Pays For ≠ Values

[flwyd]

I posted the following to a Burning Man mailing list. The original context, mostly irrelevant, is whether volunteers for an event should get free admission. But also there is the idea that our culture seems to really value some very valueless things while simultaneously undervalueing or seeing no value at all in some extremely valuable things -

Comments

[altamira16]

I know I haven't commented on these, but your posts of late are both inspiring and maddening.

[477150n]

An important question to ask when defining "value," particularly in terms of monetization, is "compared to what?" And then to not compare apples and vectors, as my freshman physics professor once said.

For instance, in your car versus bike example, I think it is reasonable to say that for distances of ~20 miles, you do value being able to drive over cycling.

But I agree that there's a lot that economics doesn't measure. As a grad student I get paid way, way less money than I could make (2-3x if I wanted to be an engineer, probably more if I wanted to be a quant), but I also get paid in education, experience, and fun, which very much makes up for the money.

Yes, but sometimes...

[journeyrose]

We use "willingness to pay" to provide some sort--any sort-- of economic value to non-economic things so that we can get the math right to make decisions in government. For example, if we just say it is nice to save the speckled dace, then we balance nice to save with $XX amount of money if we don't save. So if we use willingness to pay, then at least we get something.