"If you lose everything you own, you generally still have your network and skills"
I get the general call to action that those who have excess resources should leverage that to take big risks, but this really undersells the possible consequences of losing everything you own. No, you don't always keep your network and skills. Sometimes, you lose everything. You lose friends from fallout or you belatedly realize that your network isn't as resilient to you becoming a penniless loser as you thought. Sometimes you go into debt and make enemies. Sometimes you become homeless and then develop a mental illness or a drug addiction. Sometimes you skip the homeless part and just commit suicide [1]. How many people can stomach that kind of outcome?
I do like the general message which I think should be said more often but I feel like people who charge ahead on this call to action should also triple check that they can truly accept the actual risk they might incur. I also think the amount of risk you take has diminishing returns. Making "fatal leaps of faith" doesn't seem to be as necessary or pragmatic as it's presented here.
I’ve been writing open-source software for a very long time. This was mostly because I earned my pay as a manager. The job paid … not great, but enough to keep the lights on, and to let me save. It also wasn’t particularly demanding, and gave me time for extracurricular coding. I needed to code, to keep my chops up. Even in “nights and weekends,” I was able to get some fairly serious work done.
Then, in 2017, my company dragged all the distributed engineering back home (Japan). I knew it was coming for years, but had no interest in bailing. I had a team of engineers under my command, and would remain until the end.
Then, I found out that no one wanted me. Some folks were quite blunt about it.
After a few months of being insulted and patronized, I decided that, even if I found a job, I would be treated like garbage. I had no interest in that.
Fortunately, I am able to retire early (not that early. I was 55, when I left my job).
I need to work. If no one wants to pay me, I’ll do it for free; which is what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. I took the first couple of years to learn up on stuff, and re-establish a full-time self-discipline.
These days, I work harder than I ever have in my life. I’m at my desk for at least eleven hours a day, seven days a week. It’s not all “production programming,” but most of it is.
The difference in productivity is astonishing. I often get more done by 8:30 AM (the standard start time for my day job), than I used to get done all day. My GitHub Activity Chart is solid green (and not “gamed,” either).
And I’m really enjoying it. I’m quite aware than many folks would find my life unenjoyable, but I’m weird. I like it.
The last year or so, I’ve been writing a fairly ambitious social media-like application, with some friends, as a 501(c)(3). It’s nearing completion, and is work that I’m proud of. Of course, like every project I’ve ever done, I’d like to rewrite it, using all the stuff I’ve learned, but I won’t do that. I’m pretty used to shipping, so we’ll have something nice.
> These days, I work harder than I ever have in my life. I’m at my desk for at least eleven hours a day, seven days a week.
Is this what makes you happy? A lot of people might criticize this as unhealthy. This statement does not contain a lot of "balance". Where's the exercise? Cooking for yourself? Socializing with others? Spending time with loved ones/family? Working on hobbies?
I too am at my keyboard a lot. A lot a lot. I just don't know if it's a noble "I work hard" or "addiction".
I don’t know if the OP is the author of this article or not, but all I have to say I want to buy into the overall concept/ thesis. But the writing is so erratic and turbulent, it is really hard to follow the author’s train of thought.
It feels like they are trying SO hard to come across as deep and intellectual, that they lost sight of how it comes across to the reader. It’s like they are trying to force as many ‘big’ words into every sentence that it gets distracting. There is no cadence to follow, it just turns into this big word soup, and I was never able to extract the essence of their thesis.
The author is well read in philosophy, and the article (what I read in the first 1/4 or so) is a work of philosophy. I have a minor degree in philosophy. To me it is interesting and at a good pace.
For example the author doesn't descend into shallow made up lingo, they aren't too formal or abstract, the ideas are organized into sections, there's a development of the ideas, there's poetic illustrations interleaved with stories, etc.
I liked some of the themes of taking responsibility and venturing into the unknown.
EDIT: I read the rest. The spiritualizing and financial stuff is a bit clumsy. Mainly from lack of context. Based on this writing alone, the author could be anywhere on the spectrum from absolutely insane to level-headed trying to focus on spirituality qua creative pursuits.
I also spot another lack of context in the audience being considered responsible elite, meanwhile belief in bountiful surplus and the audience needing more materials. I guess he may have a different article regarding "non elites" and the bountiful surplus, or maybe he believes the bountiful surplus is only for the elites.
All in all interesting and kinda lukewarm, if only because possible craziness hides behind ambiguity.
