8 Bit Philosophy: Does Money Own You?
- Thread starter 8-Bit Philosophy
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Does money own me? No, but preorders & limited time offers do. Its gotten to a point where I can only day dream about life before I was ever involved in those things. I need this to stop so I can focus on my needs instead of my wants.
No... . but to put it this way. What would you rather have to lug around to trade for goods. A wallet full of paper bills... or a cart load of chickens?
Everything always had a value., all money did was give it a universal means of measuring that value.
Everything always had a value., all money did was give it a universal means of measuring that value.
I think either I'm missing something, or the video made a leap in logic I don't agree with. Even without the existence of physical currency 'money' still exists as a concept in the form of value. Whether I'm bartering for something with symbolic paper or turnips or verbal promises(honor/reputation) or endorsement or art or slaves(I'm gonna take a wild guess here and bet that slavery, ie. putting a price tag on human life, existed thousands of years before currency) I'm still perceiving the exchange through the lens of value, and thus I don't see how it can be argued the invention of currency is what caused the dehumanizing effects brought up in the video
It has more to do with the nature of the value. Without an exchange commodity somethings value can only really be determined by its value to you. In the example, if someone wants to buy your land for turnips, but you don't want the turnips, then they have no effective value, even if they would have a monetary one. A medium of exchange means that a thing has an absolute value even if it's worthless to you, so the problem the video is discussing is shifting our perceptions from "this is of value to me or someone I know" to "this is worth money."MoltenSilver said:
I think a good example of the effects of that decoupling is people who will buy something that's on sale, even if they don't need it. Their perception of value is only that it's being offered for a beneficial exchange rate, and not that it has any true value in their own self perception. This is honestly, I think, the trick of consumerism, because once you've traded your money for a thing, even if the 'value' of the exchange was in your favor, you're now left with something that can probably not be used to recoup the monetary loss, and is of no actual personal value to you. As the video argues, we're seeing only the numbers of its monetary value, without ever considering what it's actually worth to us as individuals.
Wait wait wait, how does the inclusion of money suddenly make people into some sort of slave or sociopath? Capitalism does that, a turnip has no more value than a paper dollar. We dictate the value of life, paper money just makes it easier.
Everything boiling down to "numbers" is a misconception, it isn't the numbers, it is the power, the allure, the accumulation. 15 cows and £500 is the same thing, it appeals to our human nature (or at the very least, the mindset we have been programmed with from living in a capitalistic world).
To answer the question:
No, money doesn't own me, nature does.
Everything boiling down to "numbers" is a misconception, it isn't the numbers, it is the power, the allure, the accumulation. 15 cows and £500 is the same thing, it appeals to our human nature (or at the very least, the mindset we have been programmed with from living in a capitalistic world).
To answer the question:
No, money doesn't own me, nature does.