261–270 of 431 posts
(b) If doing "work" is what makes you happy, then when you are doing work on your own time, I'd suggest trying to stretch yourself. Try to do something which seems difficult, or radical. Allow yourself to fantasize that you're going to become famous by doing this thing whatever it is.
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the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market…
I'm not sure if this is a new trend, or if I've only just begun noticing it over the last decade. People seem to have completely lost the ability to infer the meaning of words if it lies beyond face value. What a trite, shallow interpretation.
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He says everyone should work 20-30 hours, not more. How do you equate that with laying on the couch all day?
He's taking it to the limit to illustrate that even if you are minimally productive, he wouldn't care as long as you don't ask him to support you.
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For what it's worth I've only experienced this long term in corporations. Small companies that are actually still in the prime of producing and growth can't afford that with everyone and expect to survive. If it's systemic the startup just fails after meandering for a little bit. I derive a little satisfaction from that fact. It starts to tilt after you've gotten a couple hundred employees and people can hide more.
Small companies have a different problem. I figure there are about 1 in 10,000, if not 100,000 software devs that have the brains and fortitude to eat shit for 4-5 years, solving hard problems. Not only do start-ups normally not have 4-5 years, but they don't even try to solve hard problems - they mostly just try to solve some trivial bullshit to exploit a legal loophole or insert themselves as middlemen in a corpora…
I don't really agree with that, the time horizon on a successful startup, one that's acquired or goes public, is 7-10 years. I also don't agree with the class of problems. Like everything there's tiers. C tier player get's a C tier company with C tier problems. Naturally there's more C tier people than A tier, but that's not an indictment specific or by any stretch unique to startups.
Edit: Honestly, the prevalence of easy capital means bullshit like you say stands out more but I'm not sure if a lot of companies like that are the winning bet for another like Google or whatever. They're over pronounced for sure but the moment venture capital stops having so much money floating around they'll die out imo. It does mean you have to do a little more work to find the interesting ones though.
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From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven…
> We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. Totally agree. > We are NOT companies Actually, we are humans. However, when it comes to our economic activity, we are also a company. Both things can be true at once. > this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. Woah. Anything you specifically…
There's an embedded ambiguity in your sentence in that there are two kinds of failure. One is a failure of endeavor where one don't get what one necessarily wants but who has the basics. Two is a catastrophic type failure with some combination of deprivation, insecurity, and health problems as a result.
Most people would agree with your statement when it comes to one. When it comes to two I don't think such a consensus exists.
My interpretation of the disagreement you are replying to is that possibly differing definitions of failure are being used.
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Yes, the idea that you can't hold "the neoliberal view" of your household, and "the communist view" and the "romantic view", and the "spiritual view" all together for all their benefits and tradeoffs seems worse to me than even subscribing to one holistically without this imperative. I've had this called out as absolutely faux pas if not totally asinine by people who are deep into philosophy, but I'm doing great, a l…
> faux pas if not totally asinine These people are embarrassed that you can think for yourself. Life has such a high fractal dimension. It's highly unlikely that a single theory, expressed in a serial language, can be a very good description of life, at all. But it feels good to believe one thing strongly. It feels so, so good. And it feels good to hate people who believe the other thing, and to think they're wrong.…
But yes it's hard to describe life, because of that fractal complexity you mention. So the best we can do is go over and over it again and again with different lenses, at different scales, different rates, and get a feel for the thing that way. (Then you must sample all of that, cut it together with music, and release a Terrance Malick movie).
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> We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. Totally agree. > We are NOT companies Actually, we are humans. However, when it comes to our economic activity, we are also a company. Both things can be true at once. > this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. Woah. Anything you specifically…
What set me off (not the one you're responding to) about your comment was the bit about not having a right to a good outcome. Depending on what one means by "good", that one doesn't have a right to it is a fairly strong statement of political opinion, but it was presented as a universal truth. I also think it's very important that people are allowed to enter risky ventures and "fail" while still being secure of a som…
I work at a software consultancy, and here are my hot tips around this: - Take breaks between tasks. Your flow should mostly allow 5-10 minute breaks often (like once an hour or so) without anything or anybody blowing up. - It's healthy that your client (or bosses) will always want more work, especially if you and your team do good work. - Always instill in your client (or bosses) that work will get done when it's do…
"People have told me they work best under pressure" What I have learned about this phrase is "I work best when I am hyper focused on a singular and that is usually associated with being "under pressure" that causes us to slide into a state of hyper focused thinking.
I've been in jobs where was less was expected of me than I was capable of delivering and, more often than not, jobs where more was expected of me than I was capable of delivering, at least for any considerable length of time without burnout. Both were difficult. I like to think that if I had one of the lower effort needed jobs now that I would find other useful things to do like the author mentioned. At the time I mo…
So long as I have just as many 60% days as I do 100%, and average out near the benchmark of 80%, then I have fulfilled the expectations that have been set, and I can be comfortable shutting the lid of my laptop at 1700 sharp.
I'm currently working in downtime(which I expect to continue for some more time), and have been spending my time trying to build something for internal use that also counts for my self-education goals. There's definitely a temptation to goof off and read, play games, or watch movies, but I'd rather be 5% efficient at figuring out how to get Azure to cooperate than 'opt out' and take unofficial personal time. I want to be able to show that I can independently produce value, and increase the value of my 80% for when raises come around.
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>You are the boss of a company of one. This is a poor analogy and and an analogy that isn't needed (what exactly have you simplified for the reader here -- the concept of self-determination?). Not sure why you think that every person is basically a temporarily embarrassed CEO of a minuscule company and then to grandstand on that as if anyone who doesn't subscribe hasn't hit the same threshold of maturity.
> every person is basically a temporarily embarrassed CEO That wasn't the point. The point is that businesses are people, so people are businesses. And while regular businesses can be run by a separate CEO, the business of your own person can only be run by yourself, so you got to learn to think like a real CEO to run the business of your person, even though this business will never have more than one member.
Why? Because bussinesses aren't people, rather businesses are made up of people. People aren't businesses, people do business.
You can tell yourself "you got to learn to think like a real CEO to run the business of your person" and "make good decisions" or else "you will fail".
Or you can tell yourself "I am my own man (CEO), I can decide what my goals are, and what's considered success/failure. And I have decided that I don't actually want nor have to work so hard". The day you can do that, is the day you hold a huge component to being happy.