy for individuals to move between roles, and to hold multiple simultaneously.
I agree completely—I specifically mention that these roles can be held by the same person. Perhaps I didn’t emphasize it enough.
I look forward to the follow-up post where it is actually feasible and useful to distinguish and label these things. I’d argue that it’s confusing at best, misleading at worst, to treat them as distinct and fundamental.
I should acknowledge that “deserve the credit” is a nonsense phrase to me. It would require a LOT of discussion to unpack what it actually means in practical terms, and probably not work even then. If that is a crux of your post, I should probably just step away.
I look forward to the follow-up post where it is actually feasible and useful to distinguish and label these things. I’d argue that it’s confusing at best, misleading at worst, to treat them as distinct and fundamental.
I’ll do my best not to disappoint. Out of curiosity, would you mind briefly summarizing the argument that treating them as distinct is bad?
I should acknowledge that “deserve the credit” is a nonsense phrase to me. It would require a LOT of discussion to unpack what it actually means in practical terms, and probably not work even then. If that is a crux of your post, I should probably just step away.
The initial impetus for me to try to write about all of this were multiple discussions I’ve had with people IRL about billionaires. It seemed to me that not only were other people’s thoughts on the issue muddled, I couldn’t formulate an effective counterargument because my own thoughts were lacking coherence. This series is my attempt to put all of these thoughts straight and see if they survive outside my head. I do appreciate the feedback.
My reasoning for thinking that treating them as distinct is a poor model is that it indicates a missing level of abstraction, or perhaps just an incorrect splitting of the reality of human interactions (both status and finance). It’s not carving reality at the joints.
I’d probably advise starting with the actual argument you want to make, and then generalize from that, rather than (or really, in addition to) first-principles pondering. If you’re trying to understand your intuition about billionaires, pick a few that you admire and a few you don’t, and see if you can identify the clustering criteria. My suspicion is that ALL of them are incredible organizers, visionaries, etc. AND incredibly privileged from birth, with no hesitation to make use of their extractive capabilities. So any differences in your opinion of them must be some other things.
Thanks; I’ll give this some thought. The initial conversation involved someone else arguing that the people working in Amazon warehouses deserved to be getting the money from Amazon, as opposed to Jeff Bezos, and that didn’t seem right to me, even though I couldn’t refute that the warehouse workers were doing a large percentage of the actual day-to-day work.
By thinking about it this way, I can refute with the point that work is compensated by wages, while investment is compensated by shares. Even though the warehouse workers (or stonemasons building the bridge) are doing labor, they aren’t bearing the risk of the enterprise, either monetarily (in investments that could become worthless) or personally (in years of their life “invested” in getting the enterprise started, or being the name in the headlines if it all fails).
Bah. Everything is both. The bridge-builder is taking advantage of exclusivity of good crossing locations, to the exclusion of competing bridges. The troll keeps traffic down, making the bridge last longer. On reasonable time scales, most creations are built on top of so many prior components that it’s silly to think they wouldn’t be made by someone else if the world were slightly different in such a way that prevented it happening the way it did.
In the modern world of fractional share ownership, investment (capital), labor, and vision are entwined. It’s VERY easy for individuals to move between roles, and to hold multiple simultaneously.
Financial flows are purely based on extraction. There’s some government or natural exclusion capability that forces payment for use. Many things get created JUST in order to extract value from, but the extraction itself is based on exclusivity. Reputation does have some value, but it’s confused between actual capability, good luck, and active PR manipulation.
While I agree to a certain extent that everything is both, it can still be very useful to distinguish and label these things. And just because someone else would have made something doesn’t mean the person who actually did make it doesn’t deserve the credit.
I agree completely—I specifically mention that these roles can be held by the same person. Perhaps I didn’t emphasize it enough.
I look forward to the follow-up post where it is actually feasible and useful to distinguish and label these things. I’d argue that it’s confusing at best, misleading at worst, to treat them as distinct and fundamental.
I should acknowledge that “deserve the credit” is a nonsense phrase to me. It would require a LOT of discussion to unpack what it actually means in practical terms, and probably not work even then. If that is a crux of your post, I should probably just step away.
I’ll do my best not to disappoint. Out of curiosity, would you mind briefly summarizing the argument that treating them as distinct is bad?
The initial impetus for me to try to write about all of this were multiple discussions I’ve had with people IRL about billionaires. It seemed to me that not only were other people’s thoughts on the issue muddled, I couldn’t formulate an effective counterargument because my own thoughts were lacking coherence. This series is my attempt to put all of these thoughts straight and see if they survive outside my head. I do appreciate the feedback.
My reasoning for thinking that treating them as distinct is a poor model is that it indicates a missing level of abstraction, or perhaps just an incorrect splitting of the reality of human interactions (both status and finance). It’s not carving reality at the joints.
I’d probably advise starting with the actual argument you want to make, and then generalize from that, rather than (or really, in addition to) first-principles pondering. If you’re trying to understand your intuition about billionaires, pick a few that you admire and a few you don’t, and see if you can identify the clustering criteria. My suspicion is that ALL of them are incredible organizers, visionaries, etc. AND incredibly privileged from birth, with no hesitation to make use of their extractive capabilities. So any differences in your opinion of them must be some other things.
Thanks; I’ll give this some thought. The initial conversation involved someone else arguing that the people working in Amazon warehouses deserved to be getting the money from Amazon, as opposed to Jeff Bezos, and that didn’t seem right to me, even though I couldn’t refute that the warehouse workers were doing a large percentage of the actual day-to-day work.
By thinking about it this way, I can refute with the point that work is compensated by wages, while investment is compensated by shares. Even though the warehouse workers (or stonemasons building the bridge) are doing labor, they aren’t bearing the risk of the enterprise, either monetarily (in investments that could become worthless) or personally (in years of their life “invested” in getting the enterprise started, or being the name in the headlines if it all fails).