Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The most precious resource is agency

simonsarris.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 340 posts

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#61

Post by paulryanrogers »

jkhdigital wrote: post #27
planet-and-halo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we are all the prisoners of long-dead economists. Their ideas of people as atomic resources were useful abstractions in some ways (I agree with the point below that their work has led to great material prosperity), but they have also influenced entire generations of overly bureaucratic and inhumane policies. People are treated as "things" to be "managed," and as a consequence they develop learned helplessne…

Economics is the new god, the god of materialism. At some point in the 20th century we decided that material prosperity is really all you need for a happy and healthy society. Doesn’t seem to be working out so well…

By what measure? (Not sure I disagree just curious)

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#62

Post by elevenoh »

zachkatz wrote: post #7
throwawaysea wrote: post #3

This article resonated with me, as someone who felt the fixed tracks of school often held me back and wasted my time with busy work like random craft projects or homework that didn't further my understanding. It's all lost time that I'll never get back, that I could have spent in some alternate way. Hell, even just spending more time with my parents living our life together would have been great. Instead, childhood f…

Note that discouraging car ownership—and instead encouraging cycling with safe infrastructure, like the Netherlands has been doing for the last 50 years—actually dramatically increases independence for both children and adults: https://thecityateyelevel.com/stories/biking-the-streets-to-...

Encourage skateboarding in adolescence & I'd bet you'd see even more independence.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#63

Post by 6510 »

jkhdigital wrote: post #40
sillysaurusx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went and did the other side, living nontraditionally and trying to be what I wanted. I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. My current hypothesis is that the team is all that matters. The work can be the most boring, crud-type work. As long as you’re working with people you like on something vague…

Amen. I’m a sober alcoholic, and if I died tomorrow I’d be content knowing that I did at least one worthwhile thing with the time I had: I helped another alcoholic, a 23 year old man who tried to kill himself shortly before I met him, get sober and start working and move out of his mom’s basement and stand up straight and look other people in the eyes and then go and help a few other people stop drinking. Not a singl…

The whole society seems designed top down to keep us fighting and arguing, live at the expense of others is the mantra. It seems it took a lot of engineering to get us this far from our natural state of caring. The Chinese seem to indoctrinate with a slightly different model where you are to believe society comes before the individual.

The sensible model seems rather obvious: One has to organize their own show before one is of [much] use to others. Until that time one should give the others the opportunity to help you with that and be grateful. Its not an embarrassment if you plan to do the same.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#64

Post by swader999 »

idolaspecus wrote: post #20

My first child is due any day now and I’ve been thinking a lot about the central problems presented in this article. But I don’t know what to do about them. Should I keep my son home with me, allocate mornings to academics and afternoons to more practical endeavors? Should I teach him to cook? To garden? To build cabinets? To train a dog? To do his taxes? Should I send him to public school but supplement his learning…

They'll follow you around and do all those things with you if you do it. My six year old mows the lawn since he could push it. Each kids has a raised bed they tend to each summer. School is ok for socialization but a lot has to happen at home in terms of this agency thing.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#65

Post by russelldjimmy »

esperent wrote: post #57
qqtt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it. On the flip side, if you step outside the bubble of comfort that Western society generally affords people, you'll find that life is "nasty, brutish & short" as Hobbes put it. We've come a very very long way in a short time towards raising our standard of living and our expectations for what our lives…

I live in a non-western low income country. Life is not "nasty, brutish and short". Honestly, it makes me pretty angry when I hear people from the west espouse this sentiment. Have you ever lived in a non-western country, to state that with such assurance? Life here is beautiful, the sense of community is so much stronger than it is in the west and overall I'd say that people are less stressed. On the flip side, many…

I think I get where you are coming from. I too live in a non-western third world nation. I relate to the points you make. But it isn’t obvious to me that the commenter meant to belittle life outside western nations. I think this wasn’t meant to be west vs non-west argument IMHO.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#66

