Sable

• Sable 19 Jan 2023 16:48 UTC

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  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: In­vest­ment, Work, and Vi­sion: Who is re­spon­si­ble for cre­at­ing value?

  Thanks; I’ll give this some thought. The initial conversation involved someone else arguing that the people working in Amazon warehouses deserved to be getting the money from Amazon, as opposed to Jeff Bezos, and that didn’t seem right to me, even though I couldn’t refute that the warehouse workers were doing a large percentage of the actual day-to-day work.

  By thinking about it this way, I can refute with the point that work is compensated by wages, while investment is compensated by shares. Even though the warehouse workers (or stonemasons building the bridge) are doing labor, they aren’t bearing the risk of the enterprise, either monetarily (in investments that could become worthless) or personally (in years of their life “invested” in getting the enterprise started, or being the name in the headlines if it all fails).

• Sable 19 Jan 2023 14:06 UTC

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  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: In­vest­ment, Work, and Vi­sion: Who is re­spon­si­ble for cre­at­ing value?

  I look forward to the follow-up post where it is actually feasible and useful to distinguish and label these things. I’d argue that it’s confusing at best, misleading at worst, to treat them as distinct and fundamental.

  I’ll do my best not to disappoint. Out of curiosity, would you mind briefly summarizing the argument that treating them as distinct is bad?

  I should acknowledge that “deserve the credit” is a nonsense phrase to me. It would require a LOT of discussion to unpack what it actually means in practical terms, and probably not work even then. If that is a crux of your post, I should probably just step away.

  The initial impetus for me to try to write about all of this were multiple discussions I’ve had with people IRL about billionaires. It seemed to me that not only were other people’s thoughts on the issue muddled, I couldn’t formulate an effective counterargument because my own thoughts were lacking coherence. This series is my attempt to put all of these thoughts straight and see if they survive outside my head. I do appreciate the feedback.

• Sable 19 Jan 2023 14:02 UTC

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  in reply to: Thomas Sepulchre’s comment on: In­vest­ment, Work, and Vi­sion: Who is re­spon­si­ble for cre­at­ing value?

  I suppose the point I’m gesturing towards is that the person with the combination of (idea + follow-through) is the one we associate with the credit for an endeavor, usually; that’s a large part of their share of the reward and their incentive for completing the project. The people who do the work are compensated with wages, and the people who invest are compensated with shares.

• Sable 17 Jan 2023 12:23 UTC

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  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: In­vest­ment, Work, and Vi­sion: Who is re­spon­si­ble for cre­at­ing value?

  Everything is both. The bridge-builder is taking advantage of exclusivity of good crossing locations, to the exclusion of competing bridges. The troll keeps traffic down, making the bridge last longer. On reasonable time scales, most creations are built on top of so many prior components that it’s silly to think they wouldn’t be made by someone else if the world were slightly different in such a way that prevented it happening the way it did.

  While I agree to a certain extent that everything is both, it can still be very useful to distinguish and label these things. And just because someone else would have made something doesn’t mean the person who actually did make it doesn’t deserve the credit.

  In the modern world of fractional share ownership, investment (capital), labor, and vision are entwined. It’s VERY easy for individuals to move between roles, and to hold multiple simultaneously.

  I agree completely—I specifically mention that these roles can be held by the same person. Perhaps I didn’t emphasize it enough.

• Sable 17 Jan 2023 12:18 UTC

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  in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: In­vest­ment, Work, and Vi­sion: Who is re­spon­si­ble for cre­at­ing value?

  This is better explained in the previous article here, but the “engineer” is just a character in a story used to think about concepts relating to value. I could have used “creator”, “visionary”, or some other title, but I liked “engineer”; it spoke to me of someone who saw an opportunity for a way the world could be more efficient/​better, and had the technical skill to capitalize on that opportunity.

In­vest­ment, Work, and Vi­sion: Who is re­spon­si­ble for cre­at­ing value?

