this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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I love how in every topic about WFH there's some dudebro going on about the economy suffering due to supposed lessened productivity and I'm like... Why should I care?
I love the abstract “productivity”.
Like yo, cancer is incredibly productive.
Demolishing subsistence farms and replacing them with cash crop slave plantations is mad profitable.
I could make thousands of dollars in a day if I just sold everything I own.
Our metrics of economic growth revolve around basically doing all of the above, to varying degrees of figurative vs. literal-ness.
This reminded me of an old joke:
Two economists are walking down the street with their friend when they come across a fresh, streaming pile of dog shit. The first economist jokingly tells the other "I'll give you a million dollars if you eat that pile of dog shit". To his surprise, the second economist grabs it off the ground and eats it without hesitation. A deal is a deal so the first economist hands over a million dollars.
A few minutes later they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist, wanting to give his peer a taste of his own medicine, says he'll give the first economist a million dollars if he eats it. The first economist agrees and does so, winning him a million dollars.
Their friend, rather confused, asks what the point of all this was, the first economist gave the second economist a million dollars, and then the second economist gave it right back. All they've accomplished is to eat two piles of shit.
The two economists look rather taken aback. "Well sure," they say, "but we've grown the economy by two million dollars!"
The story is interesting but not very lifelike. The first economist would be much richer than the first, if they were OK with spending that much money on humiliating someone else. The likelihood that the second economist would accept the same deal is impossible in my mind. That amount of money is just humiliation money to them, not really worth it.