Quantifying the Gift

Artificial Neural Networks map complex information to reduced forms so those forms can be learnt and recompiled in order to make decisions about unknown, incoming data. If you’re willing to nerd out with me for a bit: don’t you think money is like the one-dimensional output of a rather poor performing neural network? The output is so far removed fr... See more

The catch is that it’s incredibly difficult to assign comparative value to those things to which we are emotionally connected. What monetary value would you assign to your closest friend? The question feels absurd because you cannot put a value on something you are unwilling to part with. The things we are unwilling to part with are often those wit... See more

Herein lies the triumph of commodification: it separates us from the things we evaluate. ”If a thing is to have a market value,” writes Hyde, “it must be detachable or alienable so that it can be put on the scale and compared.” Karl Marx similarly argued in Das Kapital, “I cannot express the value of linen in terms of linen”. This is why money has ... See more

Rather, gifting carries with it a collective intelligence that knows our participation in the gift is what sustains us. We don’t just benefit via increased social bonds and that warm fuzzy feeling of “doing good” – when we’re kind to each other and the world round us, we are literally increasing our chances of survival.

The biggest lie you’ll ever hear as an economics student is that markets are efficient. In the most basic terms, the price of an asset supposedly arises at the equilibrium of quantity demanded and quantity supplied. To reach this equilibrium, both sides of the trade need to know what the other is doing. If an efficient market is a machine, then inf... See more

This isn’t to say money isn’t useful. It helps to be able to standardize the exchange value of things as opposed to bartering and constantly negotiating the equivalence of goods and services. In this way, money is a relational tool, an incredibly powerful piece of communication that tells you how much one thing is valued within a certain context. A... See more

I don’t know about you, but I often feel a deep exasperation when I examine just how much my life contributes to the destruction of the earth. I travel by airplane every few months. I buy things that come in plastic packaging. Most of my clothes were produced with synthetic dyes. To try and understand how my individual actions might affect the melt... See more