Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help • Hacker News Board

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#121

Post by zamber » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

bitexploder wrote: post #81

knrz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory about stoicism in the past vs. stoicism in the present. Keep in mind that I say this all from a very North American point of view (born in Iran, but grew up in Canada). In the past, there was no guard against disease. If it came, you were done for. There were some limited options available when it came to medicine, but by and large, if you got a disease, that was it. It was out of your hands, and even…

Stoicism addresses deeply rooted human tendencies. I don't think, if we are being honest, we have any more real control. We are less likely to die but we have merely stretched our individual timeline slightly in the scheme of things. It (access to modern medicine) should not change ones philosophy much IMO.

Chasing a good place to live, die and fulfill personal needs is hedonistic in nature. You would have to buy into the reincarnation thing to defer that to another incarnation and accept your lot in life as it is.

There is value in acceptance but it's for the ones that are better off than others. There's nothing just in death by a preventable disease when a cure is outside if ones ability to obtain it.

Silicon valley stoicism emerged due to people loosing track of their worth, mindlessly running after profit. We should stride for goals (personal and shared), not take solace in a philosophy of existential stagnation.

It's pretty bleak and depressing but IMO it's not ones philosophy that changes, but the interpretation of it and resulting actions that it inspires.

In other words economic prosperity is a variable factor that will influence ones actions no matter what their philosophy is. By changing the variable you will change the product it gives. Dismissing it is ignorant until it's proven that it doesn't influence your sum-of-life-happiness.

Pretty hard to measure given we have 1 playthrough, nevertheless it can still be a factor. Stating otherwise is a matter of opinion about the volatility of influence a given factor has.

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#122

Post by Bartweiss » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:19 PM UTC

workthrowaway27 wrote: post #108

voxl wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't get past the first paragraph in Ted Kaczynski's essay. He makes a lot of claims, with little to no evidence. You can cherry pick notions of stoicism from it (and incorrectly claim that it can be a universally applied philosophy), but what you've linked is essentially just propaganda.

I wonder how many of the people down voting you realize Ted Kaczynski is the unabomber? (I couldn't read the article since it's blocked by work firewall, so I can't comment on it).

Is the implication that people knowing that would be more or less likely to downvote?

I mean, Kaczynski was certainly not writing calm and evidence-based prose, but he's regularly cited as saying something seminal and interesting regardless. I don't think "there's no evidence, that's pure propaganda" is untrue, but it feels like a strange objection to raise for anyone aware of what the work is.

Aren't manifestos usually meant to be a position statement or propaganda, with factual debate conducted elsewhere? It's like criticizing an instruction manual for lacking compelling characters, or a holy book for not being peer-reviewed.

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#123

Post by wu-ikkyu » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:20 PM UTC

badminton1 wrote: post #20

Modern society may have issues, but it as bad as it is usually portrayed. 10,000 years ago, you would live in a tribe. If you were not popular among your tribe, it is likely you would be either exiled and forced to live in solitude and die during winter or be constantly subject to violence. 2,000 years ago, you would live only to work in a farm or be in a state of perpetual war. To make things worse, literacy rate wa…

The article was about loneliness not life expectancy.

The family/social unit in tribal cultures is comparably closer on many levels than families in individualistic/civilized societies.

In the former, survival depends on community cohesiveness, in the latter, survival is a game of everybody against everybody.

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#124

Post by goldfeld » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

77pt77 wrote: post #99

Bartweiss wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expectations and also demands; as the precariat grows, and the unnecessariat under it, there's steadily more risk to striking out on one's own. Certainly a six-figure salary is not necessary for happiness, but if you find yourself working long hours to make rent in some midwestern town it's going to cut into your opportunities for self-discovery and joy. And if you got wise a bit too late, after picking up federal st…

> It seems like we've created a system where the straight-and-narrow is increasingly narrow, and the cliffs around it are increasingly high. It's still worth finding one's own path, but in both social and purely-practical terms it's gotten steadily harder. On the one hand yes, on the other hand mobility at every level has never been greater, even if still not at the optimal level.

The lottery doesn't care about your class. Still doesn't mean many people get mobility out of it.

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#125

Post by Bartweiss » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

77pt77 wrote: post #99

Bartweiss wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expectations and also demands; as the precariat grows, and the unnecessariat under it, there's steadily more risk to striking out on one's own. Certainly a six-figure salary is not necessary for happiness, but if you find yourself working long hours to make rent in some midwestern town it's going to cut into your opportunities for self-discovery and joy. And if you got wise a bit too late, after picking up federal st…

> It seems like we've created a system where the straight-and-narrow is increasingly narrow, and the cliffs around it are increasingly high. It's still worth finding one's own path, but in both social and purely-practical terms it's gotten steadily harder. On the one hand yes, on the other hand mobility at every level has never been greater, even if still not at the optimal level.

"Mobility at every level has never been greater" is a completely unfamiliar claim to me. I literally can't find a single plausible source saying that about socioeconomic mobility - they all say it's been flat or falling for at least 20 years.