• Sable 1 Jan 2023 23:03 UTC

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  in reply to: Drake Morrison’s comment on: Sazen

  That this concept is related to my thoughts was on my mind the whole time I was reading. Thanks for linking!

  More generally, I think I was trying to convey the subjective experience of a subset of sazen—specifically the pithy saying—and the frustration in both sides resulting from an inability to communicate.

• Sable 20 Nov 2022 9:54 UTC

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  in reply to: ponkaloupe’s comment on: Value Created vs. Value Extracted

  It is plausible that congestion pricing could make the bridge more efficient; whether it’s morally justifiable comes down to who the money goes to/​how the money is used.

  If the money gathered from the toll/​congestion pricing goes to the Troll, it’s bad, even if it makes the bridge more efficient. It encourages more trolls, and the fact that the Troll accidentally increased the utility of the bridge shouldn’t count in its favor.

  If the money goes to the engineer, her investors, or the towns themselves, then, rather than being extracted by an external entity, the value is captured by those within the system. People are incentivized to produce more good things (build more bridges, so to speak).

• Sable 20 Nov 2022 9:49 UTC

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  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: Value Created vs. Value Extracted

  Serious false dichotomy—almost all behavior is a mix of the two.

  While a single behavior or action can absolutely be a combination of the two, I think many behaviors lean to one side or the other. And establishing the difference still has value, even if we’re only establishing two ends of a spectrum.

  Is charging a toll for the bridge you built OK?

  Yes. This is why I discussed (briefly, I hope to return to this in another post) the difference between extracting value and capturing value. Charging a toll for the bridge you built is okay (within reason, there are ways to twist this beyond the pale) because you’re capturing a portion of the value you created. Charging a toll for a bridge you didn’t build is not okay; that’s pure extraction.

  What if you used up the only good crossing spot, putting the ferry out of business and preventing any competing bridge being built?

  This goes into “a valid concern, but too complex for the post”. The bridge is still a superior option to the ferry in the metaphor, and if there’s only one good crossing spot then there couldn’t be a competing bridge in the first place.

  What if your great-grandparents claimed the crossing point from the natives, who considered it common property?

  Out of scope, although I am sympathetic to the problem posed.

  Who gets to decide how much of the value is morally directable to what participants? How far back do you go in determine what’s a “legitimate” property right on which to extract rents?

  I don’t think there’s a way to precisely calculate how much value is morally directable anywhere, but surely we can agree that capturing some portion of value you created is morally acceptable, and extracting value you didn’t create is not morally acceptable.

  At some point, you sort of have to bit the property-rights ownership bullet, because if you go back far enough the answer is always “because I said it’s mine, and I have more guns/​a bigger stick than you.” But I hope to address that better in a later post.

Value Created vs. Value Extracted

• Sable 18 Nov 2022 20:35 UTC

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  in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Quickly re­fac­tor­ing the U.S. Constitution

  This might increases bureaucracy by creating must-pass laws where it’s easier to add new provisions.

  Perhaps. Without any kind of expiration date, though, laws will pile up like rotten code until the whole thing becomes unmanageable.

  What do you expect those people to do after they leave their job? If someone spends a decade in their job, in most cases you can argue that they financially benefit in the next job they take from that decade.

  I think there’s plenty of room between “used political power for personal financial benefit” and “learned things on the job that carry over to the next job”. I’ll admit there is plenty of subtlety here, which is why a full audit should be done—I wouldn’t trust any cursory scrutiny to be correct, either to the former politician’s benefit or to their loss.

  I do also somewhat think that if, for instance, someone serves on a Committee that deals with e.g. Oil and Gas, they should probably not be allowed to work in that industry afterwards. There’s too much opportunity for politicians to favor industries or companies in exchange for jobs/​careers/​cushy benefits after the politician leaves office.

