I am feeling acutely aware of the pressures on my time these days.

There are SO many things that I want to build, and everywhere I look there are opportunities for technology to do things better. Especially in our use of Energy in industry and HVAC.

The little load switch we built is growing legs and turning into a real business before my eyes, but looks like it will occupy a vast amount of my time as well.

Life truly needs to be a cooperative effort. I cannot do this alone. But now, I believe in money more than ever before. Not in some absolute sense, but because it allows us to keep track of who does what for whom  accurately, if not always fairly.

Honestly, I have tried all the informal, bartering,  mates-and-family helping-each-other-out kind of thing, and I hate it.

I tell you what: some skills are valuable. Construction, electrical trades, auto mechanics, the ability to move heavy objects, and the ability to do complex logistical tasks: the demand for these massively outstrips the supply in a normal community.

If you are swapping hour for hour, then anyone with these skills ends up with a broken back and almost nothing of value in exchange for it.

People can always think up random ways of chewing up your time, in ways that are important to them. Not productive endeavors that lead to greater welfare for the whole community, just prettying up their patch.

I'm over it. Let people pay their way. Lets have fair exchange, equitable wages, and use money to keep track of who is pulling their weight and who is having a lend.

Of course, this breaks down when you have absurd salaries and government spending making a mockery out of people's wages. That distorts the shit out the whole arrangement, and makes mooching after governments and corporate types into substitute for actual industry. It needs to stop.