alt Hacker News> What do you think money is? It's a rough proxy approximation for value.
Money is an abstraction, not an approximation. There is not of necessity any real basis for any price that has ever been attached to any product or service, ever. Money is an artificial mechanism by which we exchange debt owed by the issuing state that itself also has no real basis.
> If you don't care about creating value, you don't care about people.
On this we agree, but, of course, my point was that when I say "value" I don't mean monetary value. A person's value is intangible, and the value of their works (whatever those may be) is derived entirely from the relationship formed between the artist and their context and the connection from this relationship to whoever wishes to partake of the art.
> As, ultimately, it costs money to care for people, and if you don't have it - all you have are prayers and best wishes, and you functionally can't help anyone.
What a woefully capitalistic perspective. I wish the best of luck to you and your shareholders.
This is a simplistic view over money and currencies in general. Money is a form of credit. It's an abstraction in the sense that it unifies preferences and signals under a single dimension. It's an approximation in the sense that, when you buy something for 20 bucks, it's not that the something is actually worth 20 bucks, but that you value 20 bucks (and, by extension, the other things you could buy with them) than the something.
In this regard, while it's kinda wrong to say "it costs money to care for people", caring for people is not free either - you have to spend something: time, labor, psyche, favors, etc. All of these can be acquired or replaced by trading with others (which is preferable to do through money): buying tools/machines, hiring workers/services, acquiring means to connect with others, and so on. Turns out money is just a more verifiable and simplified form of favors.