This article left a bad taste in my mouth as well. Just an article full of humblebrag, and giving advice that only work because the writer was lucky enough to have friends/family that accepted him being an unemployed leach.
It probably means you are not the target audience.
I found the flow of ideas make a lot of sense.
Perhaps you don't have the "ambient background" of the mindset of the author. Maybe reading a few other articles (just pick randomly) from Palladium magazine can help you get a grasp of things -- if you are interested.
I honestly just ran out of steam by the halfway point. It felt like every paragraph could have been reduced to a sentence and every section reduced to a paragraph.
I know it's bad form to move so quickly into meta-discussion on here, but I feel a lot of the comments in the thread right now are endemic of a certain closed-mindedness that has, to me, come to define in part the Hacker News zeitgeist, which stands in something of a contrast to the site's supposed founding principle of intellectual curiosity.
There is plenty of prior art in Western (and other traditions of) philosophy in the spirit of this essay. Nietzsche and Bataille talked about work in a similar way. Cioran pretty explicitly embraced failure (or the risk of failure) as virtue, as this work does. This essay seems to be saying something like: take a big risk, quite possibly fail, live your principles even if it means being an "outcast", commit to it, and who cares what other people think, because in doing so you will find your people. The response in here seems to be "look at this guy taking big risks and failing, what an outcast." Of course, that is surely the point.
I have, as I'm sure many on here have, found success in grinding away at boring problems, suppressing any kind of "call of God" or desire to do something larger, so we could build a nest egg and stable future for ourselves with MAGMA money. This essay is sort of a direct assault on the aesthetics of that approach. As for me, I have grown quite tired of it, so this piece does resonate with me.
This article resonates with me quite a lot especially after two years of repeated lock downs and travel restrictions, I reflected on my purpose more than ever during this period.
I came to realize that the most valuable possession I have is my time, that life is exceedingly short and that we can only really dedicate ourselves to one project at a time.
So, I reduced my hours down as a swdev to a handful of days every few weeks to pay the bills and maintain a humble quality of life and began building my own project relating to electronic music instruments.
The result is that I've become a much better engineer, learning embedded Rust, circuit and PCB design. These are skills I could never have learnt in my siloed web-development job, despite the pay being very reasonable.
But most importantly I am happier, less stressed, feel more connected and confident I'm building a vision for my own future that I can see myself doing into old age.
And I'm happy to announce that my first Eurorack instrument is in its final stages, it may not be an immediate financial success but life isn't about avoiding perceived failures, its about having a great time and pushing your own self-imposed limitations.
At the end of the day everyones path through this world is different, we all come from different backgrounds and we all face different obstacles and challenges, its important to stay true to whatever is true for you. Just don't accept a pay-check because society tells you to.
>Yes, even the bane of Darwin’s faith—the humble ichneumon wasp that lays its maggots inside the living bodies of caterpillars to eat them from the inside and burst out on maturity like some alien xenomorph—is a beautiful creature with a sacred task. Like many parasites, its role in the great chain of being is to test the health and defenses of its caterpillar host population. Its predation weeds out the sickly, preventing the much uglier injustice of collective weakness and disease, and spurring the evolution of stronger and even more beautiful life. Even fearsome Nemesis, born from chaos via night and darkness, is ultimately the hand of God and the minister of justice. Even the supposed exceptions to justice prove its rule.
Which sounds like a self-indulgent justification to hurt others for your own gain while still being able to sleep at night.
"When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred."
As the video explains, unchecked herboviore species has caused a lot of damage to the environment, grazing much of the vegetation. The introduction of wolves radically changed the behavior of the prey species and they start avoiding certain places like valleys where they can easily be trapped. This allowed the vegetation to regenerate and trees started to grow. This resulted in birds moving in. Beavers started to increase, and the dams they built provided habitat for a bunch of other species of animals. And so on and so forth. The regeneration of the vegetation provided stability to the banks of the rivers so they collapsed less often.
The author lives in a self-centered universe in which the virtues of service and responsibility to others count for nothing. Any goal associated with financial ends is reduced to a blind alley which obfuscates "true" goals but there are many charitable goals which involve exclusive focus on purely financial intermediate goals. Providing for one's family is the most basic of such goals but the author seems to be focused on self-centered goals.
Preaching about the "virtue of poverty" when you are privileged enough to be able to choose it instead of it choosing you is just so middle class. We had enough of that during the industrial revolution.
