Hacker News Reader

Comment by MichaelZuo | Hacker News Reader

Hasn’t human worth always been commoditized?

Ever since the first two caveman began exchanging their time and effort. Like stone axes for mammoth meat.

I long made the same mistake of assuming history. The answer is no, that kind of interaction wasn't transactional in a robotic way, it was highly trust-and-relationship building. Which is exactly what we are missing today.

Go to a farmers market week after week, buying and talking to people. It is completely different from a vending machine. I know the people at my market, if they asked for help I'd help them for nothing in return. And I have no doubt at all they would do the same for me.

The vending machine owner would get no such help from me, nor would I expect them to help me if I asked.

Correct. The rapid urbanization of society has crippled us - we are pack animals suddenly thrust into an environment with a constant nascent undertone of hostility.

The feeling of constantly being surrounded by people you can't trust is a foreign and debilitating one.

You know this is actually a good point.

It made me reflect quite a bit and there is something really strange and somewhat spooky about America…

For example, how does the government and administrative apparatus even function since they are staffed by a cross section of the very same society?

By all theory Washington given the much higher density of deceivers, intriguers, scoundrels, etc., than even a typical American city… should pretty much immediately grind to a halt.

Someone making trades from time to time doesn't take over their life in quite the same way. Ultimately it's a question of richness, like having a variety of diet.

Pre-20th century people would have much stronger family ties, religious ties, and in many places some sort of feudal ties of varying levels of onerousness. But you can also find examples of people being extremely lonely, such as press ganged sailors separated from their families.

Sure it could only occupy a portion of their life… but how is the fractional size relevant?

Just because humans traded doesn’t mean that “human worth was commoditized”.

I’m not sure what that means, actually, but it certainly doesn’t mean voluntary trading of time and goods.

There are only 24 hours in a day, and so many days in a lifetime. Everyone is always trading time, since there is a very limited amount of it.

Even in a leisure situation, such as a party, people are going to make choices about how much time to interact with (or not interact with) certain people. Or spending time pontificating on HN.

I wonder if your example is a different kind of trade. When we trade time in a leisure situation, we're trading something more immediate and tangible. Whereas the transactional nature of the grandparent comment is more describing something more distanced.

An example of this that was told to me is imagine you're going to dinner with the in-laws (or maybe your best friend's parents). What would their reaction be if you took out your wallet and offered to pay them cash for the meal? As opposed to offering to e.g. bring a bottle of wine or helping to set the table?

Offering to pay might be the "transactional" trade meant by the grandparent. While offering to contribute [food | labour | goodwill] is more of the trading time in a leisure situation.

Typically, in accounting contexts, tangible is used to refer to physical products, such as mammoth meat, or stone axes.

Intangibles would be the gain or maintenance of reputation from going to have a meal at your in laws and all that jazz.

Regardless, in this context, trade is trade, one entity giving up something for another. Simply spending the time to go to your in laws for a meal is a trade. And while many would not cough up cash to show the transactional nature, far more would simply not go to the dinner (or go less often) and opt to spend their time elsewhere.

Or, if the in laws have something you want, maybe you opt to spend more time with them.

I am not claiming one has to solely view every interaction through this lens, or should. But it is a component of most every interaction. You could strike up a conversation with a stranger with no ulterior motive and then it carries on too long and you start thinking I could spend my time better elsewhere.

Human worth was literally commoditized and humans were bought and sold until the late 1800’s and legally segregated until the mid 1960’s

Industrial-scale slavery is a post-agricultural phenomenon and represents a very small percentage of overall human development.

Even such slavery, modern western/catholic chattel-style slavery aside, wasn't entirely transactional in that way. Many Ottoman slaves had better lives than aristocrats, for instance, and had real agency and influence.

Western European/American/Catholic imperialist slavery was somewhat unique in how dehumanizing it was.

Nope. The flip side of commoditization is relationships. Racism, xenophobia, nepotism, etc. are all products of a paradigm where, "What can you do for me? I don't care who does it," is less important than, "Who you are is most important, we can figure out what you can do for me later." And obviously ranking human worth along those lines isn't alien to this era or the preceding ones.

Depersonalization is a double-edged sword. You're no longer persecuted as an individual with a particular identity, but you're no longer valued as one, either. Though obviously it's not so much a binary as a field that can be collapsed to a point on a sliding scale.

There's no evidence that any such transactions ever took place. That's an anachronism. Hunter-gatherer groups are much more likely to share in everything, including work and the products of work, not engage in capitalistic ownership and economic isolationism. That's only possible in a situation of abundance and governmental enforcement of individual property rights.

How do you even get mammoth meat without having a stone axe?

Two neighboring cavemen, one doesn’t like going on mammoth hunts but is really good at sharpening stones.

I can't believe you're doubling down on the anachronism.

There was no such thing as "neighboring cavemen," like you have neighbors living in personal, separate houses today. Perhaps you've been watching too much of the Flintstones. And it doesn't matter whether you "like" going on mammoth hunts. You hunt, and you gather, or you die. Again you're imposing a contemporary background of abundance on an ancient environment of scarcity.

You don’t believe that some opted out of mammoth hunts to do other activities…?

What other activities would you opt out of mammoth hunts to do, that wouldn't lead to the tribe exiling you?

Making stone axes for the tribe…

That is not a full-time job. If Oog decides he's going to spend 10 hours a day doing nothing but make stone axes for the 15 other men in the tribe, Oog is going to have a bad time.

In a hunter-gatherer context, the men are hunting, fishing and fighting, while the women forage and manage the children.

You're missing the point. There's a fundamental difference between doing what you're good at for the benefit of the tribe and doing what you're good at for your own personal benefit, refusing to share with the tribe unless they agree to your terms.

The former is sharing, the latter is trading. And again, there's no evidence that trading ever occurred in that situation. As another commenter mentioned, in the life-or-death scarcity of hunter-gatherer communities, you'd be punished or exiled (which would mean death) for modern capitalist-style selfishness. There's no commodification.

Also, knowledge and skills were shared. There were no trade secrets, no patents. It would be have been extremely dangerous for one person to be the exclusive source of an essential good. Again, specialization is a luxury of abundance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com