371–380 of 452 posts
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I think the sarcasm was a bit too subtle, at the same time maybe this isn't the time for it?
Yep, probably isn't the time or place; well warranted downvotes. Oh well, live and learn :)
>And while it's impossible to say what is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity like time, 8 is not a lot of something. If you had a handful of 8 peanuts, or a shelf of 8 books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter what your lifespan was. But not if you had 8 private jets, or 8 cars, or 8 houses, or even 8 telephones. This is a rather arbitrary statement.
So true! For instance, if you had 8 pathologically pedantic Internet commenters, you would end up with 8 comments just like yours.
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"our modern world makes money by distracting us" I'm not getting involved in the overall discussion, just wanted to highlight this gem. This is so true. In a conversation about Netflix's announcement of worldwide availability the other day I put it this way - so much of the economy is based on cultivating and indulging in mindlessness. If you cultivate mindfulness you see how pointless and wasteful so much of people'…
This is a deeply ugly and patronising thought.
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From PG's essay "Economic Inequality": "Most people who get rich tend to be fairly driven. Whatever their other flaws, laziness is usually not one of them... Variation in productivity is far from the only source of economic inequality, but it is the irreducible core of it, in the sense that you'll have that left when you eliminate all other sources." This feels like the heart of that particular essay and displays a r…
>> Variation in productivity is far from the only source of economic inequality, but it is the irreducible core of it, in the sense that you'll have that left when you eliminate all other sources. > This blames poor people for being poor. How am I misreading this? FWIW, I read it differently. I think Paul is saying that even if we had a world where everyone had a truly equal opportunity, in the sense of having simila…
That argument is still missing the point. Variations you will always have, but no guarantee that the same people would come out on top, unless you believe that the hardest workers happen to mostly come from well-financed backgrounds and caucasian gene pools. There are many people who work hard all their life and never make it out of the slums. Working hard is not a differentiator, it's what gets you a seat at the table. On the way up everyone works hard. Slackers don't even compete. The difference between those who make it to the top and those who don't is mostly not effort, it is opportunity, and good instincts to leverage that opportunity. In a truly fair world the people who came out on top would be an almost completely different set of people than those who are at the top today.
I feel like the criticism of the essay was not because of its content but its theme. It felt like a defense of the current system, whether taken narrowly as SV or broadly as global capitalism. This struck a nerve because most people in their gut know that the current system is fundamentally unfair and needs to be replaced by something better. It cannot be a good system that made it so that the set of people who own as much wealth as the poorest 3 billion all fit on a yacht, and not even a very big one. People got angry because they thought he was defending the way things are, even if his actual position was more nuanced.
If you can't see past the link to the other essays here please try to isolate this one for a bit, especially if you're young and you don't have kids yet. This essay is rich in realizations that come with age, and in some sense I would have potentially gotten a lot of mileage out of it when I was 20 or so (but then I would probably have lacked the background to fully comprehend it), and even more when I was a young fi…
Ok. "20 or so" describes me. And things aren't going so well.
Out of uni, and life feels pretty empty. Family has fallen apart, friends are friends of convenience, work is very intense - perhaps too much - and everything is going into keeping going. The brave face, making sure I eat, making sure I run, cycle, climb.
The dreams I had even six months ago, feeling ever more impossible. The lure of things I found rewarding in the past - computer games, novels, reddit, hacker news, debating - proving substanceless, insufficient.
The games and the websites are addictive.
> is this how I want to be spending my time?
No. But the truth is I do not know how else to spend my time.
I feel like I should find another job. Move to a different city or country. But I don't know how to do these things. I do not know if these things will help. I have a feeling the problem is me.
So when I am trapped in an empty bed, in a house of people who 'get on', in a city that is ok. I read the novels, I play the games, and I click the links. I try and forget I am here, living in bullshit.
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How is the idea that variation in productivity leads to a variation in income a "breathtaking misunderstanding of poverty"? It's absolutely true that variation in productivity leads to a variation in income and it's also true technology acts as a lever and is increasing the variation in productivity between people. At no point did PG say anything like what you claim it "sounds like" he is saying. The essay was an arg…
>>How is the idea that variation in productivity leads to a variation in income a "breathtaking misunderstanding of poverty"? It's absolutely true that variation in productivity leads to a variation in income... No. Productivity has nothing to do with income. You can be the most productive widget-maker in the factory. That doesn't mean you will make a lot of money. Income inequality exists and has been growing becaus…
Where you fall on pg's essay is defined by your answer to that question.
