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You are not your job

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Re: You are not your job

#421

Post by necovek »

skandinaff wrote: post #289
pdimitar wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero to do with religion, I knew quite a lot of atheists / agnostics who were extremely wholesome and caring people.

While that could be true, it's important to remember that these people probably grew up in a culture that had religion influence for thousands of years. In order to become atheist, one needs to renounce god, therefore have the idea of god, therefore, have some background knowledge of or about religion. That is to say, that these processes a not as simple, as one might think: take soviet union as an example - official…

It might be the other way around: religions came to be _because_ humans have values that became the backbone of religions.

The evolution of "gods" is obvious in retrospect as well (a tale of some good deeds passed on through generations gets added to with every retelling and suddenly Joe who gave a child an apple and protected it from a rabid dog was walking around feeding everone and killing dragons that stole everyone's sheep).

I recommend reading literature, philosophical and historical works from more than 2000 years ago.

Re: You are not your job

#422

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

watwut wrote: post #270
sph wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good god, serious life advice targeted at young men (but applicable to anybody) before the manosphere, incels and culture wars took over. Unimaginable stuff today. What a relic.

That article is crating the ground for manosphere, incels and culture wars. It tells the men they have no value and don't really matter as people. Have young men read that article, believe it and you will end up with them joining manosphere, incels and culture wars. Also, it does in fact matter whether a guy is nice.

The author directly confronts and scolds incels in #4 and also plainly says that it isn't about money there so you clearly have the wrong impression of what the essay is about.

Re: You are not your job

#423

Post by yunwal »

abcde666777 wrote: post #122

Being able to see ourselves as something beyond our job (our means of survival) is a luxury. If a person can't provide for themselves the rest goes out the window fast. The only way to ease the anxiety in people isn't with fluff about their 'human worth', but rather to help them envision other tangible and plausible ways in which they can provide for themselves. The cold reality, in my opinion, is that the things we…

> there are billions of souls on this planet. They're not a rare thing like say, gold. They're very easily produced, by two people getting it on.

You've clearly never been through childbirth. Women go through incredible amounts of pain, and good parents make incredible sacrifices for their kids. They're not doing that because they're guaranteed some payoff.

Re: You are not your job

#424

Post by yunwal »

keiferski wrote: post #217
4gotunameagain wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism has done with youth cultures what capitalism does best : dissolved them into irrelevance and monetisation. A new movement ? What a great opportunity to create and sell cheap merch, turning it into a joke. When everything in life is about money and profit, we lose our humanity. Take a look at the "cultural leaders" of kids these days. It is disheartening.

That’s a part of it but I don’t think it’s really that external. I think people in general, themselves, are just less interested in the counter cultural ethos. It doesn’t feel to me like anti-consumerist cultural movements are being founded and then co-opted by commerce. Rather they aren’t being founded at all, and if they are, it’s just some lazy online thing with no actual real-world presence.

> I think people in general, themselves, are just less interested in the counter cultural ethos.

Gen Z is less patriotic than any other generation, so the counter-culture of their generation is really just... culture. Everyone kind of just agrees that patriotism is a joke, politics are a joke, taking any of this seriously or contributing to it more than necessary is a joke. Gen Z protests as much as any previous generation. The fact that it's not taken seriously in traditional politics is just another signal for them to opt out.

The issue is not that there's no counter-culture, it's that we've designed a system of governance that can withstand it without budging (or at least pretends like it can). Long term, the system will starve. Good luck finding anyone competent to join the military, engage passionately with their jobs, or contribute to civil service. It's not gonna happen. The american dream is now to be on the winning side of a scam.

It might take some time for something else to arise from the ashes of all this, but the first step is already occurring.

https://www.theupandup.us/p/genz-sinking-american-pride-patr...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/marine-officer-explains-why-gen-1...

Re: You are not your job

#425

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #414
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of a very old essay on Cracked that says something very similar: https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...

I read that relic just now for the first time. There's some truth in there about in case of a serious emergency you mostly need competence over empathy. But, to me, it's always love, empathy and connectedness that wins. Why are you commenting on HN? Is it for bringing value in return for money or services or material goods? I don't think so. It is about human connection. In absence, life or death makes not much diffe…

Love, empathy, and connectedness are something you have to put in effort (lots of effort in some cases) and skill ( that has to be learned and honed) to express to the recipient in a way that gets through to them.

Your mention of "return for money or services or material goods" shows you didn't get the point of the article; the author plainly explains why it isn't about money in #4.

