Comment by ForHackernews
1 year ago
> If Europeans can’t figure out new valuable areas where they can contribute to the world, than their system isn’t as clever or morally righteous or fantastic as they think it is.
I don't think it follows that unprofitable things are by definition not clever, righteous, or fantastic. This seems like a blinkered, American-capitalist viewpoint.
Profitable and valuable are synonymous. If something is more valuable than the inputs used to make it, then it is profitable to make it.
Things being clever, or righteous, or "fantastic" (whatever that means) doesn't mean that people actually value them. That isn't what value means. Something is more valuable if you would give up more to have it. It is less valuable if you would give up less to have it.
Basically, no, it is in fact definitionally true, not blinkered, and has nothing to do with America. All of Europe is just as capitalist as America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
You are right. My partner and I often provide each other sex for free. We should stop that and both become sex workers in order to be valuable.
Except you do not provide it for free. You provide it under the implicit transaction of your relationship, where you are both giving up value in other to get value.
Try betraying your partners trust and cheating on them - or refuse to take care of your children. They will likely be upset that you aren't holding up your end of the bargain.
Just because you haven't placed a price tag on your relationship and hate the idea of thinking of it that way due to modern cultural ideas of romantic love, doesn't mean relationships are not a transaction (historically in fact they did carry a price tag).
> Profitable and valuable are synonymous.
So your police, firefighters, the military, health services (not in the US though) and various charities are not valuable? That is an interesting take.
They are valuable and they are also quite profitable (I am excluding "various charities" as that is too broad and fuzzy).
The fact that the state may provide the majority of these does not mean that they are not profitable as private ventures. Why are they profitable? Because they are deemed very valuable!
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I'm wondering from where you get these ideas? Which social media hell hole?