The author is Wolf Tivy, a cofounder of Palladium Magazine. Palladium Magazine is funded by Peter Thiel. The other cofounder of Palladium is Jonah Bennett; he now works at a stealth web3 startup and he says on his website he’s a political moderate. However, he also used to work at Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller and pal around with white nationalists and neoreactionaries. He resigned from Palladium after those ties and several hateful emails came to light: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/03/04/emails-reveal...
Why dont we like Peter Theil? A couple of interesting things and people have come out of the Theil fellowship
I don't personally think he went far enough to be an anathema as I would also consider leveraging political standing in any society where there are power vacuums, assuming his foray into courting a conservative administration is why people still dont like him
So many wild things in this, but I was curious about this aspect:
> It also helped that I was unemployed. I had time to court her properly.
Does anyone find this kind of situation helps their relationship health? I've started relationships between jobs and started them with people who weren't working. It's not always long-term poison, but a big part of a relationship is figuring out if your two lives will work well together. I find that's easiest to figure out if neither of you is in a temporary situation that's radically different from your future. Sometimes you get lucky and you survive the transition - but in my experience you'll be on the strongest footing if you don't need to navigate a major transition!
This article makes me anxious that I just might not have any interesting ideas to share with the world, that I might be stuck in my own perspective and that others will see right through all the fancy words I come up with to masquerade it.
I think I might not be able to refrain from smiling when being called an intellectual. Only positive outlook: At least I do not think I will ever go as far as calling myself an intellectual in my own essay.
But would you go so far as to call yourself an "elite" like this guy does...
>This is a key part of what it means to be a responsible elite.
The best description I ever heard of an "elite" is "A term used ironically to describe someone so out of touch with reality that they think people are using it to refer to them unironically."
Ideas start to flow when you invest time and energy in exploring them, everyone can tap into that creative energy.
Its important not to preemptively judge yourself into believing that you aren't worthy of creating something purely of your own accord. You don't have to be a mastermind inventor and discover something entirely new, you can also be an innovator.
To be fair, the author does not go so far as to call themself an intellectual either. The word is applied to the people they surrounded themselves with, and the project they started, but not to their own person.
I'm conflicted by this article. I'm sympathetic to it, but some things just really push past my BS meter. For example:
>This is related to why man became stunted with the dawn of agriculture. We traded a life limited by the occasional violent struggle over bountiful surplus for a more predictable life limited by grinding labor after barely sufficient nutrition.
Firstly, "man" or humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh. It's easy to see something good and say "well we became complacent" - well, sure, we became complacent because life got better. There's a certain type of public intellectual in our society who says things that sort of intuitively feel like they should be right, but if you actually stop and think about the explanations, you soon realise they're talking rubbish. I don't even think the conclusion is necessarily wrong, I just think the parallel it is drawing is really bad.
I have to say that the guy raised a huge red flag for me already in the first paragraph:
"I hit the gym, pursued the most interesting and important ideas I could find, and started looking for a wife."
Ho boy, I'm getting some Christian fundamentalist vibes with that sentence formulation. Like, a mix of a holy mission, an objectifying checkbox and a "time to get a wife to generate progeny".
So I continued reading:
"The squirrel has no way of knowing or checking that his instinct to bury the nuts will lead him to new life in the spring; he can only trust that God has given him what he needs."
"When we must we defer to a master who teaches us what to value, let us do that consciously and explicitly and personally. Let us aim to be uplifted thereby as we take responsibility for more and more of the task we are given, until the student surpasses the master to receive their visions directly from God."
"How does that project fit into creating a more glorious future? How is that future pleasing to God, the proper order of things, and your own felt value instincts? "
"God’s Trust Fund
The reason taking responsibility for the question of ends involves a leap of faith is that you actually have no sure-fire way to ensure that your visions are sound and good."
"Even fearsome Nemesis, born from chaos via night and darkness, is ultimately the hand of God and the minister of justice. Even the supposed exceptions to justice prove its rule."
"If your vision is beautiful and sound, it will flourish. Resources will unexpectedly come out of the woodwork to support it. If your vision doesn’t have that virtue, you will be struck down for its lack. That’s life. It is also justice. Where this justice conflicts with our own human desires, perhaps it is we who are wrong, not God."
"So take the leap, and have faith that God’s trust fund will come through with what you need."
