I was thinking about something measuringshadows said the other day about cleaning. Basically he was complaining that people assign moral valence to things like cleaning and cooking for yourself, even though there’s not really any good reason to do so.
And yeah, it’s certainly true that if you are a person who does not like cooking and cleaning but has other valuable skills, you can pay people to clean and cook for you, and this is a positive-sum trade and exchange and specialization are what make the economy work and stuff.
And yet. I do the thing. I think that I am a person who gets fulfillment from keeping my apartment clean and cooking good things for myself, and the economist/rationalist/whatever way of looking at this bothers me, because obviously in an objective market-value sense, these things don’t compare to the work I do at my job. So I have to assign this extra intangible moral value to them, to hold on to that sense of fulfillment.
(I hold these sorts of intuitions in a totally inconsistent and self-serving way.
“You hired someone to come to your apartment and replace your lightbulb?”
“Just think about how valuable my time is! Exchange and specialization!”)