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Why I'm Learning Sumerian

mindthenerd.com

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Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#81

Post by 4ndrewl »

shiomiru wrote: post #79
4ndrewl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It uses words. A lot of words. And punctuation. And spacing. To say what? Very little.

Yeah it's so sparse on actual details of Sumerian or cuneiform that after reading the article I remain unconvinced the "author" either cares for or knows anything about the topic. (To be clear I know nothing about it either, but as a human with some similarly "pointless" hobbies, I can't imagine posting a writeup with so much motivational bullshit but so little about the actual thing I'm interested in.)

You are an engineer who's recent project was cancelled due to a change in priorities. It left you feeling burnt out but eventually you sought solace in learning Sumerian, just for the sake of it. Please write 1500 words in the style of a motivational linkedin post.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#82

Post by crowbahr »

wongarsu wrote: post #76
jackhalford wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From wikipedia > Attested from c. 2900 BC. Went out of vernacular use around 1700 BC; used as a classical language until about 100 AD. So vernacular use stopped roughly 3725 years ago

And it hasn't been spoken for almost 2000 years

So why am I learning a language that hasn't been spoken in 50 years?

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#83

Post by layer8 »

> That's when I learned the difference between burnout and disillusionment. Burnout drains your body; disillusionment erases your purpose.

That isn’t quite right, burnout is generally connected to a lack of perceived purpose. It’s not just overworking.

I’m also not sure about the claim of creating meaningfulness out of thin air. Surely the author is learning Sumerian because they find somehing interesting about it. And while one can find something interesting in many things, you can’t force yourself to find any arbitrary thing interesting if you just don’t.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#84

Post by krapp »

theletterf wrote: post #13

They had the guts and willpower to learn Sumerian. Why, I wonder, had they to use an LLM to write the essay about it? It kind of invalidates the core messages.

They work in tech, they have a tech blog with articles about AI, so it's reasonable to assume they use an LLM to generate their content.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they ever actually tried learning Sumerian, but to be maximally cynical they never provide any specific personal details about that. It could literally just be a prompt.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#86

Post by alex_young »

curtisblaine wrote: post #38
alex_young wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe indeed an LLM would have caught my little faux pas, or perhaps invented a more eloquent one.

> Maybe indeed an LLM would have caught my little faux pas, or perhaps invented a more eloquent one. reply Did you just respond to yourself but forgot to switch your handle?

Yep, I meant to reply to myself. I was pointing out that the typo in my first comment could have been caught by an LLM.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#87

Post by hearsathought »

hashbig wrote: post #4

"That's when I learned the difference between burnout and disillusionment. Burnout drains your body; disillusionment erases your purpose. You can recover from exhaustion with rest, but you need something else entirely to recover from meaninglessness." This is an accurate pathology to burnout at least in my experience. I worked on many hard things in my life, from school to obsessing over hard problems on weekends but…

> Burnout drains your body; disillusionment erases your purpose. You can recover from exhaustion with rest, but you need something else entirely to recover from meaninglessness."

Burnout isn't exhaustion. Burnout doesn't drain your body, it drains your mind. You could get burnout from comfortably sitting all day long. Exhaustion from doing something you love is exhilarating. Burnout from doing something you hate is mentally draining.

Burnout is a symptom of disillusionment. Disillusionment causes burnout. It's not physical. It's all mental.

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#88

Post by protocolture »

asimovDev wrote: post #35
protocolture wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10x enjoyment maxxing.

now that i think about it, hobbies are also deculture. Unless I guessed the origin of your username wrongly :)

Mildly amusing story, but I am a Robotech enthusiast, but didnt realise the connection until after. It was just something I developed in a business naming discussion when I was in high school, and I sat on it. The spelling is slightly different, trying to emphasise "Protocol".

Re: Why I'm Learning Sumerian

#89

Post by noduerme »

nine_k wrote: post #69
noduerme wrote: post #26

I believe I'm wired in a very similar way to the author, to need hard challenges that I can devote a great deal of focus to. And as someone who isn't burnt out but has been deeply disillusioned many times, I appreciated and enjoyed hearing that distinction made, which seems natural to me but which I had never heard framed that way before. When I had, let's say, half a million hand-written LoC vaporize overnight for a…

Thank you for this perspective, Mr Ecclesiastes. I hope this comment of yours will end up at the top. OTOH the very fact that we (as a civilization) can still read cuneiform from 50 centuries ago, and still care to, contradicts somehow to your point that all we do is dust in the wind. We never know.

I listened a Jewish-focused podcast recently that essentially was about how Ecclesiastes was exhorting us to recognize that the time of (A/B testing: Reaping and sowing, embracing or not) was all taking place at the same, present moment. That every moment is the time for both - moments are finite but the human experience is not. That wasn't what I was thinking of when I wrote that comment about my own personal disenchantment and my need to soldier on, making things that are dust, but it's funny you mentioned it.

I've personally struggled over and over with the question of whether I'm making code or music or art for some kind of quickly-fading recognition or to prove something to myself, or just to have something to do. I see pros and cons both ways. And I wonder whether there even is such a thing as leaving a lasting mark in this world. And whether it's better to leave no mark at all, than to leave any kind of stain. An imprint in a clay tablet that lasts 5000 years certainly is a mark. But then you risk being reduced to an archaelogical specimen.

We can still unscramble some cuneiform, but we can't decipher the personal motives of the writers, and I wish we could. I'm concerned with what it means to be a good human and a successful one at the same time, but, I'm a drop in the ocean.

I think the point of these philosophies is not really to make you a morally upright person so much as to show you that you're a grain of sand, and let you draw your own conclusions.

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