Besides, say, actively participating in the production of basic food and shelter, what is valuable work?
A follow-up, how would you defend the value system I'm asking for as non-arbitrary?
It seems arbitrary, but if some billionaire pays you a million dollars to bite her toe off, that's still immensely more valuable than the 10 years spent in the article because a million dollars worth of obligations were just released to someone who will (on average) spend them.
Money is just a note of a generic obligation (aka debt) from the rest of society in that currency.
The need for food and shelter only requires a small percentage of our collective time these days. The much larger part of our economic activity is not grounded in that need, though it may be convenient to make other people think that working 40 hours a week is just barely enough to earn the right to exist.
HN is not free in the purest sense. Companies/ideas/agendas are presented to you. It a way it's a platform and platforms are usually free and offer at least some network effect value.
So, "valuable work" is just work with financial benefits? If I save 100 poor people's lives it's worth less than if I drive a millionaire around for $10?
Loyality gained from those 100 poor people could allow trust between you that allows you to gain additional value (100 poor people trained becomes a powerful army). While the 10 dollars you gained while driving around someone you missed 100 dollar opportunities.
But I'd say to a first approximation, economic effort defined towards the pursuit of maximising arbitrary stats in a video game, is less likely to be valuable work.
That's really all I'm saying. Just because its hard to define objectively, shouldn't mean its a free-for-all, and that we accept that all activity is equally useful (or un-useful.)
We can and should use our judgement here.
Not a perfect signal, but if someone will pay you to do it, your work is probably valuable to them.
This gets distorted by wealth inequality and probably half a dozen other factors, which is why it's not perfect.
Not everything that's valuable fits neatly into a market context, of course. Exercise and hiking are valuable to me, but no one will pay me to do them. Games might similarly be an opportunity to develop in some way (many games are engaging because they involve some kind of skill) and provide recreation and maybe weave some social fabric. But they're often limited and have diminishing returns compared to some other opportunities...
Right. I think therefore the thing is, to be conscious about the purpose of those games, ask questions about what kind of value they bring to their players and the society at large.
Are they opium for the masses?
> Right. I think therefore the thing is, to be conscious about the purpose of those games, ask questions about what kind of value they bring to their players and the society at large.
> Are they opium for the masses?
Is it wrong to want to devote time to being idle/non-productive? Must we spend every waking moment perfecting our every aspect? Are we afforded no moments of respite beyond sleep?
People have mentioned food and shelter but also there is much value in KNOWLEDGE and science because that helps us ensure food and shelter. Say astronomy, maybe one day it will give us shelter (in terms of knowing what to do) from an asteroid hitting the earth.
My question for myself is, why should I play these games when the real life is like a game too but one which is much more challenging, much more important and much more valuable, from which we can learn much more, if we take our aim to be learning.