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You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

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Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#271

Post by darkerside »

flipgimble wrote: post #225
darkerside wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that sometimes humility and compassion are not what's needed. Sometimes a person needs a kick in the pants. A close friend willing to tell you to stop impulse buying furniture, or get a fucking job, or get off your ass and work out. The tricky part is knowing when which tactic is called for.

Its fairly obvious that an anonymous stranger on the internet, or a politician proselytizing for their punative economic policies is _not_ that type of friend. But it seems some people derive a great deal of satisfaction out of imaginging themselves as knowing better how people should live their lives.

It may not be a much better approach than pandering and patronizing their feelings, but it's probably at least a little bit better.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#272

Post by techtalsky »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #9

This is a great article. How it ended up on HN I don't know, but can somebody please start submitting more like this, and fewer techno-babble thinkpieces by junior javascript contractors who host their own mail?

At the same time, Reddit exists, and this is a community of people created by a VC company explicitly to have wonky tech discussions with other professionals called "Hacker News". It's fine every once in a while but I don't want this to be filled with generic human interest stories.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#273

Post by PeterisP »

squigz wrote: post #219
darkerside wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that sometimes humility and compassion are not what's needed. Sometimes a person needs a kick in the pants. A close friend willing to tell you to stop impulse buying furniture, or get a fucking job, or get off your ass and work out. The tricky part is knowing when which tactic is called for.

Have you ever told a friend that and them respond with something along the lines of, "You know, I'd never thought of that. I'm just going to go get a job. Thanks!"? Me neither.

If your friend is screwing up their life and you are enabling them by validating their bad choices, you're not being a good friend to them. Close friends are pretty much the only ones who are in a position of trust to be able to deliver harsh truths to someone in a way that actually gets through (unlike internet strangers, media, authorities and in many cases also family), so it's the duty of friends to actually do so when needed.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#274

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

screye wrote: post #87

Incredible writing. Reading this, I kept feeling a sense that something was missing. It wasn't until later in the blog that I hit me. "Where is her community?" To a 3rd world immigrant, the idea of being this isolated in your the country you were born in, feels unfathomable. Back home, It's common for kids to live with their parents until the kids are ready, often until age 25-30. Alternatively, people will stuff the…

> "Where is her community?"

You could ask the same of homeless people, drug addicts, people with mental issues, people from foster care, criminals, the elderly. Some people lose their community, and don't have the tools or capacity to build a new one. Single mothers are one of those groups that can quickly be kicked out of, or need to escape from, their community, and have a hard time building a new one.

Growing up in the USA, I don't think it's the West that has a problem with community - I think it's the Caucasian West. Latin/Hispanic families are highly connected, as are Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, etc. Some cultures are highly collective and have strong support structures for extended family. Immigrant communities also tend to have stronger bonds as they may depend more on each other in a new land. OTOH some cultures are more individualist, having expanded the concept of the "nuclear family" in the early 20th century, weakening extended family bonds. In the conservative caucasian West, the nuclear family is now seen as the "traditional" family structure, which is odd, because everywhere else in the world it's non-traditional.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#275

Post by simbolit »

WendyTheWillow wrote: post #230
simbolit wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The[re] will never be a successful society.... As I do hold degrees in the field studying this very question, may I kindly ask for your sources? Or, not being greedy here, reasons...?

I would bet entire dollars you'll hate this source, but here's one: "The Magnificent Progress Achieved By Capitalism: Is the Evidence Incontrovertible?" [0] Here's a less insane one: "Comparative Economic Systems: Capitalism and Socialism in the 21st Century" [1] Another one: "Economic Systems and Economic Growth" [2] It's not really controversial in your field to claim that rewarding effort is a superior model to sp…

What's un-controversial is claims like "There will never be..." are bullshit.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#276

Post by WendyTheWillow »

yawpitch wrote: post #267
WendyTheWillow wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A shallow dismissal is less valuable than an excellent critical comment. Please share with me (and others) what's wrong with my thinking. I'm trying to be transparent about my reasoning in child comments, so hopefully, you will have enough to work with.