Having read the whole article, the ongoing theme is "God" and "faith" and the whole article oozes with the unflinching conviction of a religious fanatic.
The man glorifies struggle and sacrifice for a "higher purpose" and then attributes good outcomes to the will of a divine being. I can't really stand behind that kind of reasoning, and I can't really understand how the HN audience resonates with this article. Maybe it's the hustle success story of an entrepreneur that is appealing to the audience, but the guy is actually sending a very dangerous and misleading message.
“I have to say that the guy raised a huge red flag for me already in the first paragraph: ‘I hit the gym, pursued the most interesting and important ideas I could find, and started looking for a wife.’ “
A healthy body, a healthy mind, and a healthy relationship are not red flags.
The guys at Palladium talk about religion as a social technology. People stuck in the “new atheism” phase will find this hard to follow.
Whether a belief is false or true is often completely irrelevant. Even if the Gods are "imaginary", their impact is most definitely real.
Tried this.
Quit and lived a truly romantic life for 2 years. Most happy time of my life - really.
But my ventures didn't succeed. With no partner or family to fall back on, I did contract development to not piss away savings. Hated the work, ran out of novelties to indulge in my free time, and became severely depressed.
Suggesting that anyone other than himself should do this is naive.
"Do what most people are doing unless you have a really good reason not to." Jordan Peterson (paraphrased)
I don’t get the obsession with building an “empire”. Why is that even something people find noble or the actions of a “responsible elite”? Imperialism quite literally has destroyed the lives of millions of people in the service of a privileged few.
If you really wanted to be a responsible elite build public goods, not an empire.
If you have nothing to offer, you build and empire to create importance for yourself. At least the illusion of it. The most wretched shit people I’ve ever worked with are empire builders.
Maybe you do get it. In my opinion, his empire is the very public good itself.
What is building an empire? To gather the resources, make plans, complete projects, gain collaborators, provide services, pass the torch. Defeat problems for public good, defeat temptations to extort exploit and abuse...
I love this article. It feels like an articulation of the past 5 years of my life. Even the introduction to it mirrors what's going on with me the past year.
I certainly have periods of time where I doubt what I'm doing, where I wonder if I have what it takes to see my vision through. Articles like this help me to clear my head and keep going, and they're the primary reason I spend time perusing this site.
Despite sounding a little delusional, the author puts forth some good points. The evolution of our society depends on new ideas and in people who are willing to develop them. As the author points out, some of these ideas succeed, while some fail. The process works in a Darwinian fashion.
As for me, I envy the inspiration and purpose felt by the author. I had the experience of living in leisure for a while, and while it was good, I certainly felt like the money slaves mentioned in the text. No matter how much I read, how much I talked to other people, no inspiration ever struck me - so I decided to keep working at a normal job.
This is a key part of what it means to be a responsible elite. You use your privilege and your personal judgment to explore and solve problems that no one else can.
[+] [-] themacguffinman|4 years ago|reply
I get the general call to action that those who have excess resources should leverage that to take big risks, but this really undersells the possible consequences of losing everything you own. No, you don't always keep your network and skills. Sometimes, you lose everything. You lose friends from fallout or you belatedly realize that your network isn't as resilient to you becoming a penniless loser as you thought. Sometimes you go into debt and make enemies. Sometimes you become homeless and then develop a mental illness or a drug addiction. Sometimes you skip the homeless part and just commit suicide [1]. How many people can stomach that kind of outcome?
I do like the general message which I think should be said more often but I feel like people who charge ahead on this call to action should also triple check that they can truly accept the actual risk they might incur. I also think the amount of risk you take has diminishing returns. Making "fatal leaps of faith" doesn't seem to be as necessary or pragmatic as it's presented here.
[1] (heads up: this is a link to a suicide note) https://archive.fo/QaLIw
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|4 years ago|reply
I’ve been writing open-source software for a very long time. This was mostly because I earned my pay as a manager. The job paid … not great, but enough to keep the lights on, and to let me save. It also wasn’t particularly demanding, and gave me time for extracurricular coding. I needed to code, to keep my chops up. Even in “nights and weekends,” I was able to get some fairly serious work done.
Then, in 2017, my company dragged all the distributed engineering back home (Japan). I knew it was coming for years, but had no interest in bailing. I had a team of engineers under my command, and would remain until the end.
Then, I found out that no one wanted me. Some folks were quite blunt about it.
