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Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

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Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#41

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #40
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alain's advice/statements include: - All parties are terrible and you're a terrible person if you like parties - Women date abusive men because they were traumatized as a child, and they avoid nice guys, so be an asshole to women - You can't be a good person unless you had a shitty time growing up, and people only start families to deal with their own shitty family trauma, so, good luck - You are doomed to an unhappy…

Maliciously reductive, basically a Reddit-tier comment. Thumbs down.

Your own comment seems highly constructive and informative with a well reasoned argument

Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#42

Post by tablespoon »

haswell wrote: post #25
switchbak wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a few minutes into Big Joel's takedown and ... it's pretty unimpressive. He's moreso complaining that psychology isn't a hard science, and that it's hard to make objectively proven statements about things like attachment theory as it relates early childhood development to later relationships. Well, yes, and this is more or less where we're at with Psychology (as I understand it, I'm definitely a lay person): it's…

> The kind of takedown that Joel makes ("reductive nonsense") is unsophisticated and frankly immature, and certainly not worthy of any more investment of my time. This is what immediately struck me when I started watching the video. It could be possible that everything Joel is saying is true, and yet, his presentation style comes from a place that feels like the opposite of good faith. His attitude is not one that se…

> It could be possible that everything Joel is saying is true, and yet, his presentation style comes from a place that feels like the opposite of good faith. His attitude is not one that seems to involve seeking truth/understanding, and he comes across as snarky, bitter, and with an undercurrent of some underlying agenda.

Yeah, just looking at the titles of his other videos it's pretty clear that's almost certainly what he's doing. It looks like he frequently makes stuff in the genre of "let's hate that otherside thing you hate, and together feel superior for hating it."

Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#43

Post by kstenerud »

roody15 wrote: post #29

I am a bit older and have worked in IT now for almost 2 decades. (44 years old) I honestly think the general premise here holds true and perhaps applies to many of us here in computed related occupations. It seems many of us focused on STEM STEM STEM or COMPUTERS COMPUTERS COMPUTERS in education but perhaps are emotionally infantile to an extent. How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets ……

> How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets … for what? What is important ? Our job… buying gadgets… traveling..

This would loosely describe the general form of most middle class peoples' jobs, technical or not. You work a lot so as not to slip down to a lower class (and build up a buffer that will last into your twilight years), and try to massage more meaning into the small amount of remaining time using gadgets, fashion, and travel. Security in the future would leave your brain free to do more meaningful things, but few have such luxury.

> How many of us work countless hours for companies whose missions we don’t perhaps even agree with… how many of us ponder what is important to us and why we act the way we do?

Once again, this is generally the domain of the affluent. Most great philosophers were affluent.

Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#44

Post by kelseyfrog »

scotty79 wrote: post #36

> Our energies are overwhelmingly directed toward material, scientific, and technical subjects and away from psychological and emotional ones. So little was established without a doubt about psychological and emotional stuff that there's absolutely no wonder people focus their efforts on other more material fields. People just choose to learn the domains where there's a lot to learn not just a lot to ponder.

As someone who has taken a conscious expressed interest in becoming intimately familiar with the world of social interaction and emotion, critically examining this mindset is the first step toward realizing that growth. The "measurable equals real" assumption while a fine heuristic, is just that, a generalization useful for making quick judgements, but leaves a lot on the table - empathy, emotion, personal interaction among them.

Maybe you haven't had the experience of feeling perpetually unable to connect with people in an emotional capacity and the ennui of an over quantified and systematized mode of being. Like many others, I have. The difference is striking. Dropping an absolute reliance on Cartesian rationality opened the door for real human connection. What I gained by balance, I'd never willingly give up.

Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#45

Post by synu »

tablespoon wrote: post #14
PotatoPancakes wrote: post #2

Alain de Botton's School of life is... honestly weird. It's really confident and tries to give good advice; but so much of that advice is quite bad, and the channel might overall do more harm than good (for more people than fewer). YouTuber Big Joel has done two breakdowns of it that are worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlkJJygIoVU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VZ30qL7j3Q .

> YouTuber Big Joel has done two breakdowns of it that are worth watching Honest question: why is "YouTuber Big Joel" someone I should spend an hour listening to?

Your mileage may vary, it’s a bit too “contrarian to generate views” for my taste, but check out his video history and see if it might be the kind of thing you’re into.

Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#46

Post by abrichr »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #32
karaterobot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones I've seen have all seemed fine to me. It's advice, and advice is not a branch of science.

