Your example wasn't trading money for time; it was bribing a barista to make your coffee when they should be making coffee for people who were ahead of you in line. It was delaying others for selfish gain.

It was the advocacy of selfish, unsustainable, sociopathic, self-entitled behavior.

Maybe that's not what you meant; maybe you're just a shitty writer, not a shitty person. But you picked the example.

If you want to write about trading money for time, do so directly, or use examples that don't involve the creation of negative externalities.

I never waited in line to pay after putting gas in my car. Waiting on someone slow is stupid if if I don't actually have to do it.

I walk to the front of the line, put the money on the table, say, "this is for pump 5", walk back to my car and leave. The rest of the people are still standing in line to pay as I drive away.

No one got hurt. And it was good business for both of us.

You all can keep waiting in line. I'll be getting shit done.

> Maybe that’s not what you meant; maybe you’re just a shitty writer, not a shitty person.

Ah, your tongue is like honeydrops across a fresh piece of melon, with maidens singing in the pastures as they tend to farm life.

No really, you're still missing the point.

Post #1: You can pay to remove stupid little headaches without hurting anyone, or "negative externalities" in your fancy-pants parlance.

Post #2: Getting hung up on trivial details and missing the big point is small-minded clownery.

You're just an asshole.

When you go to a coffee shop, the slow part is not the paying for the coffee, it's the making of the coffee. If you bribe an employee to cut that line, you're slowing down everybody else. In your example you were stealing time from other customers, without their permission, not simply trading money for time without external effect.

You wrote that example. You're responsible for it.

(Were any of those words too big for you? I can use smaller words if your tiny little brain can't handle them. I wouldn't be surprised, given what a ridiculous fool you appear to be.)

It's "small-minded clownery" to think you can write poorly and use examples that cause harm to others, and then blame people who say "hey, that's shitty advice".

Trading money for time is not a novel concept... but that's not what you wrote about. You wrote about stealing time from others.

> You’re just an asshole. ... It’s “small-minded clownery” to think you can write poorly and use examples that cause harm to others, and then blame people who say “hey, that’s shitty advice”.

But that's not what you did. You were just throwing insults around without any intelligent discussion points, which you're now starting to remedy.

If somebody repeatedly says that you're advocating selfish, sociopathic behavior, it's usually a good idea to think for a moment about whether you may have advocated selfish, sociopathic behavior.

In this case the problem wasn't particularly subtle; so I didn't feel it necessary to spell out what was wrong with your example.

You were plainly advocating stealing other people's time for your private benefit; a sociopathic extension of a basic 'money for time' conversion.

I'm sorry that you are either:

a) a hack writer who, when faced with criticism, arrogantly assumes that the reader is simply too stupid to understand your "genius".

or

b) a sociopathic asshole who is trying to deflect attention from your sociopathy by attacking me.

Either way, I'm truly sorry that your mother raised a shitty kid who turned into a shitty man.

I hope you get a better mother for Christmas. The one you had did a really fucking lousy job.

Merry Christmas, you arrogant fucking asshole.

Meh. I was just being mean for being mean's sake. That was dumb. You trolled me, but I shouldn't have trolled back.

That said, I stand by my original reaction that your example is fatally flawed; that the lesson in your example is not "trade money for time", but rather it's a more insidious "steal time from others".

It'll be interesting to see if you fix your example to something that doesn't cause harm, or if you just write more blog entries about how your first entry was perfect and wonderful and people who complain are just clowns.

Actually, that's not true. I don't give a fuck what you spew over here.

I was really stupid for letting myself get trolled by you, and I try not to make the same mistake twice... so I'm not going to check back and see what you've called me this time, even if you send me more emails telling me that you've insulted me in new blog posts.

Two things. 1) You can cut the paying line if you already have the product. Nobody's going to make your coffee first but if you have it in your hand already they'll let you leave the money on the counter. 2) Or maybe they will make your coffee before everyone else. Who cares? Wouldn't the people wait in line still wait in line if five people were in front of them instead of four?

If your definition of not-a-sociopath is "content to queue up just because there's a queue," then you should consider becoming a sociopath.

Sebastian,

Wouldn't a respected strategist be already ahead enough of schedule to just wait those few minutes in line? A modest strategist would think of useful things to do standing in line: check and respond to emails or messages, review appointments, write down the cost of the coffee into my daily tracker of money spent, make small talk to cute girls (provided there are any of them), call my architect to speed up a project. That's just from the top of my head. I'm sure a guy like you, who dedicates to planning and tracking can think of many more useful stuff to do. Here's a challenge: you have a disease, a condition, that makes you completely immobile in the standing position for 10/20/45 minutes every day. How do you make good use of it? Cause that's what this is all about.

There is no point in
a) borderline bribery to get what you want ahead of others;
b) making others look like chumps;
c) thinking your time is more important than others (you might spend it better, that doesn't make it more important).

Bottom line: someone careful and conscious about his own time is also very conscious and respectful about the time of others.