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The Spoon Theory (2003)

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Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#91

Post by at_a_remove »

zdkl wrote: post #37
taneq wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should always be either at the edge of your traction circle or at the full limit of one of your controls. Anything less is wasting time.

This notion of limits and edge reminds me of Hunter Thompson's musings on "The Line" in his piece about the Hell's Angels. He argues (wildly paraphrasing) that the fundamental draw (and in some sense, the art) of motorcycles or extreme sports is in finding that edge or limit. The problem he identifies being that you cannot really know where it is without going over it, with all the consequences. https://en.wikipedia.…

I think he returns to the theme in "The Song of the Sausage Creature."

Myself, I can barely ride a simple bicycle more than about two hundred feet without somehow dislodging myself in a manner with roughly equal parts comedy and tragedy, but the way he wrote that and described the attraction of an edge where on one side laid a perfect moment-to-moment mastery of all of the physics in racing and the appeal of having absolutely nothing else matter at the moment because you simply haven't the space in your brain to do anything else ... and the other side, which involves multiple surgeries, rehab, and long phone calls with insurance companies, it was very appealing. "One of my finest addictions" indeed.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#92

Post by alisonkisk »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #38
jackpirate wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true. I once spent some time at an Amish community, and I saw their elderly and sick all living relatively productive lives. They were cooking, cleaning, watching children, and performing other small tasks that made everyone's life a bit nicer. The only reason these "menial" jobs were available to them was the deliberate inefficiency of the Amish lifestyle.

These things aren't unavailable in greater society. You simply have a choice. I'm not sure you have as much choice in Amish society, and I think the lack of choice is cruel. If my elbow is broken, I can't cook efficiently. If it doesn't work correctly, same. If walking to the toilet saps my energy, I shouldn't be expected to do the same. I should also now mention that elderly doesn't mean you are sick. Loads of folks…

They are unavailable in the sense that rent/utilities/transportation is expensive whether you want it or not, and minimum wage part time jobs won't pay rent.

It's high cost of living that urban singles areas have and rural multi-generational homes don't.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#93

Post by alisonkisk »

pjc50 wrote: post #79
dash2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, automation might act as a platform for small local businesses (think people who sell via Shopify or Amazon). Indeed, I believe Americans have got less mobile in recent years, not more, though I'm not so sure that is a good thing.

Unlikely, since automation has a positive return to scale. The surest evidence of this is the profitability of Amazon itself. > people who sell via Shopify or Amazon If you're selling by mail countrywide, you're not a "local" business any more even if you remain a small business.

Yes it is local in the context of this discussion (working near your previous home). Of course you are competing with people in other localities who might outcompete you due to better local economic business conditions

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#94

Post by alisonkisk »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #69
reedf1 wrote: post #16

One of the effects of society is to reduce the number of 'spoons' any person needs to 'spend' a day. This is probably a good argument against those who are anti-automation. As a more efficient automated society slowly lowers the 'minimum spoon bar' that is required for net contribution.

The anti-automation argument isn't that automation is bad, and grueling labor is good. The argument is that being forced to change careers can be - depending at which age it happens for a person - anything from taking away significant amounts of wealth to complete impossibility. When you change careers, you usually start at the bottom of the ladder. Past a certain point, such switch is not recoverable, and best you c…

The lean FIRE people show that the bad part of losing a high income career is the hugely wasteful lifestyle that preceded it, not the career or it's loss.

Automatic sending wealth to capital instead of labor is another issue, perhaps better viewed as capital ownership being centralized as the actual problem.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#95

Post by clydethefrog »

RivieraKid wrote: post #89

Can anyone give a TL;DR? This is one of those articles where you can extract 80% of the value with 5% of the time.

It's a metaphor for energy level. The amount of "spoons" someone has is their current energy level. No more "spoons" - no more energy.

The metaphor is a bit controversial nowadays, some people identify themselves as "spoonies". See this discussion.

https://old.reddit.com/r/illnessfakers/comments/aoz87i/who_e...

