Externalities are positive if you benefit from them, and they are negative if you are paying for them.

In my circles we actually never use this word because it is basically just a fancy way to say exploitation that makes capitalists feel good about them selves.

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kasey_junk 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The positive and negative aspects can be different for different participants for the same externality. Externality literally just means impacts not captured in the transaction.

Exploitation is orthogonal. You can have internal or external value exchange that is exploitative. You can even have positive sum transactions that are exploitative.

It must be exhausting having conversations in your circles if you change the definition of all the words…

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runarberg 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Some words are just useless pandering, and conversations become a lot easier when you omit them. Some theories as well like to invent stuff like epicycles rather then question the underling assumptions (e.g. of circular orbits with the earth in its center), when you start to question the need for such epicycles you may just discover that your underlying assumptions were just wrong this whole time.

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kasey_junk 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It also allows you to just smugly run roughshod over any interesting conversation. If you _de facto_ declare that a word doesn’t have the established definition, then you can simply redefine it to mean something else to back up a vacuous point. Like saying that all externalities are examples of exploitation for instance. That can only be true if you quite literally declare it to be so.

As opposed to something like heliocentric solar system theory, where you don’t need to play word games to prove the counter. You just need to observe and collect data and use the same words to come to the correct conclusion.

	▲	runarberg an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I am simply not interested in economic theories which create excuses for the exploitation of the working classes. I see such theories as propaganda and I won‘t listen. The words I use in my circles fit just fine for that purpose. And I suppose the word “externalities” fit equally nicely for capitalists who don‘t want to know about the effects their behavior has on the workers who generate their vast wealth and funds their excessive opulence.

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AdamN 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If I had said 'exploitation' there would not have been engagement. At some point certain words and phrases become too much of a lightning rod to constructively use any more (Marxism, critical race theory, exploitation, etc...)