• Sable 7 Nov 2022 0:52 UTC

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  in reply to: Sune’s comment on: Word-Dis­tance vs Idea-Dis­tance: The Case for Lanoitaring

  I might argue that the language would be better off without homophones altogether; having words that sound the same but mean different things is confusing!

• Sable 7 Nov 2022 0:50 UTC

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  in reply to: ulyssessword’s comment on: Word-Dis­tance vs Idea-Dis­tance: The Case for Lanoitaring

  That is terribly confusing! I’d almost say (without knowing anything about the field) that having individual words for those concepts seems silly; just have a word for “well-melting” and then use numbers and other words from there.

Word-Dis­tance vs Idea-Dis­tance: The Case for Lanoitaring

• Sable 2 Nov 2022 18:36 UTC

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  on: Quickly re­fac­tor­ing the U.S. Constitution

  Two parts of this that I really like:

  1. Maximum age limits, for obvious reasons compared to today. I’d suggest minimum age limits like the ones we have today as well (no younger than 30ish for Senate, 40ish for President, etc.)

  2. Easier to repeal a law than pass one. I think this is really powerful and under-discussed. So far as I am aware, our current system treats passing laws and repealing them equally.

  Particularly 2. Laws that prove to be bad should be easy to get rid of. In general we want to err towards less government, so design the system such that less government is easier to achieve than more government.

  What this lacks:

  1. Any real discussion of the federal bureaucracy and how it’s managed—is this completely up to the Senate? The President?

  2. What powers are reserved to the states? What role do states play in the federal government (e.g. a constitutional amendment can come from ³⁄₄ of the states currently, I think).

  What I would add:

  1. Mandatory 50-year sunset clause on all laws that are not constitutional amendments, with an option for the senate to renew a law with the same majority that passed it.

  2. Permanent yearly IRS audit of legislators/​executives/​judges until they die; if it’s proven they benefited financially from their positions for ~20 years after they leave, they go straight to federal prison.

• Sable 24 Oct 2022 21:01 UTC

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  in reply to: MikkW’s comment on: Wis­dom Can­not Be Unzipped

  The wisdom you wanted to convey, communicated in the format you chose, could not be unzipped by your target audience at the time you intended it to be of benefit.

  I completely agree—but I wanted something a little more pithy as a headline, and “Wisdom cannot be unzipped” fit the bill.

• Sable 22 Oct 2022 17:59 UTC

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  in reply to: seed’s comment on: Wis­dom Can­not Be Unzipped

  You’re completely right—“Luke’s” failure to finish college likely had very little to do with me or my list.

  I provided the anecdote and framing as a way of motivating the idea I was trying to convey, as well as explain my thought process to arrive at it.

  Don’t worry: “Luke” is doing quite well for himself :)

• Sable 22 Oct 2022 15:51 UTC

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  in reply to: lise’s comment on: Wis­dom Can­not Be Unzipped

  Thanks! And you can, it just takes a while :)

• Sable 22 Oct 2022 15:49 UTC

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  in reply to: gjm’s comment on: Wis­dom Can­not Be Unzipped

  I don’t think the difficulty in getting actual life-improvement out of “a stich in time saves nine” comes from any impossibility in figuring out what that phrase means.

  For what it’s worth, I have met people who had no idea what “a stitch in time saves nine” means, although I do agree largely with your point.

  I think that the extra contextual information and life experience is the actual wisdom here, and that’s what hasn’t been zipped in the first place.

  There’s some nuance here—I think we’re agreed that the contextual information and life experience is the wisdom. It’s what isn’t communicated by the pithy saying that matters—and yet the pithy saying is clearly meant to point to or contain the contextual information/​life experience.

  Which is to say that while pithy sayings are useful ways of reminding someone who already has the wisdom to apply it in a given situation, they’re useless for actually conveying wisdom.

  And in my experience, the latter is the way they’re most commonly used.

Wis­dom Can­not Be Unzipped