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#96

Post by alisonkisk »

hhjinks wrote: post #66
Ensorceled wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arguments of those against automation are that it eliminates jobs and consolidates wealth to the owners of the automation facilities, completely eliminating the contribution of laid off workers who go on to work menial jobs else where. How this "spoons" analogy a good argument against that?

That's not an argument against automation, it's an argument against capitalism.

We don't always get to pick independently. Capitalism is largely a force of nature. Even Communist societies end up becoming state-owned capitalist.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#97

Post by alisonkisk »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
hhjinks wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an argument against automation, it's an argument against capitalism.

Indeed it is. And if you look at it, most of the arguments against tech in general - including all the hand-wringing about AI, privacy and evil tech bros - they're all arguments against capitalism. But it would be boring to repeat the same thing that's been repeated for the past 100+ years, so people instead confuse symptoms with cause.

If capitalism is defined as "everything people do that has has negative externalities" that's tautological and useless.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#98

Post by at_a_remove »

reedf1 wrote: post #16

One of the effects of society is to reduce the number of 'spoons' any person needs to 'spend' a day. This is probably a good argument against those who are anti-automation. As a more efficient automated society slowly lowers the 'minimum spoon bar' that is required for net contribution.

That's pretty broad strokes, and I am not sure it works everywhere. One of the other effects of society is to reduce -- and it has been fairly constant -- access to pain medication. At first you could nip over to the apothecary for laudanum or whatever. Then you needed a prescription from a physician. Next, one of the effects on society is insurance, so you must also navigate that to get your prescription. And finally the government comes in and decides on a ham-fisted "crackdown" on pill mills, nevermind people who actually need the stuff, so society has put another obstacle between you and relief, so there are quotas, hooray.

The other area where this falls down is standardization, and I think this is exactly a group of people to understand it. Twenty years ago programming was very much the Wild Wild West, but now, seemingly, everyone talks this Agile talk and now we "must" all program like one another, which includes odious morning standups and the being "on call" mentality of DevOps, plus even bog standard shops pretending that they have some kind of Silicon Valley burn rate and velocity to maintain. And if you cannot hack that, tough, find another industry. That's society and that's a transition that has been fairly rough if you are put in a position to count your spoons.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#99

Post by koheripbal »

rpaddock wrote: post #80

If you want to understand the day to day issues of real people then please watch the documentary *Pain Warriors* that is about Chronic Pain. It is five stories, four of people with Chronic Pain, two that ended in suicides. My late wife Karen being one of them. The other story is of a doctor that the Medical Establishment destroyed for helping those with Chronic Pain. It is *NOT* a warm and fuzzy movie to watch. For f…

> The other story is of a doctor that the Medical Establishment destroyed for helping those with Chronic Pain.

Was this the result of the industry crack down on the over-prescription of opioids and various opioid manufacturers being forced to cut opioid production and marketing?

Society went from one extreme of "we need to treat pain like a disease and medicate it", to the other extreme of "Holy moly we created an opioid epidemic, we need to cut production and sue manufacturers."

Obviously there were a lot of bad actors at play, and I imagine some legitimate practices and patients were collateral damage during these over-reactions.

Re: The Spoon Theory (2003)

#100

Post by notatrumper »

chromanoid wrote: post #87
notatrumper wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what exactly is the point of complaining about that?

It's like complaining about people who claim they live under a fascist regime because they have to wear masks in the supermarket. It's making a point about human decency.

Maybe for some people the consequences of lockdowns are more severe than for you. Aren't you all about feeling with people's predicaments?

Also I don't agree with the (common) argument that nobody should be allowed to complain about anything, because there is always somebody who has it worse, somewhere in the world.

Like with solving "first world problems" - yes, it seems frivolous to worry about getting an even better iPhone, while people are starving somewhere else. On the other hand, those people, if they can solve their immediate problems, would perhaps also enjoy having nice iPhones. So it is not inherently bad to worry about the existence of nice iPhones.

Or put differently, it can not be the only purpose of life to help people who have it worse. I mean somebody could adopt that as their philosophy, sure. But it requires people who need help, therefore it can not be a universal philosophy. If suddenly you run out of people who need help, you have lost your purpose in life again.

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