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Comment by bigbluesax | Hacker News Reader

Well, it certainly reads like a lesswrong post.

> Economies of trade and professional specialization are not just vaguely good yet unnatural-sounding ideas, they are the only way that anything ever gets done in this world. Money is not pieces of paper, it is the common currency of caring.

Ask your mom how much money she made raising you.

I'm not even opposed to the basic ideas of effective altruism and I agree that giving your money to a cause isn't inherently lesser than giving your time. But why add all of this borderline incoherent babble at the start of the article?

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> Ask your mom how much money she made raising you.

You got that backwards: ask your mom how much money she SPENT on raising you, especially in comparison to her total income.

Ah, your right. It still doesn't make much sense, if you ask me. I spend way more on cycling than I do on my parents and friends (we don't do large gifts), does this mean I care more about my bike than I do my parents?

I don't know about you, but it certainly seems to be true for many.

IMO any counterexample that's based on monetary expenditure is doomed to failure because it adopts OP's framing. Whoever can decide the rules can decide the outcome, and all that. Perhaps focusing on time is better. There's little money involved when I cook food for my family, or clean up after, but there is time. I spend that time because I think it matters - not only that the thing gets done, but that I personally should do it as a contribution and example in a social situation. I certainly could pay someone else to do those things. The fact that I don't, or that others do, has absolutely nothing to do with my motivations or how much I care. We all spend time on the things we care about. Money only becomes important when it's exchanged for time.

Perhaps another way to look at it is: how do people with "more than enough" money show that they care about something? How do people with no money do so? For many, money has been taken out of the equation but time is still relevant.

Parents spend significant amounts on their children, which seems to support the theory of money as caring.

> Ask your mom how much money she made raising you.

Apart from getting this upside down like others point out -- Mom sent me to daycare, which is exactly the type of specialization discussed in the article. One woman taking care of 5-20 kids instead of 20 moms doing it on their own.

People have been organizing the same on a favours basis for longer than money has existed. I just don't understand how money could possibly qualify as an "unit" here. Now how much someone is willing to spend on something is obviously related to how much they care about it, but to call it the "unit of caring" seems a bit presumptuous.

Through on reflection, I'm not sure what the author is trying to say anyway. He says:

> In our society, this common currency of expected utilons is called "money". It is the measure of how much society cares about something.

But who exactly is society here, and how do you choose to interpret it's spending? It seems much too vague to really argue about.

> Ask your mom how much money she made raising you.

You got it the wrong way round: Ask your parents how much money they spent raising you?

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