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The businessman and the fisherman (1963)

thestorytellers.com

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Re: The businessman and the fisherman (1963)

#71

Post by s1mplicissimus »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #30
rcme wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn’t die alone. His children and wife watch him die. Without him, they must toil endlessly to survive.

His son already got into YC2024, via his participation in a worker-owned tech coop that is bringing big data, AI and crowd sourcing to the fishing business. His wife, who in the 1800s, would never have been recognized for her work, is today known as one of her country's greatest contemporary sculptors, and has exhibited at Tate Modern, the Guggenheim and has a show next month in Rio. The fisherman used to talk with p…

i wonder how the fisherman got to know and marry an internationally successful artist and what are the odds of that happening...

Re: The businessman and the fisherman (1963)

#73

Post by tut-urut-utut »

virtualwhys wrote: post #29

In a similar spirit there's Tolstoy's classic short story, "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" [1] I'd start just before chapter V if you want to get right into it -- the ending is truly delicious, and quite inline with OP's story, enjoy. [1] http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/

Short story by Tolstoy… chapter V…

Short and concise indeed. But then again, I read full Ana Karenina, and it was worth it.

Re: The businessman and the fisherman (1963)

#74

Post by passion__desire »

fwlr wrote: post #49

There’s a related story, unfortunately not quite as neatly packaged, and it’s about taxi drivers. A businessman gets into a taxi and starts talking to the taxi driver about (of course) business. The taxi driver is in a great mood and explains that today is a good day, this is his last trip since he has made the $400 he aims to make in just two hours. The businessman asks him what a bad day looks like, and the taxi dr…

Businessman (American) vs Fisherman (European), if we try to assign cultural values to these characters.

Re: The businessman and the fisherman (1963)

#75

Post by neilknowsbest »

s1mplicissimus wrote: post #71
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His son already got into YC2024, via his participation in a worker-owned tech coop that is bringing big data, AI and crowd sourcing to the fishing business. His wife, who in the 1800s, would never have been recognized for her work, is today known as one of her country's greatest contemporary sculptors, and has exhibited at Tate Modern, the Guggenheim and has a show next month in Rio. The fisherman used to talk with p…

i wonder how the fisherman got to know and marry an internationally successful artist and what are the odds of that happening...

He's a retired businessman. They met, by chance, years ago when he was in South Korea to close the construction contract for his 50-boat fishing fleet with Hyundai.

Re: The businessman and the fisherman (1963)

#76

Post by jerrre »

passion__desire wrote: post #74
fwlr wrote: post #49

There’s a related story, unfortunately not quite as neatly packaged, and it’s about taxi drivers. A businessman gets into a taxi and starts talking to the taxi driver about (of course) business. The taxi driver is in a great mood and explains that today is a good day, this is his last trip since he has made the $400 he aims to make in just two hours. The businessman asks him what a bad day looks like, and the taxi dr…

Businessman (American) vs Fisherman (European), if we try to assign cultural values to these characters.

There's a very broad range of (work) cultures within Europe, broader than the avg of US vs avg of EU of there was such a thing.

Re: The businessman and the fisherman (1963)

#77

Post by jerrre »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #24

I'd like an extended version of the story where the businessman realizes he's wrong, invites all his friends to give up their lives in the business-world and revert to subsistence living that provides freedom. Then society collapses because if everyone is doing the bare minimum, there isn't anything left over for basic government services.

is the businessman friends with everyone in society?

Re: The businessman and the fisherman (1963)

#80

Post by nicbou »

thathndude wrote: post #65
nicbou wrote: post #54

People love to take this story apart. I always took the message as “stop when you have enough”. It’s a lesson about contentment. I have enough, and I turned my entrepreneurial spirit towards public good instead of revenue. I take days off when it’s sunny, and reintroduced play into my work. I am back to Paul Graham’s “do things that don’t scale”. I am dismayed by the amount of greed among people far wealthier than me…

When folks are surveyed about what level of wealth would make them 10/10 happy, without variation, every wealth bracket reports back “double.” It’s a sickness.

Well it really depends on what you have to sacrifice for it. I decided that at 1.5x the median income, I'd stop caring. I stopped caring much sooner.
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