The Toxic Grind • Hacker News Board

Re: The Toxic Grind

#71

Post by fullshark » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #53

fullshark wrote: post #2

There are some things that are zero sum or reasonably approximated by a zero sum game, and they are increasingly the tickets to multigenerational prosperity, namely real estate, promotions, job offers, and college admission slots. If you are a start up, your market can realistically only support X companies each getting a piece of the pie. I contend that the rat race exists not because of collective delusion but beca…

> There are some things that are zero sum or reasonably approximated by a zero sum game [...] promotions, job offers Almost everyone in the tech industry is constantly bemoaning how many open many open positions they have and how hard it is to hire people. Doesn't seem very zero-sum to me - unless you want to become CTO at Facebook or something.

It is true over a longer horizon, you lose that job opportunity to a better employee they can maybe excel and increase the pie and make it more likely they want to hire you or someone else, but over the short run I think it can be approximated with a zero sum game, there's one job opportunity (that you covet) and your victory comes at your competitors' expense and vice versa.

This may be less clear in tech and for us cause the boom times have been very good, but imagine a scenario like the big company in your small town is hiring, and that's your path to potentially a steady income. You don't know when they are hiring again, and your town's opportunities are limited.

In any case the idea that there aren't zero sum competitions in life (another example is competing for a certain romantic partner, something I didn't even mention which i realize is implicitly perhaps behind a lot of this among young people) is a myth that a lot of people push because they simply don't like competition and competing I think. Not only are there zero sum or approximately zero sum games in life, they are among the most impactful ones.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#72

Post by em-bee » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:48 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #41

I appreciate the idea behind this post, and it's true that chronic overwork is debilitating - but there are a lot of different ways to get things done that don't necessarily conform to the author's ideal conclusion. For me, the 9-5 routine every single week is a toxic grind, with weekends off and all. My preferred work routine covers about the same hourly total, but it's basically three weeks on nonstop, one week off…

work straight through with it all in your head, get some food and sleep

doesn't work if you have family.

there are other ways to get up to speed faster.

for me it is the layout of windows on my computer. as long as everything is exactly the way i left it the day before, and there are no other concerns i need to deal with. then i can get back into it quickly. that's why i really hate turning off my computer, and i'd like the idea of computers permanently keeping state, so i don't have to worry about keeping it running.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#73

Post by fullshark » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 4:55 PM UTC

blahblarblar wrote: post #68

throwaway9980 wrote: post #6

Hitting my mid-40’s with a reasonably successful multi decade career in tech and I’ve recently realized that some gigantic percentage (plurality, maybe majority) of all the hard work has gone into competing against the people around me for opportunities. Not into actual value creation for others, not in service of others, purely focused on beating out other people for the chances. I’m not sure how to reorient myself.…

It seems so strange, you’d think there’d be no shortage of problems to go around.

There's actually only one problem that businesses care about: how do I turn $1 into $2?

Re: The Toxic Grind

#74

Post by AlexandrB » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

synu wrote: post #8

I am still not 100% sure if “sigma male grindset” is a joke or not. It seems like one of those things that started as parody, but sincere believers showed up and took it over.

Meme's seem to exhibit convergent evolution where parody and reality slowly push towards each other until they are indistinguishable.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#75

Post by AlexandrB » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

alexashka wrote: post #32

fullshark wrote: post #2

There are some things that are zero sum or reasonably approximated by a zero sum game, and they are increasingly the tickets to multigenerational prosperity, namely real estate, promotions, job offers, and college admission slots. If you are a start up, your market can realistically only support X companies each getting a piece of the pie. I contend that the rat race exists not because of collective delusion but beca…

Basic economics is that we have had enough to go around for a while now. What you're describing is modern day insanity.

Also greed. For more and more people, "enough" is never enough. This is reflected in the increasing sense of FOMO in some circles and appeals to greed like the "have fun staying poor" meme in crypto.

