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Someone is stealing your life (1990)

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Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#131

Post by onan_barbarian »

It's too bad that no-one thought of all these sentiments before 1990, forcing this guy to break so much bold new ground in the critique of capitalism.

Some people are ragging on him here for being lazy in his career; I'm going to call him on being unbelievably lazy in running this whole spiel as if he just thought of all these ideas himself.

There isn't the slightest acknowledgement that there's huge branches of modern thought that deal with this very problem using countless different approaches and reaching countless different conclusions. This isn't to say that all that thought is useful or contains a helpful path to reform, but ignoring it completely is just dumb.

He's either atrociously undereducated or extremely disingenuous, take your pick.

-10 more points for talking about everything as if it's specific to America and the particular timeframe.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#132

Post by gills »

georgieporgie wrote: post #40
edw519 wrote: post #14

Prime quote from the other side, "Someone is Stealing My Money": "I pay you to work 8 hours and you're on Hacker News for 6 of them. Close that browser and get back to work."

I've never understood how wasting time on the job can possibly be termed 'theft'. It's irresponsible and a failure to fulfill expectations, but it's not theft. (btw, I also don't see employers as stealing life from employees)

Accepting payment for services which you purport to have rendered but in reality have not.

I would use 'fraud' instead of 'theft', though in reality it's close enough.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#133

Post by rbarooah »

ajju wrote: post #118
rbarooah wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously arguing that Google and Zappos are representative of many companies?

They are examples that it can be done. The entire tone of the article is defeatist with the author arguing that it cannot be done. For example: "you'll find yourself having to treat others - your employees - as much like slaves as you can get away with" No . You won't find yourself having to do anything like that. There are well known companies that don't do that and make tonnes of money. That is what I am arguing. J…

That's a fair point. It might take a while before many people have a chance to work for companies like that though.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#134

Post by [deleted] »

rick888 wrote: post #109
rbarooah wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you think that the bailouts of the financial system were earned, and that school is optional for kids who don't like following silly or time-wasting instructions.

"I assume you think that the bailouts of the financial system were earned" Of course they weren't earned. "that school is optional for kids who don't like following silly or time-wasting instructions." No, but I do have a problem with the teacher's unions. It's the reason shitty teachers continue to stay employed in our school systems. I actually wish that parents had the option of taking their tax dollars and using…

[deleted]

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#135

Post by steveklabnik »

onan_barbarian wrote: post #131

It's too bad that no-one thought of all these sentiments before 1990, forcing this guy to break so much bold new ground in the critique of capitalism. Some people are ragging on him here for being lazy in his career; I'm going to call him on being unbelievably lazy in running this whole spiel as if he just thought of all these ideas himself. There isn't the slightest acknowledgement that there's huge branches of mode…

It is possible for people to invent ideas independently. Also, maybe he just hasn't read Marx.

Furthermore, maybe he does, but I wouldn't call him 'lazy' for not providing some sort of citation: there's enough cultural baggage associated with Marx that as soon as you say that word, a certain portion of your audience's brains turn off.

Better to be 'lazy' and possibly reach some of those people than not.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#136

Post by onan_barbarian »

steveklabnik wrote: post #135
onan_barbarian wrote: post #131

It's too bad that no-one thought of all these sentiments before 1990, forcing this guy to break so much bold new ground in the critique of capitalism. Some people are ragging on him here for being lazy in his career; I'm going to call him on being unbelievably lazy in running this whole spiel as if he just thought of all these ideas himself. There isn't the slightest acknowledgement that there's huge branches of mode…

It is possible for people to invent ideas independently. Also, maybe he just hasn't read Marx. Furthermore, maybe he does, but I wouldn't call him 'lazy' for not providing some sort of citation: there's enough cultural baggage associated with Marx that as soon as you say that word, a certain portion of your audience's brains turn off. Better to be 'lazy' and possibly reach some of those people than not.

