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People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

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Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#161

Post by beckingz »

arethuza wrote: post #39
bambax wrote: post #22

OT, and possibly unpopular here, but this really gets on my nerves: > In Paul Graham’s essay on, How to Do what You Love* he warns us about the prestige trap: (...) you have to like the actual work of novel-writing if you’re going to be good at it; you have to like making up elaborate lies* PG's contempt for anything literary pervades in many of his essays, which may reveal some kind of unhealthy obsession, esp. for…

That made me think of the start of a recent talk by Charlie Stross (the excellent SF author and HN user cstross): "Good morning. I'm Charlie Stross, and I tell lies for money." https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2019/12/artific...

This is especially good. Thank you.

Accelerando is a wild ride.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#162

Post by RookyNumbas »

asveikau wrote: post #142

> Should I learn to make pasta from scratch? No, that’s crazy. Nobody cares if you can make pasta from scratch and it’s not going to make any money. I stared at this for a long time in complete disbelief thinking "But it's so delicious!" And I guess, if you do it for friends or acquaintances it will give you prestige, you will be the prestigious person who makes totally awesome pasta. Although personally I would rank…

I feel somewhat sorry for the author. He ends the post with the realization that the search for success has not turned out like he was led to believe, and then questions how he should proceed with life.

My advice would be to go make pasta and share it with a beautiful woman (or man in his case).

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#163

Post by slothtrop »

bagacrap wrote: post #115
philbarr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least you'll have had fun doing your thing. Whilst working 40+ hours a week for someone who was lucky enough that "the rest did follow."

It sounds like you're bitter about working "for" someone else. This might be an ego problem and the solution is not to just be an entrepreneur because that won't solve the root issue.

Maybe entrepreneurs are in part driven by ego. Taking on huge risk takes motivation.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#164

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

huffmsa wrote: post #46
astuyvenberg wrote: post #7

This post also resonated with me, especially the quote from /r/cscareerquestions > Got an awesome internship at an interesting company? Well, it wasn’t FAANG, so who cares? Got a FAANG internship? Well it wasn’t one of the good FAANGs, so if you really think about it, you really didn’t accomplish anything. Got into a “Good FAANG”? Well, the other intern works on his own startup idea when he goes home. Why aren’t you…

Wanting to be engineer #5549383 at a big company is a fools errand if you want recognition and reknowned. It's like trying to get famous working as the guy who bolts the doors onto the frame at the Belvedere assembly plant. The lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the mouse. All of the people cited in the article (Gates, Musk, Jobs) eschewed "prestige institutions" and worked on what they wanted to work…

>The lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the mouse.

This is from game of thrones. Also, former FL Sheriff Scott Israel used that quote in a courtroom after a judge had called him negligent.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#165

Post by theFeller00 »

pkhamre wrote: post #119
odonnellryan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a recipe? :)

Yes. Tipo OO flour (Caputo Classic), 63% hydration, 3% salt, 5% browning agent (sugar, syrup, malt, or something similar) and instant dry yeast or liquid sourdough according to how long time I got to rise the dough. I use PizzApp+ to calculate the recipe. I did obsess about making the perfect pizza, and I did spend a year to make the perfect sourdough bread. To recap it very simple, I think the recipe for success is…

Bread flour > 00 flour in a regular home oven. The guys over at the pizzamaking.com forum would agree

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#166

Post by cloverich »

0x445442 wrote: post #87
astuyvenberg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the person earning 150% more than _them_ isn't purchasing a Tesla. It's a Lamborghini or a Bugatti. It's not a 3br home in SF - it's a summer home in Napa, or a chalet in Tahoe. The person earning 150% more than _them_ is coveting the latest Bell Jetranger, or Gulfstream G700. The obsession for more is the same at all levels.

You know I hear this argument a lot and I don't buy it because it ignores a baseline at the lower end. I think there are a lot of people that are not concerned with the luxuries you reference but are deeply concerned with their base needs and random setbacks life throws at them. They basically want to save for a rainy day so as avoid stress when they encounter bumps in the road. It's like asking someone who works for…

No one is denying a baseline. Its just _much_ lower than most think, and certainly doesn't include anyone who is a software engineer.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#167

Post by Balgair »

astuyvenberg wrote: post #7

This post also resonated with me, especially the quote from /r/cscareerquestions > Got an awesome internship at an interesting company? Well, it wasn’t FAANG, so who cares? Got a FAANG internship? Well it wasn’t one of the good FAANGs, so if you really think about it, you really didn’t accomplish anything. Got into a “Good FAANG”? Well, the other intern works on his own startup idea when he goes home. Why aren’t you…

Reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHt01D6rOLI&feature=emb_titl...

Though a parody, it's close enough to reality that it's hard to tell. Which means it's a fairly good parody.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#168

Post by bumby »

From David Brooks:

"I’ve been thinking about the difference between the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the ones you list on your résumé, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being — whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.

Most of us would say that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé virtues, but I confess that for long stretches of my life I’ve spent more time thinking about the latter than the former. Our education system is certainly oriented around the résumé virtues more than the eulogy ones. Public conversation is, too — the self-help tips in magazines, the nonfiction bestsellers. Most of us have clearer strategies for how to achieve career success than we do for how to develop a profound character."

Maybe we'd all do better to be focused on those 'eulogy virtues' rather than obsessing over our external success. For me at least, it's a constant battle to hold back the pull of the weasel trying to measure myself against external validation.

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#169

Post by gdubs »

Something that’s perhaps only clear with time and perspective is that no matter how much success people attain, they still find plenty of ways to be miserable. Some of the happiest people I’ve met in my life aren’t necessarily the luckiest or most successful - they’re the most grateful and compassionate. For those of us lucky to find “success”, the real question is: why did we want it so bad, and what are we going to make of it?

Re: People Who Are Obsessed with Success and Prestige

#170

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

csomar wrote: post #44
gameswithgo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

taken too far this outlook leads to missed opportunities. other successful people aren’t always going to want to cooperate with someone who is too cuttthroat and selfish. sometimes less is more.

I'm not sure why competitive is being interpreted as negative selfish behavior here. Depending on the context/environment, it might mean more generous or more cooperative. Which is still a competitive trait.

If someone's being generous and cooperative merely as a contextual strategy, I can only cooperate with them to a very limited extent, since I can't trust that they will reciprocate beyond the short term.
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