After a few months of being insulted and patronized, I decided that, even if I found a job, I would be treated like garbage. I had no interest in that.
Fortunately, I am able to retire early (not that early. I was 55, when I left my job).
I need to work. If no one wants to pay me, I’ll do it for free; which is what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. I took the first couple of years to learn up on stuff, and re-establish a full-time self-discipline.
These days, I work harder than I ever have in my life. I’m at my desk for at least eleven hours a day, seven days a week. It’s not all “production programming,” but most of it is.
The difference in productivity is astonishing. I often get more done by 8:30 AM (the standard start time for my day job), than I used to get done all day. My GitHub Activity Chart is solid green (and not “gamed,” either).
And I’m really enjoying it. I’m quite aware than many folks would find my life unenjoyable, but I’m weird. I like it.
The last year or so, I’ve been writing a fairly ambitious social media-like application, with some friends, as a 501(c)(3). It’s nearing completion, and is work that I’m proud of. Of course, like every project I’ve ever done, I’d like to rewrite it, using all the stuff I’ve learned, but I won’t do that. I’m pretty used to shipping, so we’ll have something nice.
[+] [-] MuffinFlavored|4 years ago|reply
Is this what makes you happy? A lot of people might criticize this as unhealthy. This statement does not contain a lot of "balance". Where's the exercise? Cooking for yourself? Socializing with others? Spending time with loved ones/family? Working on hobbies?
I too am at my keyboard a lot. A lot a lot. I just don't know if it's a noble "I work hard" or "addiction".
[+] [-] 40four|4 years ago|reply
It feels like they are trying SO hard to come across as deep and intellectual, that they lost sight of how it comes across to the reader. It’s like they are trying to force as many ‘big’ words into every sentence that it gets distracting. There is no cadence to follow, it just turns into this big word soup, and I was never able to extract the essence of their thesis.
[+] [-] srcreigh|4 years ago|reply
For example the author doesn't descend into shallow made up lingo, they aren't too formal or abstract, the ideas are organized into sections, there's a development of the ideas, there's poetic illustrations interleaved with stories, etc.
I liked some of the themes of taking responsibility and venturing into the unknown.
EDIT: I read the rest. The spiritualizing and financial stuff is a bit clumsy. Mainly from lack of context. Based on this writing alone, the author could be anywhere on the spectrum from absolutely insane to level-headed trying to focus on spirituality qua creative pursuits.
I also spot another lack of context in the audience being considered responsible elite, meanwhile belief in bountiful surplus and the audience needing more materials. I guess he may have a different article regarding "non elites" and the bountiful surplus, or maybe he believes the bountiful surplus is only for the elites.
All in all interesting and kinda lukewarm, if only because possible craziness hides behind ambiguity.
[+] [-] MarcellusDrum|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hsn915|4 years ago|reply
I found the flow of ideas make a lot of sense.
Perhaps you don't have the "ambient background" of the mindset of the author. Maybe reading a few other articles (just pick randomly) from Palladium magazine can help you get a grasp of things -- if you are interested.
[+] [-] d23|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkengine|4 years ago|reply
There is plenty of prior art in Western (and other traditions of) philosophy in the spirit of this essay. Nietzsche and Bataille talked about work in a similar way. Cioran pretty explicitly embraced failure (or the risk of failure) as virtue, as this work does. This essay seems to be saying something like: take a big risk, quite possibly fail, live your principles even if it means being an "outcast", commit to it, and who cares what other people think, because in doing so you will find your people. The response in here seems to be "look at this guy taking big risks and failing, what an outcast." Of course, that is surely the point.
I have, as I'm sure many on here have, found success in grinding away at boring problems, suppressing any kind of "call of God" or desire to do something larger, so we could build a nest egg and stable future for ourselves with MAGMA money. This essay is sort of a direct assault on the aesthetics of that approach. As for me, I have grown quite tired of it, so this piece does resonate with me.
[+] [-] ostenning|4 years ago|reply
I came to realize that the most valuable possession I have is my time, that life is exceedingly short and that we can only really dedicate ourselves to one project at a time.
So, I reduced my hours down as a swdev to a handful of days every few weeks to pay the bills and maintain a humble quality of life and began building my own project relating to electronic music instruments.
The result is that I've become a much better engineer, learning embedded Rust, circuit and PCB design. These are skills I could never have learnt in my siloed web-development job, despite the pay being very reasonable.