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I really don't think this contradicts PG's point or challenges it in a way to be deserving of the phrasing "entirely different perspective." For one, from the essay: > But different things matter to different people, and most have to learn what matters to them And for two, Kurt is at odds with himself in that quote though his overall sentiment is correct. He says to "fart around" and then creates a straw-man with com…
I was going to have a similar reply. The first part anyway. Clearly farting around is something that matters to Kurt. But that makes me think on what actually matters. Doesn't everything we do in our free time matter? If it didn't, why would we do it? And then we do things that don't matter all the time at work, PG used meetings an example. Usually, they don't matter, but we do them... it seems there's a bit of give…
The life of a human can be wrought with meaningless acts that have been given a lofty value in the human's head. One human says "This is meaningless!" while the other calls it holy. Many take this as a lesson to say that happiness is found by arbitrarily assigning value, but this -- and all idols -- will fail.
The great lesson of this world is to find yourself. This is necessary because the world is a dream; a very complicated but simple illusion. How does one escape illusions? Surely not by fighting with them, but by letting them go. This is why monks train so long to let go of attachment to the world and learn how to disconnect from it. The enlightenment that follows is but recognition of the real world -- what some would call "heaven" or "nirvana".
Different strokes for different folks, but the end-goal will always be the same for this world. The "last judgment" will be when the world has finally been judged truly and we relinquish from it and go back home. It might be many, many years away, but there are some of us whose only purpose is to accelerate the return.
Therefore, knowing that I have a purpose, responsibility, and finite time on this world, the equation for what has meaning to me is "Is my function aligned with my purpose?"
If you can't see past the link to the other essays here please try to isolate this one for a bit, especially if you're young and you don't have kids yet. This essay is rich in realizations that come with age, and in some sense I would have potentially gotten a lot of mileage out of it when I was 20 or so (but then I would probably have lacked the background to fully comprehend it), and even more when I was a young fi…
> when I was 20 or so Ok. "20 or so" describes me. And things aren't going so well. Out of uni, and life feels pretty empty. Family has fallen apart, friends are friends of convenience, work is very intense - perhaps too much - and everything is going into keeping going. The brave face, making sure I eat, making sure I run, cycle, climb. The dreams I had even six months ago, feeling ever more impossible. The lure of…
Remember that wasting time at 20 seems OK, wasting it at 30 will make you nervous, and if you're still doing it at 40, you'll wonder where all the time went. It really happens surprisingly fast - at 29, you feel young, but a short decade later, you'll fret about being "too old" (which is an illusion, but it takes a while to know that). Don't worry that you'll mess up your career or anything else by taking some time to do something adventurous. Pretty much whatever you do, you'll look back and thank yourself for stepping out rather than hunkering down.
BTW, as for "work is very intense" - it probably isn't worth it. I burnt out once after a few years of very intense, very committed work. I wasn't better off at the end of it and nobody says "thank you", not sincerely anyway. And after you leave, the waters close around you and it will be like you were never there. So if you're not enjoying it, maybe it's the kind of bullshit you can do without?
If you can't see past the link to the other essays here please try to isolate this one for a bit, especially if you're young and you don't have kids yet. This essay is rich in realizations that come with age, and in some sense I would have potentially gotten a lot of mileage out of it when I was 20 or so (but then I would probably have lacked the background to fully comprehend it), and even more when I was a young fi…
Actually, don't "simply don't" because that's not a useful way to go about improving things. Learn how your brain works and what you can do to actively change the way it currently operates. You wouldn't expect a trainer at the gym to simply tell you "get stronger" and walk away. You need to learn how muscles work, what types of exercises to perform, how to perform them, and then you need to achieve consistency.
(I can only imagine how much sooner I would have achieved consistent happiness if my school teachers and parents would have refrained from simply demanding I "pay attention!" and instead taught me how.)
If you can't see past the link to the other essays here please try to isolate this one for a bit, especially if you're young and you don't have kids yet. This essay is rich in realizations that come with age, and in some sense I would have potentially gotten a lot of mileage out of it when I was 20 or so (but then I would probably have lacked the background to fully comprehend it), and even more when I was a young fi…
> when I was 20 or so Ok. "20 or so" describes me. And things aren't going so well. Out of uni, and life feels pretty empty. Family has fallen apart, friends are friends of convenience, work is very intense - perhaps too much - and everything is going into keeping going. The brave face, making sure I eat, making sure I run, cycle, climb. The dreams I had even six months ago, feeling ever more impossible. The lure of…
Which dreams? Are the people who have achieved dreams like those that much more capable of you? One of my realizations is just how much less important intelligence is to drive. If you want something, oftentimes the difference is doing the work. Make sure it's a meaningful dream (e.g. not "get rich" which impacts happiness surprisingly little).
"I feel like I should find another job. Move to a different city or country. But I don't know how to do these things."
Are you more or less capable than the millions of people who find new jobs or move? You sound smart and educated. "Don't know how" seems like a pretty soft excuse. Everything has an "undo" button. Get a new job and it sucks? Well, you tried and learned some interesting things about yourself and the world-- go find another one. Move to a different city and find out that you don't love it? Well, you got to explore a cool place that wasn't for you, and maybe you met some interesting people. Move back or move to a new city.