There are a bunch of home maintenance tasks where you care hire someone to do it but you can also just do it yourself or get help from friends to do it. Thinking of money as the only way to get things done is limiting.
Hmm, are there parts of the world where this is commonly an option? In Finland, “owning an apartment” generally means “owning a share of a housing cooperative”, and shareholders are required to pay their share of the cost of maintaining the building.
I guess that it would be possible for someone to avoid paying anything if they contributed their work instead, and managed to persuade the rest of the co-op to permit it, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.
In Finland, “owning an apartment” generally means “owning a share of a housing cooperative”, and shareholders are required to pay their share of the cost of maintaining the building.
It might come to a surprise but there are people who live in standalone buildings that don’t contain multiple apartments.
A task like watering plants is home maintenance. Clearing someone’s computer from viruses is also more or less home maintenance.
Building an IKEA cupboard is home maintenance.
I would guess most people on Lesswrong have fixed the computer of a friend without getting payed for it. We engage in a lot of activities that produce value for someone but which aren’t payed for with money.
I once read in a role playing handbook that while bribing a diplomat with money might produce heavy resistance, giving the diplomat a good contact that’s useful for the diplomat might make him owe you a valuable favor.
If you are a nerd who’s too shy to approach woman and you go to a bar with a friend who has very high social skills and that friend does the opening of conversations and tells a girl what a great guy you are and you end up in a relationship with the girl, that’s a favor that very valuable but not easy to buy with money.
I’m no communist who opposes money in principle, but want to stress the point that money is not the only way to exchange value. Simply being aware of your environment and creating value for other people can often create relationships where they are also happy to do something for you but no money exchanges hands.
It might come to a surprise but there are people who live in standalone buildings that don’t contain multiple apartments.
No need to get snarky. I’m obviously aware of that, but I was commenting in the context of your earlier comment, which talked specifically about “flats”. So a more exact phrasing of my comment would have been “Are there parts of the world where this is commonly an option [for flat-owners]”.
And I never made the claim that money is the only way to exchange value. I just got curious about how flat-ownership works in other countries, that’s all.
There are a bunch of home maintenance tasks where you care hire someone to do it but you can also just do it yourself or get help from friends to do it. Thinking of money as the only way to get things done is limiting.
Hmm, are there parts of the world where this is commonly an option? In Finland, “owning an apartment” generally means “owning a share of a housing cooperative”, and shareholders are required to pay their share of the cost of maintaining the building.
I guess that it would be possible for someone to avoid paying anything if they contributed their work instead, and managed to persuade the rest of the co-op to permit it, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.
It might come to a surprise but there are people who live in standalone buildings that don’t contain multiple apartments.
A task like watering plants is home maintenance. Clearing someone’s computer from viruses is also more or less home maintenance. Building an IKEA cupboard is home maintenance.
I would guess most people on Lesswrong have fixed the computer of a friend without getting payed for it. We engage in a lot of activities that produce value for someone but which aren’t payed for with money.
I once read in a role playing handbook that while bribing a diplomat with money might produce heavy resistance, giving the diplomat a good contact that’s useful for the diplomat might make him owe you a valuable favor.
If you are a nerd who’s too shy to approach woman and you go to a bar with a friend who has very high social skills and that friend does the opening of conversations and tells a girl what a great guy you are and you end up in a relationship with the girl, that’s a favor that very valuable but not easy to buy with money.
I’m no communist who opposes money in principle, but want to stress the point that money is not the only way to exchange value. Simply being aware of your environment and creating value for other people can often create relationships where they are also happy to do something for you but no money exchanges hands.
No need to get snarky. I’m obviously aware of that, but I was commenting in the context of your earlier comment, which talked specifically about “flats”. So a more exact phrasing of my comment would have been “Are there parts of the world where this is commonly an option [for flat-owners]”.
And I never made the claim that money is the only way to exchange value. I just got curious about how flat-ownership works in other countries, that’s all.