Right. He hasn't read Marx. Or any other critique of capitalism, European or homegrown, for the past 100 years. Or any fiction that is informed, in whole or in part, by this critique. No, he didn't invent this 'independently'.

What's the point of 'reaching' people if you've got so little new to say? Its not a matter of 'citation', it's a matter of acknowledging that there are a host of proposed solutions (and critiques of critiques, and so on) out there. By pretending that none of it exists, you wind up with a tl;dr column that says what's been said before.

His contribution is in fact a subtraction from the sum total of human knowledge, in that the only thing original about it is wrong - the notion that the phenomenon that he talks about has something specifically to do with America between 1950-1990.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#137

Post by rbarooah »

rick888 wrote: post #109
rbarooah wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you think that the bailouts of the financial system were earned, and that school is optional for kids who don't like following silly or time-wasting instructions.

"I assume you think that the bailouts of the financial system were earned" Of course they weren't earned. "that school is optional for kids who don't like following silly or time-wasting instructions." No, but I do have a problem with the teacher's unions. It's the reason shitty teachers continue to stay employed in our school systems. I actually wish that parents had the option of taking their tax dollars and using…

"Of course they weren't earned."

Perhaps that has something to do with why wealth is so concentrated.

Why should only the rich and powerful get to redistribute wealth from others to themselves by force? Doesn't that suggest that there should be some distribution the other way too?

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#138

Post by steveklabnik »

onan_barbarian wrote: post #136
steveklabnik wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible for people to invent ideas independently. Also, maybe he just hasn't read Marx. Furthermore, maybe he does, but I wouldn't call him 'lazy' for not providing some sort of citation: there's enough cultural baggage associated with Marx that as soon as you say that word, a certain portion of your audience's brains turn off. Better to be 'lazy' and possibly reach some of those people than not.

Right. He hasn't read Marx. Or any other critique of capitalism, European or homegrown, for the past 100 years. Or any fiction that is informed, in whole or in part, by this critique. No, he didn't invent this 'independently'. What's the point of 'reaching' people if you've got so little new to say? Its not a matter of 'citation', it's a matter of acknowledging that there are a host of proposed solutions (and critiqu…

Do you think that everyone should be required to read everything about a topic before posting their thoughts on it?

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#139

Post by onan_barbarian »

steveklabnik wrote: post #138
onan_barbarian wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. He hasn't read Marx. Or any other critique of capitalism, European or homegrown, for the past 100 years. Or any fiction that is informed, in whole or in part, by this critique. No, he didn't invent this 'independently'. What's the point of 'reaching' people if you've got so little new to say? Its not a matter of 'citation', it's a matter of acknowledging that there are a host of proposed solutions (and critiqu…

Do you think that everyone should be required to read everything about a topic before posting their thoughts on it?

He was not 'failing to read everything'.

He was either 'failing to read anything', or, more likely, reading a fair bit and intentionally stripping all reference to this existing knowledge out of his column for whatever reason. The result was unsurprisingly sophomoric, which I suppose is why it has 150 points on HN.

Re: Someone is stealing your life (1990)

#140

Post by stonemetal »

grammaton wrote: post #89
stonemetal wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a straw man attack. Lack of direction, and ambition doesn't mean lazy or unmotivated. His job choices show lack of direction, with the random job walk he has done so far he certainly isn't moving in one direction. Same with ambition there doesn't seem to be any greatness seeking in his job selection.

Again - you don't know what his internal process was for picking these jobs. You can't mind read and impute motivations for his selections. And no, it's not a strawman. Lack of direction, lack of ambition, lazy, unmotivated. See how they all go together?

Lazy and unmotivated are about his internal state, which you correctly point out we don't know. Lack of direction and ambition are observations of exterior actions. He is not moving in a direction, so we can say he lacks direction. He doesn't seek to be great or even good at anything so he lacks ambition. In making those two observations we have not ascribed any reason why he lacks ambition or direction. So complaining about people not knowing his motivations when we are talking about his actions not his motivations, is in fact a straw man.
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