It's lost time which we cannot get back. Money is regenerative.
Some people make the argument that money is a necessary evil. The political anti-money perspective in some ways correctly identifies that money alone isn't the source of value in life. The reason people chase money is in an attempt to get more time. Time is actually the most scarce resource and is the one which if lost can't be regenerated.
When we see people who pursue maximum money we also often find that they had to sacrifice time. The more unfavorable the time sacrifice for the money the lower the value the money is when they get it. By this I mean an old person with a lot of money isn't going to get as much potential happiness as a young person with a lot of money.
Money is typically regenerative. It's simply a marker which in the best case scenario is supposed to map to the utilitarian increase of human happiness. That is to say the more people you make happy the more money you're supposed to receive. Of course we know it's not this simple and it's not directly correlated but this is how capitalism was meant to be in theory.
Game Theory
I bring up the topic of game theory because right now which coincides with the launch of Pulsechain. So what is Pulsechain? It is a crypto project made by Richard Heart behind Hex. How is it related to the problem of saving time? For one the Pulse airdrop is the first to my knowledge to promote a charity (SENS Foundation) which specifically is set up to prolong healthspan. The healthspan of a person is not the exact same as lifespan but is the healthy years a person has in total. Maximization of healthspan in my opinion saves "quality time" which is in my opinion if successful will add value from a utilitarian perspective.
The utilitarian ethical case for Pulsechain is simply that anything which can increase both longevity and happiness (L and H) at the same time, is definitely a utilitarian value add for the world. According to utilitarian theory specifically if it saves time either by decreasing the amount of time people have to sacrifice to survive or by increasing healthspan (adding more quality years) then it's a universal win. In this context I describe universal win as a description which correlates with "utility maximization in the form of greatest amount of happiness for greatest number of sentient persons".
In game theory if it is competitive then every player/participant is trying to maximize their win at the expense of every other player. If it's cooperative game theory then teams form which try to cooperate to maximize the win of the group. If we look at Bitcoin with proof of work the game theory is the secret sauce behind why Bitcoin has a price which can rise for over a decade. The player participants such as miners are given an incentive in the form of a block reward. In Hex the game theory does something which I haven't seen before until Hex invented it, which is monetization of time itself in the form of T-Shares.
T-Shares and the algorithm behind Hex has been described as "proof of wait". In other words Hex rewards long term thinking and delayed gratification. In this way I think it is ingenious game theory because even though it has the perception of being "scammy" it does understand the default (and problematic) state of human psychology is to chase the short term wins at the expense of the long term wins. The only way to correct this is to stop creating dumb games which reward only short term wins, but the common trend in the tech industry is to create algorithms which only reward the short term wins. Let's consider changing that trend?
So where does game theory come in?
One observation I make on game theory is that for most people who are in these games the ultimate is either the short term win (instant gratification) or long term win (lasting gratification). For my discussion I focus on the long term win or long term gratification and will assume the desired outcome for most people who invest is to achieve a financial health state called "financial freedom" (FF). This is a liberated state which is achievable when the Financial Freedom = Passive Income > Expenses is satisfied. This is a different number depending on who you are and what you need to support your happiness.
Because there is a number it means there is a winning state in the economic games we play. The previous studies which said happiness tapers off after $75,000 is wrong. The latest study says happiness does not stop going up as money goes up. This is because for a lot of people when they have more options, more resources, their "tastes" change or evolve as well. That said, money does not directly buy the happiness. Money buys freedom from pain, and in some cases extra time. If there for example is a breakthrough in SENS, then everyone who wants to benefit from it will have to pay for it, and so we come back full circle. Pulsechain is about saving your own life, using your brain power (and computing resources), as well as some genius level game theory (compliment to Richard Heart or whoever came up with these ideas).
How can this idea be duplicated across crypto? Commitment to reward longest biggest holders. If you want people to delay gratification then you have to move the incentives. This is true not just in crypto but in life in general, chasing short term quick wins usually results in long term losses. If commitment to long term delayed gratification is rewarded the most then a lot of the short term dumb behaviors which many complain about will lose favorability from a game theory perspective. Why? Because people in games want the most amount of win, with the least amount of pain, and if the most win comes from long term commitment then the behaviors will align with this.
For those who are wondering, yes I am going to be participating in the Pulsechain Airdrop. This post can be seen as my agreement with the intentions behind Pulsechain as publicly stated. If Pulse, Hex, or both fail, the real value is the innovative ideas they introduced. In my opinion the useful ideas should be copied and reimplemented in an increasingly more ethical manner.