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<h1>Money</h1>
<h2>Money is just a tool not a god</h2>
<p>
    Humanity is a tool making and using species.
    It is one of if not the main thing that defines us.
</p>
<p>
    Tools are amazing, and for me one of the main things that define my life.
    I love tools, I collect tools, they allow me to do so much.
</p>
<p>
    The tool is never the point though.
    Tools are by definition a means to an end and not an end in and of themselves,
    and it is pointless to grab a tool without having a final goal in mind.
    The goal can change over time, but there must always be something.
</p>
<p>
    I bought my desktop originally to play games.
    Now I use it to program, write, learn.
    But at no point was it the goal to have a computer, it was something that it would let me do.
</p>
<p>
    Which brings me to money.
    We as a society, and I think because of capitalism and the focus on creating more "value", we have made money the goal.
    In "Less is More" by Jason Hickel (a book on the philosophy of degrowth), he points out that "value" is too general.
    That we actually need to clarify 2 different types of value.
    "Use value", the value of what something allows us to do.
    "Exchange value", the monetary value that we could get in exchange for something.
</p>
<p>
    Exchange value, by virtue of only valuing what money you can get for something makes money the final goal.
    There is no other goal explicit or implicit when this type of value is being used.
    This puts money up on a pedestal.
    An idol, and ideal, a god.
    Everything and anything is to be sacrificed in pursuit of this.
</p>
<p>
    Which when I think about it makes no sense.
    Exchange value was supposed to represent something.
    It was supposed to just be a layer of abstraction on use value to make it easier to trade stuff.
    Money was supposed to be a tool to make trading useful things easier.
    That is all the use value that it can actually provide.
    I can't eat it, maybe if in Canada we still had paper bills I could burn it to cook with or stay warm.
    It is one step removed at least from any actual utility other than making trading easier.
</p>
<p>
    However our markets have in so many cases completely decoupled exchange value from use value.
    Complicated financial instruments traded back and forth, not actually doing anything for anyone other than to make the number go up.
    Actively making things like social media or search less useful (reducing use value) to make more money (increase exchange value).
</p>
<p>
    A lathe is a fantastic tool, good for making all sorts of things.
    Having money with the only goal to make more money is the same as having a lathe only to make more lathes.
    Not actually making anything that is directly used like a chair or a bannister, maybe a piece of art.
</p>
<p>
    With money our end goal is more money, same thing.
    Number go up, GDP must grow.
    When we ask what we should be doing with this money (if we ever get around to that) there seems to be no clear answer other than "make more!!".
    We are doing it backwards.
    Sit down, have a chat, and decide what we want the outcome to be first, then figure out how much money we need to do it.
    Make sure that we are making that money and we don't need to keep going after that point.
    Often pursuing these goals will actually provide a nice chunk what we need for them anyway, either in money or in directly usable things.
    As we add some more goals, as we are certainly wont to do as needs are satisfied, then we can up the amount that we need then.
    Once we are making enough to meet our needs, live well, then we truly have freedome to choose.
    Do we want something else? Do we need more money to make that happen? Then up productivity.
    Or if all the bases are covered we can just take more time.
    Spend time with loved ones, read books, learn something new, go for a hike.
    Whatever.
    If we actually treated it like we do our other tools, we would have the freedom to make that choice.
</p>
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