The most precious resource is agency • Hacker News Board

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#231

Post by josephg » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

0-_-0 wrote: post #164

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That brings up an old memory for me: I used to work as a lifeguard at a pool for three or four years as I was going through uni. Nothing glamorous in that work, it's just very loosely managing young males showing off in front of young females. Except this one time some kid jumped in the deep end and whilst he surfaced, he couldn't reach the top of the side of the pool in order to stay at the surface, he was clutching…

I vaguely recall a study where they took suicidal people and employed them as lifeguards with great results.

It makes a lot of sense. There’s two types of depression (though their names elude me). There’s depression where there’s something wrong with your brain - and despite having a great life, your brain makes sad chemicals instead of happy ones. And then there’s depression where you feel sad because your life is missing purpose and meaning. Ie, being the person you are with the life you have, depression is a healthy response.

Most depression is the second type. So I’m not surprised giving people purpose shows great results. It would have for me, too.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#232

Post by inglor_cz » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #99

CarVac wrote: post #15

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…

I exercised my agency by annoying my teachers. That tended to lead to me having much lower grades in subjectively graded classes. It was a lot of fun, but I cringe sometimes in retrospect. Here's one example: Slashdot posted a link to a place that would let you search all graduate thesis papers at about the same time I was starting an English class taught by a grad student instructor. I looked up the instructor's Mas…

LOL. If someone looked up my thesis and did the same to me, I would have laughed with sincerity. In the "I crossed that killing field so that you don't have to" way.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#233

Post by Godel_unicode » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

malydok wrote: post #225

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That brings up an old memory for me: I used to work as a lifeguard at a pool for three or four years as I was going through uni. Nothing glamorous in that work, it's just very loosely managing young males showing off in front of young females. Except this one time some kid jumped in the deep end and whilst he surfaced, he couldn't reach the top of the side of the pool in order to stay at the surface, he was clutching…

It's an interesting fact that one could save many lives by donating to charities and yet wouldn't feel quite the same way about it. Clicking "donate" on a screen and filling in credit card details isn't as thrilling an experience as yours even if it achieves no less.

This nicely encapsulates why our society sucks. Helping people you can't see doesn't provide the self-congratulation dopamine hit, thus people don't do it.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#234

Post by pgustafs » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

ThinkBeat wrote: post #191

The problem with the article is that it only uses examples of extra ordinary people. Most people are not geniuses, they are average. You are not a genius. Most people who flunk out or drop out of school do not become billionaires and neither will you. Most people who decide to give it their all and become various forms of artists will never be famous, noticed no wealty or admired (Though on a nano scale you may have…

I vehemently disagree. Not with your explicit reasoning, but with the implicit assumption that there is some 1-dimensional metric of specialness or greatness that we're all being measured against.

The great thing about life is that it's so multidimensional. If you want to be the richest person in the world, of course you're setting yourself up for failure. But if you want to be the best version of yourself, you can easily be the best father-husband-son-coder-blogger-walker-painter to your children+wife+colleagues in your city in July 2021.

More than that, you can do things no one else has done. If you like research, the frontier is endless and extremely high dimensional. Find some niche that you enjoy and crush it. If you like helping people, there will never be an end of people you can help. You don't have to be average -- you can be in the 1% of what you're passionate about, easily, because there are so many possible choices of passion.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#235

Post by asimjalis » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #26

overgard wrote: post #18

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…

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…

I can totally relate to this. The most valuable thing I have retained from all of my previous jobs has been the relationships many of which are ongoing.

Once I realized this it occurred to me that instead of trying to optimize for accomplishment I need to optimize for these relationships. This changes the game.

This also explains an economic paradox. Why does our compensation go up when we switch jobs?

The reason is because each job switch opens us up to new opportunities to build relationships.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#236

Post by Volrath89 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #26

overgard wrote: post #18

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…

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…

One of the best comments I've read in a long time. The importance of a steady paycheck is underrated, especially for peace of mind.

I'm in a point of life that I actually long for easy and laid back CRUD-style jobs where one can do everything easily, quickly, be productive and also work a reasonable amount of hours and can stop thinking about work after signing off.

I recently had to start a new front end using just jquery (customer requirement) and oh boy, I felt so much productive compared to react/angular

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#237

Post by ikiris » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #105

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…

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. You will never have FU money working a regular job.

you can totally have FU money working a regular job if the job pays well enough.

There are plenty of them out there.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#238

Post by mikewarot » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

ThinkBeat wrote: post #191

The problem with the article is that it only uses examples of extra ordinary people. Most people are not geniuses, they are average. You are not a genius. Most people who flunk out or drop out of school do not become billionaires and neither will you. Most people who decide to give it their all and become various forms of artists will never be famous, noticed no wealty or admired (Though on a nano scale you may have…

>Most people are not geniuses, they are average. You are not a genius.

Kids have far more curiosity and insight about things, "education" exists to squash those qualities in those outside the donor class.

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#239

Post by bjornsing » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #84

overgard wrote: post #18

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…

I have tried both sides of the coin and have settled for somewhere in the middle, which for me is contracting. 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 e…

I’m starting to think this is the direction I want to go in. The butts-in-seats culture is strong here in Sweden though (strangely upheld by the butts in the seats themselves). So I’m a bit worried it will be a “dead end career wise” and not sustainable until retirement (I’m 43). Any thoughts on this? How do you find work and what makes you think you will continue to find work for 10, 15 or 20 years?

Re: The most precious resource is agency

#240

Post by tluyben2 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #221

tluyben2 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been living there for almost 50 years. Works fine.

We don't seem to generate much more innovation than our overseas cousins, though. A safety net may lead some people to experiment and play with things, others to slouching off. This even applies outside the public sphere. A stereotype of a bored millionaire's son with no energy to do anything substantial exists for a reason.

You have that everywhere, but yeah I think without a safetynet more people fight harder. So as you do not have the extreme upsides(but also not the extreme downsides) I guess we will never have the facebooks or googles here. It takes some kind of battle. Or being rich from birth and being able to hire people like that. Personally I do not enjoy that very much.