It's telling that conservative groups that rail against the sins of lust, gluttony, sloth, and envy usually leave out pride, greed, and wrath.

Re: The Toxic Grind

#76

Post by AlexandrB » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 5:36 PM UTC

trentnix wrote: post #50

A lot of people are working lots of hours but their output doesn't match their effort. They "work" 12 hour days and only provide some fraction of that in real value due to distraction and procrastination and whatever else they sink their time into. But chaining yourself to a desk for 12 hours and complaining is a lot easier than developing the discipline and focus to put in a solid day's effort.

There are plenty of jobs that don't need to exist at all. No amount of discipline and focus will turn a bullshit job[1] into one that contributes something meaningful. Perhaps we need to normalize working less so the burden/gift of "real" jobs can be split more evenly.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

Re: The Toxic Grind

#77

Post by cvhashim » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

captainbland wrote: post #56

krembanan wrote: post #26

I've always been confused by this, as most studies show around 5~ hours a day is the maximum your brain can do work that requires deep focus (programming etc). So what are these people doing where they can work 10+ hours days? You will see seriously diminishing (and often negative) results when overworking. You'll end up waking up the next morning cleaning up and fixing bugs from your overworked brain.

A lot of people who claim to be like this seem to tweet a suspiciously large amount.

Musk for example -_-

Re: The Toxic Grind

#78

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 8:23 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #76

trentnix wrote: post #50

A lot of people are working lots of hours but their output doesn't match their effort. They "work" 12 hour days and only provide some fraction of that in real value due to distraction and procrastination and whatever else they sink their time into. But chaining yourself to a desk for 12 hours and complaining is a lot easier than developing the discipline and focus to put in a solid day's effort.

There are plenty of jobs that don't need to exist at all. No amount of discipline and focus will turn a bullshit job[1] into one that contributes something meaningful. Perhaps we need to normalize working less so the burden/gift of "real" jobs can be split more evenly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

Bullshit Jobs exist because we've set up society so that people need to work in order to "earn" their life. If everyone's needs were suddenly met, and work was optional, these jobs would vanish overnight.

The world has far, far, FAR more productive capacity than actual problems needing to be solved, but since everyone has to do something to make money, we dig holes for someone to fill them in, create checkboxes so someone can check them.

"We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living." -- Buckminster Fuller

Re: The Toxic Grind

#79

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

lanstin wrote: post #70

chasd00 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't know why you were downvoted. I mentioned basically the same in another comment, you can't just turn off competition between humans. Competition is a fundamental component of all known life. You can opt out but then complaining that the rest of humanity has not chose to opt out isn't really fair.

Because without cooperation you don’t get the internet, you don’t get compilers, you don’t get HTML on top of C. And humans are strongly biased towards cooperation. Saying everything eats each other is flat wrong about people. Better to understand cooperation and competition as two ends on a continuum of “how to allocate people to solve problems”.

[deleted]

Re: The Toxic Grind

#80

Post by chasd00 » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 9:53 PM UTC

gammabetadelta wrote: post #11

The problem with a lot of these posts is that there's a spectrum of people. On one end you have the sigma grind who work all the time and on the other those who don't do anything and complain. Both are toxic in their own ways since accomplishment is so critical to self-worth. Yet, at the same time you have to listen to your body and rest. I find that the happiest people don't read the hustle culture and just focus on…

> I find that the happiest people don't read the hustle culture and just focus on their family and are happy with what they have.

I think something often missed is you have to learn what makes you happy. I feel like that should be a top priority (and it may very well turn out to be work that makes you happy). If you can figure out what brings you happiness and joy in your life then you can get started maximizing it.

I'm 46 and have done enough to look back and identify the happiest moments in my life, derive a pattern, and then work to maximize the chances of more of those moments. For me, it all revolves around relationships either with my kids, wife, family, or friends. Not once do my happiest moments involve a screen or my work so I don't chase those things. I work, and work hard, to provide for myself and family but that has never brought me joy. For me, working and work success is how i pay the bills and that's it.