> a shallow dismissal is less valuable than an excellent critical comment An excellent critical comment is wasted on a shallow argument… your thinking assumes that reaching beyond the metaphorical ceiling doesn’t require standing atop those still struggling to reach the metaphorical floor… it absolutely and necessarily does. Worse, you seem to think that reaching for means that vastly outstrip your need is somehow no…

If Jimmy turns a piece of wood and some graphite into a pencil, he has created value. That didn't require exploiting the lumberjack or the miner. Jimmy did not steal value from either. He created value by inventing a new way for their raw materials to be useful to other people. Jimmy didn't need to "stand atop" anyone to do this.

What's "pathetic" are the ad hominems and insults the people in this thread have to resort to when they can't argue like adults. You're not right because you're angry, and you weaken your advocacy by trying to use your frustration as leverage over people giving reasoned arguments.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#277

Post by squigz »

PeterisP wrote: post #273
squigz wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever told a friend that and them respond with something along the lines of, "You know, I'd never thought of that. I'm just going to go get a job. Thanks!"? Me neither.

If your friend is screwing up their life and you are enabling them by validating their bad choices, you're not being a good friend to them. Close friends are pretty much the only ones who are in a position of trust to be able to deliver harsh truths to someone in a way that actually gets through (unlike internet strangers, media, authorities and in many cases also family), so it's the duty of friends to actually do s…

Nobody's making the case for enabling bad choices - I just don't think being an asshole is the only alternative.

I also don't know anyone in a similar situation who isn't acutely aware of the situation - they don't need their friends constantly giving them the most obvious advice in the world, they need support.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#278

Post by WendyTheWillow »

simbolit wrote: post #275
WendyTheWillow wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet entire dollars you'll hate this source, but here's one: "The Magnificent Progress Achieved By Capitalism: Is the Evidence Incontrovertible?" [0] Here's a less insane one: "Comparative Economic Systems: Capitalism and Socialism in the 21st Century" [1] Another one: "Economic Systems and Economic Growth" [2] It's not really controversial in your field to claim that rewarding effort is a superior model to sp…

What's un-controversial is claims like "There will never be..." are bullshit.

Quality contribution; thanks for commenting.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#279

Post by WendyTheWillow »

yawpitch wrote: post #266
WendyTheWillow wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a lot of people would be very wrong. There’s a floor to survivability, below which you can’t keep yourself alive, but there is no ceiling. If everyone is above the floor, there’s no reason for concern about those looking for the ceiling. In the future we’ll pull people up to the floor, but that doesn’t require attaching a ceiling. The will never be a successful society that substantially punishes achievement abov…

> In the future we’ll pull people up to the floor, but that doesn’t require attaching a ceiling. It absolutely does, right up until the exact future moment when EVERYONE is pulled up above (well above) the (bottom) floor. In other words no one should be at liberty to seek the ceiling until EVERYONE is out of the basement. > The will never be a successful society that substantially punishes achievement above a certain…

Again, you rely on the utterly false notion of a "zero-sum" economy, when in fact it may only be possible to pull everyone out of poverty if we allow people to be proportionately rewarded for their contributions.

Re: You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal (2020)

#280

Post by badpun »

thiago_fm wrote: post #70

That's one big paradox. Coming from poverty, I work with plenty of talented people, but nowhere as talented as the people I've studied in shitty schools. Now most of those people from my poverty times continue to be poor, because of many problems poverty brought to them. I can clearly see that, and that I was the lucky one to find a way up many times. Yet, my new social circle believe that I'm talented because of my…

I think plenty of people are well aware of this. That's why parents insist for the best possible education for their children - they know that it's the credentials carried by the diploma, and not the child's actual talents (or lack or thereof) will decide the future quality of life of the child. Cue in tutoring, extensive paid college exam/SAT prep etc.
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