Economics of Human Energy

Thoughts about how money and human energy relate

Finally, we must do away with far and away the largest occupation, the one with the longest hours, the lowest pay and some of the most tedious tasks around. I refer to housewives doing housework and child-rearing. By abolishing wage-labor and achieving full unemployment we undermine the sexual division of labor. The nuclear family as we know it is... See more

Bob Black • The Abolition of Work

Damn…

It's hard to sit there complaining about paying money if you can see it costs $300 get the accountant to file that thing we need, and that the person you enjoy talking to gets paid this much. Seeing it all transparently is quite powerful.

Divya Siddarth • Building Capacity for Exit to Community

Money spent that goes to people you like makes it easier to spend money

Games can therefore be understood as imagination infrastructures—engines for imaginative engagement. There are so many games out there these days, endless virtual worlds, that the utopian potential of this medium to break far beyond the limited possibilities for collective imagination in “normal” society also seems endless.

What does it look like... See more

Rahel Aima • Imagination Infrastructuring for Real and Virtual Worlds

Games of imagination are the cheapest way to explore future possibilities

Work is a waste of my time. The things that I’m best at, that I get the most benefit from, and see the most big-picture results from, don’t feel like work.

Nicholas Goodey • Resistance and Embracing Your Nature

“Work” is wasting energy, because energy goes down. But the truly valuable things make energy go up.

“Energy management beats time management.” ― Katherine Morgan Schafler

If this is true (I believe it is), why do companies focus on time management? Because it’s easier and time is shared, energy isn’t (at least, typically. But it can be if done properly…)

At present most work is useless or worse and we should simply get rid of it.

Bob Black • The Abolition of Work

“Wotan, the All-Father, understood that violence without wisdom leads to destruction, while wisdom without violence remains impotent. To gain true knowledge, he sacrificed himself to himself, hanging from the World Tree, Yggdrasil, for nine days and nights, wounded by his own spear. Only through this voluntary suffering, this self-inflicted wound,

At least now I know what I did.

However, if we truly aim at discussing the economy at a level where we can start to grasp it in its broadest sense we need to add the “invisible” economy, or what is more often called the non-monetary economy. This is a system of economies typically embedded in a monetary economy yet it undertakes tasks that benefit society by means that the... See more

Jenny Grettve • economicspaces

Money is a captured subset of human value created. For people with plenty, it’s the default, because it’s easy to use. But for people without, that value is captured in ways like status, privileges, perks, etc.

A PM I once worked with was struggling to persuade somebody of something. I told him to ask them the question, “What data would I have to show you to get you to change your mind?” If they didn’t have a clear answer, then he would know this was an idea they held on faith, a bit like a religious belief. No amount of data can sway a person from their... See more

Deb Liu • Changing Your Mind

Faith requires less energy than change