*Here's another "detail" where civilization has got it wrong. We use cost and value as if they were synonymous. They are not. Cost is a negative quantity measured on a linear scale. Value is a quality. That this should be so hard to understand is another example of how deeply bought-in we are, bought into linearity and quantification. That, and a voluntary – there's no other way to characterize it – abdication of our ability to judge qualities or even distinguish them from impulses and the shortest route to their satisfaction. Qualities are not exchangeable. They are not commodifiable. Commodify love and you get prostitution. Costs, by whatever method of their accounting, describe what is lost to obtain something else. Costs only apply to commodities, never to qualities.
The Confusion of Cost & Value*
The Confusion of Cost & Value*
The Confusion of Cost & Value*
*Here's another "detail" where civilization has got it wrong. We use cost and value as if they were synonymous. They are not. Cost is a negative quantity measured on a linear scale. Value is a quality. That this should be so hard to understand is another example of how deeply bought-in we are, bought into linearity and quantification. That, and a voluntary – there's no other way to characterize it – abdication of our ability to judge qualities or even distinguish them from impulses and the shortest route to their satisfaction. Qualities are not exchangeable. They are not commodifiable. Commodify love and you get prostitution. Costs, by whatever method of their accounting, describe what is lost to obtain something else. Costs only apply to commodities, never to qualities.