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This and things like FocusMate seem symptomatic of much larger, more serious latent problems. It reminds of the younger generations having to put YouTube on to eat a meal. I can't quite put my finger on the connection, but paying a person sit behind you and ask how you're doing, and make you a smoothie... it feels like you're hiring someone to be your mother. This entire experiment left me feeling unclean.
> I have an endlessly growing list of projects I want to make, books I want to read, and skills I want to learn, so productivity means a lot to me! If it really meant a lot, it wouldn't be a challenge to actually do it. It sounds like the real problem is a lack of interest in the particular books, skills, etc.
I think there’s something to that. It could be that there’s no immediate interest, i.e. everything is tantalizing but roughly equally so, so they cancel each other out and all simply exist as vague desires rather than actual goals.
Chop wood. Carry water. Just do the work, or don't. This is some bullshit.
There’s something to be said that manual labor is probably less anxiety-inducing or at least less easy to shirk than abstract work.
Somehow it's more obvious that it will yield results (at all) and soon.
This and things like FocusMate seem symptomatic of much larger, more serious latent problems. It reminds of the younger generations having to put YouTube on to eat a meal. I can't quite put my finger on the connection, but paying a person sit behind you and ask how you're doing, and make you a smoothie... it feels like you're hiring someone to be your mother. This entire experiment left me feeling unclean.
Btw this doesn't just include young people. People needing youtube on to eat is just another variation on needing the TV on. I know and have read about some elderly people that keep the weather channel or 24hr news on all day out of sheer loneliness. Across the board people are just lonely in numbers that lead it could be called an epidemic by many health and mental health organizations.
This experiment left me feeling unclean for a different reason: this person essentially just hired a retinue of servants.
This reminds me of "This Guy Hired Someone To Slap Him In The Face Every Time He Got On Facebook" https://www.businessinsider.com/this-guy-hired-someone-to-sl...
This comment reminds me of reddit, where people feel like reading a headline warrants a comment without actually reading the article
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I clicked on the "About" page and learned that the author is 21. For a minute that made the experiment make more sense. Then it stopped making sense again.
I'm more confused by these comments. Like, he's 21. This is an interesting experience and a great story to tell. Sounds like money well-spent and I'm glad he's experimenting in unusual ways. That's what makes life interesting and worth living. Some of my most memorable and valuable memories stem from bad decisions or experimenting with different ideas that might be dumb. Some of you need to touch grass.
The obliviousness to the human element and power dynamics here is shocking. It would be one thing for an eccentric billionaire to do something like this; it would feel sort of par for the course and understandable that they don't really have to answer to anyone there's no downside in letting it all hang out. But a 21-year-old Meta engineer with big ambitions? It's sort of mind-boggling.
I‘m sure the assistants were happy to earn some easy, casual money - far more demeaning or difficult jobs pay a lot worse. One assistant expressed interest in the experiment and honestly I’d have been open to helping a friend do this for science