Replace-ability factor: Is it replaceable ?

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Takeaway-chuck

3 min readOct 16, 2018

This article talks about how expendable people, objects and instances are. This is a philosophical piece driven towards self introspection.
Constructive criticisms and intellectual questioning are appreciated.

“Is it replaceable ?”

The question plagues decision making at so many levels.

The question, “is it replaceable” isn’t limited to inanimate objects during purging situations, but rather to people as well.
One of the striking fears of AI adoption is the question, “How many jobs will it replace ?”

There existed different eras of economics. Stages where:

Quantity produced was limited
Limited quantity and quality
Excess quantity with liquid quality
Customer is king

At each progressive stage, the evaluation of the replaceability factor is acknowledged differently on different stages of importance. Importance was obtained from understanding how replaceable something or someone was.

With regard to replaceability:

Quantity produced was limited:
Producing products wasn’t easy.
High costs of production meant available quantity was limited in number.
There were more people that needed supplies than supplies available.
The customer was replaceable.
Limited quantity and quality:
During industrial revolution, machines began producing low grade supplies at scale.
People profited off meeting demand at scale.
Early signs of mass produced liquidity implies choice for both consumer and producer.
Both are replaceable at small scale.
Excess quantity with liquid quality:
The markets were flooded with products of different quality.
Consumers had the ability and control to choose whom they brought what from.
This was precedent to low volume, small scale businesses going bankrupt.
The producer is replaceable.
Customer is king
Businesses need to make profits or at least break even to survive.
In order for value to shuffle hands, businesses adopt the “Customer is king” approach implying that they are always right.
Catering to the need of the customers would ensure your(business’s) longevity of existence.
The businesses without sufficient foothold in the market are replaceable.
Creators’s friction
Today, we exist in data buckets.
With most businesses going online, the data that people create are immensely valuable.
This involves both businesses that are created by voluntary and involuntary data gathering.
Businesses that make a data producer/creator’s experience better sees more monetizable data being produced.
Businesses focus on eliminating friction in process that causes the golden goose(digital citizens) to lay eggs(monetizable data).

Taking a turn from the economical viewpoint to a philosophical one …

Today, I ask you, “ are you replaceable ? ”

I urge you to introspectively inquire, “what do you do everyday ?”

What do you that makes you valuable ?

What about you is and isn’t replaceable ?

What about you is it that makes you, you ?

While answering all of these questions with a rational mind,we realize that we aren’t as permanent or as unique as we thought we were, at least I know I’m not. There isn’t a significant difference that would cause one of us to be uniquely identifiable solely through mental procedures. Sans emotional connect, we are very much replaceable and our role in this world as well.

However, one thing unique about everything is the time frame. It occurs only once. Everything is unique with respect to time, but given a set of factors and actions that would elicit an outcome similar or better over time is a true indicator of being replaceable.

If I can do it, someone else can. This speaks volumes on how replaceable someone that did something is or something that someone did is.

This could be an inspirational portion of an motivational speech but it shows that something, if replicated will be reproduced. If a person can reproduce the outcome by pure repetition, what good are you, since you are now replaceable.

Today, I know I am replaceable. I think I can be replaced.
I do not like this feeling. It makes me nauseous.

What’s causative to the tipping point ?

The question I ask myself is

“what makes you irreplaceable ?”

“How are you irreplaceable ?”

“What is it about you that makes you irreplaceable ?”

“What is it about me that makes me irreplaceable ?”

I ask myself,