Alain's advice/statements include: - All parties are terrible and you're a terrible person if you like parties - Women date abusive men because they were traumatized as a child, and they avoid nice guys, so be an asshole to women - You can't be a good person unless you had a shitty time growing up, and people only start families to deal with their own shitty family trauma, so, good luck - You are doomed to an unhappy…

Perhaps if you cite some sources for your claims (e.g. timestamped links to the relevant videos) you would not receive so many downvotes

Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#47

Post by abrichr »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #44
scotty79 wrote: post #36

> Our energies are overwhelmingly directed toward material, scientific, and technical subjects and away from psychological and emotional ones. So little was established without a doubt about psychological and emotional stuff that there's absolutely no wonder people focus their efforts on other more material fields. People just choose to learn the domains where there's a lot to learn not just a lot to ponder.

As someone who has taken a conscious expressed interest in becoming intimately familiar with the world of social interaction and emotion, critically examining this mindset is the first step toward realizing that growth. The "measurable equals real" assumption while a fine heuristic, is just that, a generalization useful for making quick judgements, but leaves a lot on the table - empathy, emotion, personal interactio…

> The difference is striking. Dropping an absolute reliance on Cartesian rationality opened the door for real human connection.

I've recently started allowing myself to think in this direction. Can you please provide some specific examples of what this looks like?

Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#48

Post by phs318u »

roody15 wrote: post #29

I am a bit older and have worked in IT now for almost 2 decades. (44 years old) I honestly think the general premise here holds true and perhaps applies to many of us here in computed related occupations. It seems many of us focused on STEM STEM STEM or COMPUTERS COMPUTERS COMPUTERS in education but perhaps are emotionally infantile to an extent. How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets ……

I used to worry about being "successful" until I had an epiphany triggered by my father's death. Do you want to know what success is? Visualise the day of your funeral. Who is there? Are they sad, devastated, in tears? Are they looking at their watch or relieved you're finally gone? What does it say on your headstone? "Here lies roody15. Beloved father, husband, son. Forever in our hearts" Or will it say, "Here lies roody15. He was a good employee". Will anyone from your work be talking about your 60-hour weeks and the weekends you put in when the business really needed it? Or will your kids be talking through tears about how they'll miss you reading them bedtime stories?

For me, I define personal success by the impact I have on other people's lives and the imprint I leave on their hearts. Everything else is filler. Undeniably useful - but filler.

Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#49

Post by russelldjimmy »

kstenerud wrote: post #43
roody15 wrote: post #29

I am a bit older and have worked in IT now for almost 2 decades. (44 years old) I honestly think the general premise here holds true and perhaps applies to many of us here in computed related occupations. It seems many of us focused on STEM STEM STEM or COMPUTERS COMPUTERS COMPUTERS in education but perhaps are emotionally infantile to an extent. How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets ……

> How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets … for what? What is important ? Our job… buying gadgets… traveling.. This would loosely describe the general form of most middle class peoples' jobs, technical or not. You work a lot so as not to slip down to a lower class (and build up a buffer that will last into your twilight years), and try to massage more meaning into the small amount of rem…

If you read OP’s post carefully, you might notice that they are not being dismissive of working for money, but it seems to me your response to the post treats it as though it is (a strawman).

To me, the OP’s post is an inquiry into “why” we do what we do. It is a useful inquiry that may be followed up with personal introspection, which might lead to a better understanding of ourselves if done with integrity.

For example - we work to earn money. Why do we earn money? So we can live comfortably (your answer might vary). Why do we want to live comfortably? And so on…

The line of reasoning you seem to have chosen ends at “to earn money” and then pivots to philosophers being affluent while seemingly (to me) proceeding to dismiss all the learnings procured by affluent people as though that makes them inherently different to the learnings procured by others (a conclusion that seems to have no solid basis).

Re: Alain de Botton on existential maturity and what emotional intelligence means

#50

Post by kstenerud »

russelldjimmy wrote: post #49
kstenerud wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets … for what? What is important ? Our job… buying gadgets… traveling.. This would loosely describe the general form of most middle class peoples' jobs, technical or not. You work a lot so as not to slip down to a lower class (and build up a buffer that will last into your twilight years), and try to massage more meaning into the small amount of rem…

If you read OP’s post carefully, you might notice that they are not being dismissive of working for money, but it seems to me your response to the post treats it as though it is (a strawman). To me, the OP’s post is an inquiry into “why” we do what we do. It is a useful inquiry that may be followed up with personal introspection, which might lead to a better understanding of ourselves if done with integrity. For exam…

The "why" we do what we do is mostly governed by circumstance. And in modern times (the past 5000 or so years), circumstance is almost completely governed by money and politics. The meritocratic ideal is what keeps our minds enslaved.

When you have enough security that you have no worries for the medium term, you gain the luxury of time and brain energy to contemplate these things rather than having to focus your thoughts on such base things as eating, shelter, health, and maintaining your position.

The majority of us focus on our jobs, buy gadgets and take vacations because we don't have the luxuries of time and peace of mind (since our focus is by necessity on the near term), but we'd like to have them. And even a short-term feeling of luxury is better than none.

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