81–90 of 340 posts
I think I found school tolerable, or even fun, because I was able to figure out the proper way to exercise agency within the confines of the system. As an analogy, as a kid when I played with Lego or K'NEX, my favorite thing to do was not assemble kits but instead come up with my own designs from the parts therein. Working within the system, but being a creator rather than a consumer. At school, I wasn't just trying…
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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…
> And while they may not have wanted to work, the work was nonetheless something that both they and society felt was useful: something purposeful and appreciated. I have begun fearing we live in a world that actively hides useful, meaningful work behind bureaucracies, licensure, advanced degrees, and other mechanisms. I believe this happens as a type of nepotism...a holding onto a nugget of meaningful work/knowledge…
Making life difficult for Management is unquestionably NOT a path towards promotion, and continues the rotating door of mediocre management. And mediocre management wants, desperately, to hold on to their position because they're aware, consciously or otherwise, of their mediocrity.
Having someone who can out-think you as a report is a threat to your position. Like you said: fear.
One of the biggest tragedies isn't just that the childhood is wasted, but that many people never learn to have agency once it is available. I'm not saying you need to start your own business or anything like that, but it seems like most people live their lives never questioning the scripts that are given to them. The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically…
For myself, I burned out pretty hard on 9-5 work, so I don't take on a full time workload and I don't take on work that requires butt-in-seat engagment, even remotely.
In that way I retain full agency over my time, and great flexibility in when I work. I work when I am feeling the most effective, and I can eliminate all that dead time wasted at traditional jobs, where you are just tabbing mindlessly between screens because you have spent your focus budget for the day.
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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…
Economists just try to explain things. They don't make economics. The nation and enterprises big small in concert make an economic system. But, go back far enough in the past before nations and businesses and economics were still in play. It's like numbers, it exists even if we are ignorant of it.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/normativeeconomics.asp
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_economics
[3] https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/ec...
[4] https://marketbusinessnews.com/financial-glossary/normative-...
[5] https://www.soas.ac.uk/cedep-demos/000_P570_IEEP_K3736-Demo/...
[6] https://www.cairn.info/revue-d-economie-politique-2018-2-pag...
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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 have by now traveled pretty much to all the continents and at this point smartphones and internet are ubiquitous. They are litterly now throwing away working second hand ones in developing nations.
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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…
I think you can cultivate that in a small way though, by taking part in volunteer programs in your community. I know it's a cliche recommendation but if you are feeling like we lack community then it's probably just because of how easy it is to separate yourself from it.
This prompted me to realize that Factorio has become a refuge from my sense of lack of agency. I love solving little problems that won't come back and bite me years later if I get it wrong.
Thanks for posting, and the discussions it prompted, both here and at home.
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…
Interesting: internet-access > no-internet-access
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…
If you have 150k in the bank you could go to a remote place in the US, take a lowkey job where you work 25 hours a week, and live perfectly fine. No one is stopping you.
The only reason you don't do this is because you like nice things, nice food cooked for you, nice immenities, and want your kids to have material prosperity.