But most importantly I am happier, less stressed, feel more connected and confident I'm building a vision for my own future that I can see myself doing into old age.
And I'm happy to announce that my first Eurorack instrument is in its final stages, it may not be an immediate financial success but life isn't about avoiding perceived failures, its about having a great time and pushing your own self-imposed limitations.
At the end of the day everyones path through this world is different, we all come from different backgrounds and we all face different obstacles and challenges, its important to stay true to whatever is true for you. Just don't accept a pay-check because society tells you to.
[+] [-] bawolff|4 years ago|reply
>Yes, even the bane of Darwin’s faith—the humble ichneumon wasp that lays its maggots inside the living bodies of caterpillars to eat them from the inside and burst out on maturity like some alien xenomorph—is a beautiful creature with a sacred task. Like many parasites, its role in the great chain of being is to test the health and defenses of its caterpillar host population. Its predation weeds out the sickly, preventing the much uglier injustice of collective weakness and disease, and spurring the evolution of stronger and even more beautiful life. Even fearsome Nemesis, born from chaos via night and darkness, is ultimately the hand of God and the minister of justice. Even the supposed exceptions to justice prove its rule.
Which sounds like a self-indulgent justification to hurt others for your own gain while still being able to sleep at night.
[+] [-] mlatu|4 years ago|reply
more like an excuse for the rampant exploitation of humans in precarious situations for gig or click work
[+] [-] someguydave|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hsn915|4 years ago|reply
You're jumping into conclusions.
His sentiment is better understood in terms of the balance of nature.
He posted this on his Twitter a while back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q
The video is titled "How Wolves Change Rivers".
"When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred."
As the video explains, unchecked herboviore species has caused a lot of damage to the environment, grazing much of the vegetation. The introduction of wolves radically changed the behavior of the prey species and they start avoiding certain places like valleys where they can easily be trapped. This allowed the vegetation to regenerate and trees started to grow. This resulted in birds moving in. Beavers started to increase, and the dams they built provided habitat for a bunch of other species of animals. And so on and so forth. The regeneration of the vegetation provided stability to the banks of the rivers so they collapsed less often.
[+] [-] cutler|4 years ago|reply
Preaching about the "virtue of poverty" when you are privileged enough to be able to choose it instead of it choosing you is just so middle class. We had enough of that during the industrial revolution.
[+] [-] jonstewart|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deepakkarki|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] finite_jest|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gr__or|4 years ago|reply
I was satisfied with this reaction from Jonah wrt the mailing list and such:
https://medium.com/@thejonahbennett/statement-on-emails-83c5...
The Web3 stuff is making me more skeptical, but let's see!
[+] [-] tonyj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vmception|4 years ago|reply
I don't personally think he went far enough to be an anathema as I would also consider leveraging political standing in any society where there are power vacuums, assuming his foray into courting a conservative administration is why people still dont like him
[+] [-] smsm42|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] panza|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blindmute|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] aeturnum|4 years ago|reply
> It also helped that I was unemployed. I had time to court her properly.
Does anyone find this kind of situation helps their relationship health? I've started relationships between jobs and started them with people who weren't working. It's not always long-term poison, but a big part of a relationship is figuring out if your two lives will work well together. I find that's easiest to figure out if neither of you is in a temporary situation that's radically different from your future. Sometimes you get lucky and you survive the transition - but in my experience you'll be on the strongest footing if you don't need to navigate a major transition!
[+] [-] allendoerfer|4 years ago|reply
I think I might not be able to refrain from smiling when being called an intellectual. Only positive outlook: At least I do not think I will ever go as far as calling myself an intellectual in my own essay.
[+] [-] mrjangles|4 years ago|reply
But would you go so far as to call yourself an "elite" like this guy does...
>This is a key part of what it means to be a responsible elite.
The best description I ever heard of an "elite" is "A term used ironically to describe someone so out of touch with reality that they think people are using it to refer to them unironically."
[+] [-] ostenning|4 years ago|reply
Its important not to preemptively judge yourself into believing that you aren't worthy of creating something purely of your own accord. You don't have to be a mastermind inventor and discover something entirely new, you can also be an innovator.
[+] [-] margalabargala|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barry-cotter|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shaneprrlt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Traster|4 years ago|reply
>This is related to why man became stunted with the dawn of agriculture. We traded a life limited by the occasional violent struggle over bountiful surplus for a more predictable life limited by grinding labor after barely sufficient nutrition.