Re: You are not your job

#426

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

paganel wrote: post #177
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree with the parent post. There certainly are roles where the entire scope of the job is to convert Jira tickets to code and nothing else and nobody will blame you for being a checked out 9-5er in such places but that isn't the audience of HN. Most here are software engineers who get fairly broad latitude to exercise judgment and expertise/education in furtherance of business goals and that's they get the…

You only care about “business goals” under a certain age, I’d say 35-ish, afterwards, if you hadn’t realized by that point that it’s just a paycheck and nothing more then no mindfulness trickery not any “let’s-experience-things”-consoomerism is going to fill the spiritual void inside of you. Could be 35-ish of age, like in my case, could be later, could be earlier, but at some point that realization will have to come…

You care for business goals because that's what you're being paid to do. The "nuh-uh, I'm being paid to code and that's it" are the ones who wonder why their career stalled early.

Nobody's saying you should care about business goals personally; that would indeed be dumb.

Re: You are not your job

#427

Post by beeflet »

wobfan wrote: post #382
beeflet wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and your neighbors might mutually provide joy for each other, but there is a third party in this exchange: the massive industrial complex that provides the food and shelter you need to live. Unfortunately the industrial complex does not accept joy as a form of payment, so this whole system isn't going to work out.

It does not work as long as you stay strongly intertwined with the capitalist complex, correct. But I'd argue that in basically every region of the world, you have the choice. It may be harder or easier, but you have it.

the capitalist complex is strongly intertwined with reality and power.

You have the choice to stick your head in the sand for a while and try to ignore it, but eventually your sand castle will get bulldozed by a group of people that don't.

Re: You are not your job

#428

Post by Tor3 »

tock wrote: post #211
Tor3 wrote: post #176

The focus on "what you do" is very US-centric (or possibly North American). When you meet someone then one of the very first things asked is "what do you do" or something to that extent. What your job is. But it's not like that at all elsewhere in the world. It varies a lot. I myself never ask that question, unless it's for a very specific reason. And _never_ as part of an introduction. I've known people for decades…

Not surprised because most people in the world only have time to work/commute/sleep. Stuff like hobbies, sabbaticals, vacations, etc are quite rare. I've only seen the contrary when I met Europeans.

Not so sure about hobbies being a European thing. Take Japan, for example. Japan has a work culture/pressure which is considered pretty extreme (Korea is maybe worse, from what I read). I know people with work hours from early morning to 11pm, and a neighbor who drives out at 5:30am and is back way after dark): There are many more people with active hobbies than in my native Europe. With work taking so much time, people seem to learn to manage their time much better than many (much more than I can, definitely) and they squeeze in various hobbies in a very efficient way. That's one of the reasons I like living there, there's much more to do together with other people.

Re: You are not your job

#429

Post by Tor3 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #335
Tor3 wrote: post #176

The focus on "what you do" is very US-centric (or possibly North American). When you meet someone then one of the very first things asked is "what do you do" or something to that extent. What your job is. But it's not like that at all elsewhere in the world. It varies a lot. I myself never ask that question, unless it's for a very specific reason. And _never_ as part of an introduction. I've known people for decades…

> But it's not like that at all elsewhere in the world. It varies a lot. I myself never ask that question, unless it's for a very specific reason. And _never_ as part of an introduction. Can you share some area(s) it's not like that, and what kinds of introductions/opening conversations you do have? I'd like to replicate that into my own social life (in North America) if only to bend the arc ever so slightly.

It's very rare to be asked that question ("what do you do") as part of an introduction in basically all of Europe, or at least it's so rare that I can't recall being asked that. Maybe it has happened, but it's not that common. "Where are you from?" is an obvious one on the other hand, if I'm in a different country. I'm sometimes asked that question in Japan, but never as part of an introduction. That's something which people may ask about at a later stage. If that's related to me being a foreigner or not I'm not sure - I haven't noticed that question in between native Japanese people, but then again my Japanese is not very good.

But I'm not actually that good at getting small talk going (not do I particularly enjoy small talk), so I'm not the best person to ask about introductions. So it basically boils down to exchanging names, and, for me, sometimes about nationality, and then about whatever happens at the place we're meeting up (say, an event of some kind). And from then on we kind of figure out the other person's interests. Starting to talk about the job would be.. very dry. Negative. As if there's nothing to talk about, at all.

Re: You are not your job

#430

Post by giantg2 »

jaapz wrote: post #269
giantg2 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding evidence that disable people existed does not provide evidence that they were not able to contribute in some way. It's incredibly ableist to assume they couldn't.

Assuming that disabled people are worthless when they are not able to contribute to the group is even worse.

I never said that. I'm merely countering the claim that disabled people couldn't contribute.
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