Post by jkhdigital »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #61
jkhdigital wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economics is the new god, the god of materialism. At some point in the 20th century we decided that material prosperity is really all you need for a happy and healthy society. Doesn’t seem to be working out so well…

By what measure? (Not sure I disagree just curious)

It's a good and fair question, and of course I'm going to dodge it because I wasn't prepared to defend my statement. Probably should have ended with a rhetorical question instead.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#67

Post by benrbray »

jkhdigital wrote: post #17
bedobi wrote: post #8

This article did a great job of articulating something I've always felt strongly about but haven't been able to put into words. I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt like my schooling was mostly a giant waste of my time and energy. I was waaaay ahead in subjects I liked, because those things I learned myself out of innate interest. Rather than the system accommodating and encouraging being ahead, in those subjects I…

Daycare. The point is that school is, first and foremost, a daycare. All the talk about education is just marketing.

Unfortunately college puts up the same barriers. Much of the time I spent in high school learning to code was for nothing, because my university wouldn't let me even attempt to test out of the first- and second-year courses. In another instance they also wouldn't let me count a graduate statistics course for a baby-stats elective requirement. "We WoULdn'T bE an AccREdiTeD iNStiTutION if wE lEt yOU do THat!"

I ended up majoring in math instead of compsci as a result. It ended up being a good choice, because now I have skills in both areas. But I was pretty disappointed as an incoming freshman, enthusiastic about computer science, that college was nothing like what my parents and teachers made it out to be.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#68

Post by qqtt »

esperent wrote: post #57
qqtt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it. On the flip side, if you step outside the bubble of comfort that Western society generally affords people, you'll find that life is "nasty, brutish & short" as Hobbes put it. We've come a very very long way in a short time towards raising our standard of living and our expectations for what our lives…

I live in a non-western low income country. Life is not "nasty, brutish and short". Honestly, it makes me pretty angry when I hear people from the west espouse this sentiment. Have you ever lived in a non-western country, to state that with such assurance? Life here is beautiful, the sense of community is so much stronger than it is in the west and overall I'd say that people are less stressed. On the flip side, many…

"Bubbles of comfort" are not unique to Western countries, that is true. Every country on the planet offers a subset of their population a great life style, the only variable is how much of the country actually gets

a) to partake in that lifestyle

b) has the tools to reach that lifestyle when starting outside of it

Doesn't matter if you are talking about North Korea or the United States. And yes, you can find abject generational poverty in the United States as well.

The fact you could post your comment puts you in the top 40% of the world (roughly 60% don't have internet access).

If you have internet from a mobile phone, you are roughly in the top 50%.

Are you really looking outside your bubble of comfort?

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#69

Post by peterlk »

qqtt wrote: post #68
esperent wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a non-western low income country. Life is not "nasty, brutish and short". Honestly, it makes me pretty angry when I hear people from the west espouse this sentiment. Have you ever lived in a non-western country, to state that with such assurance? Life here is beautiful, the sense of community is so much stronger than it is in the west and overall I'd say that people are less stressed. On the flip side, many…

"Bubbles of comfort" are not unique to Western countries, that is true. Every country on the planet offers a subset of their population a great life style, the only variable is how much of the country actually gets a) to partake in that lifestyle b) has the tools to reach that lifestyle when starting outside of it Doesn't matter if you are talking about North Korea or the United States. And yes, you can find abject g…

I similarly think that you are applying a techno-utopian lens to your analysis. My family and I have spent time with many people who did not have internet or other modern amenities (Mongolia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Kazakhstan, and several others), and your statement does not hold. It is not _entirely_ untrue, because a bacterial infection can kill you, however, the dynamics of life are just... different. People are still capable of all the emotion and fulfillment that you and I are, but life is slower, simpler, and more well-defined, so it is often easier to feel happy and fulfilled.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#70

Post by donkeyd »

The Netherlands, over the past few years, has had a massive increase in companies started by young people. Many related to social media, of course, like video production and things like that. But there's also a group doing more original stuff, like breakfast delivery, or ice cream stands.

Over here it seems like what the author is looking for is on the rise.

Post reply on HN