Firstly, "man" or humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh. It's easy to see something good and say "well we became complacent" - well, sure, we became complacent because life got better. There's a certain type of public intellectual in our society who says things that sort of intuitively feel like they should be right, but if you actually stop and think about the explanations, you soon realise they're talking rubbish. I don't even think the conclusion is necessarily wrong, I just think the parallel it is drawing is really bad.
[+] [-] tsukikage|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baxuz|4 years ago|reply
"I hit the gym, pursued the most interesting and important ideas I could find, and started looking for a wife."
Ho boy, I'm getting some Christian fundamentalist vibes with that sentence formulation. Like, a mix of a holy mission, an objectifying checkbox and a "time to get a wife to generate progeny".
So I continued reading:
"The squirrel has no way of knowing or checking that his instinct to bury the nuts will lead him to new life in the spring; he can only trust that God has given him what he needs."
"When we must we defer to a master who teaches us what to value, let us do that consciously and explicitly and personally. Let us aim to be uplifted thereby as we take responsibility for more and more of the task we are given, until the student surpasses the master to receive their visions directly from God."
"How does that project fit into creating a more glorious future? How is that future pleasing to God, the proper order of things, and your own felt value instincts? "
"God’s Trust Fund
The reason taking responsibility for the question of ends involves a leap of faith is that you actually have no sure-fire way to ensure that your visions are sound and good."
"Even fearsome Nemesis, born from chaos via night and darkness, is ultimately the hand of God and the minister of justice. Even the supposed exceptions to justice prove its rule."
"If your vision is beautiful and sound, it will flourish. Resources will unexpectedly come out of the woodwork to support it. If your vision doesn’t have that virtue, you will be struck down for its lack. That’s life. It is also justice. Where this justice conflicts with our own human desires, perhaps it is we who are wrong, not God."
"So take the leap, and have faith that God’s trust fund will come through with what you need."
Having read the whole article, the ongoing theme is "God" and "faith" and the whole article oozes with the unflinching conviction of a religious fanatic.
The man glorifies struggle and sacrifice for a "higher purpose" and then attributes good outcomes to the will of a divine being. I can't really stand behind that kind of reasoning, and I can't really understand how the HN audience resonates with this article. Maybe it's the hustle success story of an entrepreneur that is appealing to the audience, but the guy is actually sending a very dangerous and misleading message.
[+] [-] BronSteeDiam|4 years ago|reply
A healthy body, a healthy mind, and a healthy relationship are not red flags.
The guys at Palladium talk about religion as a social technology. People stuck in the “new atheism” phase will find this hard to follow.
Whether a belief is false or true is often completely irrelevant. Even if the Gods are "imaginary", their impact is most definitely real.
[+] [-] awild|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blindmute|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goodpoint|4 years ago|reply
> Her friend, who was into prophecy
> it helps to have Providence on your side.
Also:
> court her properly
[+] [-] wnolens|4 years ago|reply
But my ventures didn't succeed. With no partner or family to fall back on, I did contract development to not piss away savings. Hated the work, ran out of novelties to indulge in my free time, and became severely depressed.
Suggesting that anyone other than himself should do this is naive.
"Do what most people are doing unless you have a really good reason not to." Jordan Peterson (paraphrased)
Privilege wasn't a good enough reason for me =\
[+] [-] maxduckworth|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] namose|4 years ago|reply
If you really wanted to be a responsible elite build public goods, not an empire.
[+] [-] bamboozled|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] srcreigh|4 years ago|reply
What is building an empire? To gather the resources, make plans, complete projects, gain collaborators, provide services, pass the torch. Defeat problems for public good, defeat temptations to extort exploit and abuse...
[+] [-] saos|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gunfighthacksaw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] one_off_comment|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] betwixthewires|4 years ago|reply
I certainly have periods of time where I doubt what I'm doing, where I wonder if I have what it takes to see my vision through. Articles like this help me to clear my head and keep going, and they're the primary reason I spend time perusing this site.
[+] [-] lookingforamuse|4 years ago|reply
As for me, I envy the inspiration and purpose felt by the author. I had the experience of living in leisure for a while, and while it was good, I certainly felt like the money slaves mentioned in the text. No matter how much I read, how much I talked to other people, no inspiration ever struck me - so I decided to keep working at a normal job.
[+] [-] sho|4 years ago|reply