Are we maybe talking about different forms of mobility?

From Wikipedia:

"In recent years, several studies have found that vertical intergenerational mobility is lower in the US than in some European countries.[1] US social mobility has either remained unchanged or decreased since the 1970s.[2]"

"A study published in 2008 showed that economic mobility in the U.S. increased from 1950 to 1980, but has declined sharply since 1980.[3]"

"A 2013 Brookings Institution study found income inequality was increasing and becoming more permanent, sharply reducing social mobility.[4]"

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-t...

[2] http://www.economist.com/node/3518560?story_id=3518560

[3] http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/43/1/139.refs

[4] http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/bpea/latest-conferen...

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#126

Post by zamber » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:30 PM UTC

blowski wrote: post #39

Personally, going to Church has helped me suffer less with loneliness. I've made meaningful friendships, and relationships with people from all sorts of backgrounds. It has given more meaning to my life than anything I found at work, or by random socialising. Of course, YMMV. Please take this as a random anecdote, not as evangelism.

Also as an anecdote, I had a similar situation with a local hackerspace. Made long-lasting friendships, solved the loneliness issue.

We're social beings. Nevertheless I think that finding meaning in life should be separate from a decision to belong to any group. Be it of interest or religious. All a group can provide is opportunities.

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#127

Post by Bartweiss » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:34 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #101

Bartweiss wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an experience I had in undergrad that's always stuck with me. The computer science department and the careers office jointly brought in some startup founders to talk about founding or joining startups and take questions; it was really quite a good idea. Someone asked about degrees and majors - do you need a Master's, which degrees are 'relevant', and so on. The first few founders hemmed and hawed, said "techn…

Yet we all know that virtually every programming job advertised requires a computer science degree, I'm not convinced it was good advice given the way most companies hire.

I'm not convinced it was good advice for most people. I'm pretty sure the guy meant it for his company, but I would definitely have worried about ending up locked into a small pool of employers.

What made it memorable for me was mostly watching people freeze up and basically try to avoid the suggestion. I certainly think there are people for whom dropping out of college to work at a startup is sensible, and yet no one was going to even discuss the merits of the comment.

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#128

Post by workthrowaway27 » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:38 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #122

workthrowaway27 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of the people down voting you realize Ted Kaczynski is the unabomber? (I couldn't read the article since it's blocked by work firewall, so I can't comment on it).

Is the implication that people knowing that would be more or less likely to downvote? I mean, Kaczynski was certainly not writing calm and evidence-based prose, but he's regularly cited as saying something seminal and interesting regardless. I don't think "there's no evidence, that's pure propaganda" is untrue , but it feels like a strange objection to raise for anyone aware of what the work is. Aren't manifestos usu…

Probably less likely to downvote. Kaczysnki is obviously intelligent, and from what I remember of his manifesto from the last time I read it he makes some reasonable points, but I don't think his interpretation of the world is a good one. It obviously prevented him from integrating himself productively into society. You can choose to believe the things Kaczyski believes, but I don't think it gets you anything worthwhile, or you can choose to believe other things that still recognize some of the tragedies that go on in our society but allow you to engage with them in a more productive and meaningful way.

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#129

Post by meebs » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:38 PM UTC

77pt77 wrote: post #99

Bartweiss wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expectations and also demands; as the precariat grows, and the unnecessariat under it, there's steadily more risk to striking out on one's own. Certainly a six-figure salary is not necessary for happiness, but if you find yourself working long hours to make rent in some midwestern town it's going to cut into your opportunities for self-discovery and joy. And if you got wise a bit too late, after picking up federal st…

> It seems like we've created a system where the straight-and-narrow is increasingly narrow, and the cliffs around it are increasingly high. It's still worth finding one's own path, but in both social and purely-practical terms it's gotten steadily harder. On the one hand yes, on the other hand mobility at every level has never been greater, even if still not at the optimal level.

> On the one hand yes, on the other hand mobility at every level has never been greater, even if still not at the optimal level.

Source?

Re: Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help

#130

Post by Bartweiss » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

konart wrote: post #118

mikeokner wrote: post #80

I think a large part of the problem is that the younger generations have grown up with pretty strong expectations placed upon them to do things like go to college (at whatever cost), land a white collar job, climb the ladder, etc. The obvious solution is to own your decisions and start doing what you think is right for you, but it's far easier said than done to step out from under the expectations you've been saddled…

>go to college Lucky ones. Here in Russia you are expected to have university diploma by 21-22, otherwise you are close to being treated as subhuman, lol. As a result - huge paint for many people, depreciation of higher education etc.

That's definitely a risk, and for all our pressure to go to college it's less bad in the US than elsewhere.

I know Japan still has "simultaneous hiring", where a whole graduating class gets hired at once, and if you don't have a degree and a job on schedule you either avoid graduating or risk being marginalized. Compared to something like that, the US is still admirably willing to let people take time off school, drop out, or just spend some time unemployed after graduating.