7 ms·
What should I do with my life?
- euroclydon 16y agoI think it's evil the amount of energy and resources that go into creating unnecessary desires in people in order to cultivate a consumer class. It's time to reap the benefits of our technological advancements, by working shorter weeks, finding less expensive ways to build shelter (houses), and becoming more proficient in local food generation.
- gaius 16y agoWhat's unnecessary? I mean, we could all be wearing identical grey jumpsuits that fulfill the requirements of modesty and environmental protection, but we don't. The most any advertiser can say to anyone is "this might give you pleasure, here's how to try it". The rest is up to you.
- tome 16y agoI upvoted you, but your penultimate sentence is not true. Advertisers employ the most sophisticated psychological techniques that remain legal.
- gaius 16y agoI don't deny it, but no-one points a gun at your head and says "eat these Pringles".
- tjr 16y agoAnd even if they did, you could still choose to let them shoot you rather than eat Pringles.
- billswift 16y agoFalse dichotomy. If you start taking responsibility one step earlier, you realize it is your responsibility not to let yourself get put in that position, that is, to an extent, you chose to let him put that gun to your head.
- tjr 16y agoOstensibly, yes, but it was the other person's choice to produce the gun and raise it. To ensure total avoidance of such situations, you would have to make sure you never come into contact with any armed Pringles advertisers, and since you never know for sure who or where they are, you would have to live your life in complete physical solitude.
- mortenjorck 16y agoThis is probably one of the wilder hypothetical tangents I've read in awhile.
- goatforce5 16y agoYou had me at "eat".
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Psyonic 16y agoDon't underestimate persuasion techniques. If they can convince an entire group of people to simultaneously commit suicide, they can probably convince them to eat Pringles.
- kevinelliott 16y agoThough there is a degree of the desire to be persuaded in the first place that allows these sorts of people to actually become persuaded. Though because we live in a society, with others who are smarter or dumber or persuadable or not so persuadable, those that aren't easily persuaded are still concerned about the effects the persuadable have on the herd. The effect on the herd becomes a more meaningful point of interest than the persuadees themselves.
- euroclydon 16y agoI know what you mean, but consider the psychological tactics at work in the following industries: Fashion, Diet and Anti-Aging, just for starters.
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoFortunately, as a nerd, I am immune to their ministrations.
- fnid2 16y agoWays to do these things have been around for decades, but it's not in the interest of the producers of homes and employers to do them. Look into some of the inventions by R. Buckminster Fuller. He invented a house that cost thousands, easily transported, made of aluminum, and sturdy, but it never caught on. Probably because he didn't spend time marketing it, but the mobile home and large home manufacturing companies did. Evolution contradicts the desire for smaller. Consider Peacock tails, the longer they are and the fuller they are, the more likely they are to mate, because peahens like them -- even though rationally, they increase the likelihood of death to predator. Turns out the offspring are in fact stronger, because it takes a lot of strength to maintain those long tails. Similarly, it takes a lot of "strength" to maintain a large expensive home and accumulate a lot of unnecessary stuff and the chicks dig it. A guy with a fast car, excessive spending, and flashy clothes will go home from the bar with a girl before the geek with meek clothes and spending way below his means -- even if he is 1000x smarter than the flashy guy. It simply takes too long to evaluate intelligence and that increased time to analyze the male by the female means the males could die. Thus, it is a mathematical certainty that the world will continue towards excessive shows of strength rather than the rational conservative opinion that leads to storage of wealth -- which usually only happens after a mate is found. tl;dr -- The world will continue getting dumber.
- nopassrecover 16y agoI agree with everything you say but question "it simply takes too long to evaluate intelligence". It's not like we are house flies with a day to find a mate. I think maybe the problem is intelligence (and other characteristics) are often hard to evaluate. Added to this, the intelligent meek geek isn't getting the girl because he isn't bold, but cognitive dissonance convinces him that there must be something wrong with the selection process, not himself.
- caffeine 16y agoWe share common ancestors with houseflies who have a day to find a mate. We were at one point small furry proto-mammals who mated almost exclusively by smell and aggressiveness. It no longer takes too long to evaluate intelligence. But when our mate evaluation systems were being designed, there were fewer available dimensions to optimize over. A woman's opinion of a man's smell still correlates strongly with both her menstrual phase and their mutual genetic suitability.
- eavc 16y agoI sympathize with this view, but the problem is, all it takes is someone else willing to work longer hours in the same role to make you undesirable as an employee.
- mattm 16y ago...unless you can get more done by working shorter hours. In my experience, the people that work the longest hours waste the most time at work. Work expands and contracts to fill time.
- eavc 16y agoUnless you're super-human, there will still be someone willing to do exactly what you're doing but for more hours. But again, I agree with you.
- kevinelliott 16y agoThere's always someone better, stronger, faster!
- kevinelliott 16y agoNever underestimate the power of the illusion of getting more done by working longer hours. Many employers find people who work shorter hours to be snide or arrogant even if they're accomplishing more. Many employers still think that they need an army of complacent slave horses working at top speed to be an effective way to eliminate contempt and organic corruption in their employee pool. It's the wrong way of thinking of course, but it's rampent. And think about it this way... if a company was full of amazingly productive people who got 40 hours worth of work done in 20 hours, do you think they'd let them leave at 20 hours into the week but still pay them for 40 hours worth of work? No, they'll just find a way to double the workload to make even more maximization of their production capability.
- mattm 16y agoYes it seems to be human nature to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, unfortunately. I remember even reading about a company that years ago cut back everyone to 30 hours per week (with 3/4 pay) due to a recession at that time. They discovered that everyone was more productive at 30 hours and happier as well. Once the recession ended and the company was on more solid ground, they went back to 40 hours. Go figure. 37 signals doesn't keep office hours and I'm sure there are others out there. Just gotta keep looking.
- lionhearted 16y ago> It's time to reap the benefits of our technological advancements, by working shorter weeks, finding less expensive ways to build shelter (houses), and becoming more proficient in local food generation. There's nothing stopping you from doing all those things right now. It'll take a little creativity, but they've all been done already in various places so you've got a blueprint on how to do it. For my part, I'm more interested in working lots of hours on really fascinating projects, taking shelter/housing in different places while staying mobile, and so I've got different goals. But you can go after yours right now - nothing is stopping you, in fact, they've all been done before so there's already a reasonable roadmap on how you can do it.
- euroclydon 16y agoYeah, I'm certainly not going to be calling my congressman and asking for France-style work week legislation, and I am a staunch proponent of freedom, including the freedom to be stupid and be separated from your money because of that stupidity. I'm with ya all the way brother, just hoping to inspire people to reap the benefits of technology, and not get caught unwittingly in a rat race.
- barmstrong 16y agoDid you read the same article I did? Trying to figure out the connection with this comment :)
- kevinelliott 16y agoThe connection is likely that the article bleeds the idea that most people are putting their dreams (and thus happiness and satisfaction) on hold while pursuing societally driven career choices, most of which are based on financial desires, which require (in most cases) excessive dedication and time commitments that further pull people away from what might really make them happy.
- bokonist 16y agoIf you want to consume less and work a shorter work week, then do it. Save money and buy store brands rather than advertised brands, don't buy as much, etc.
- kevinelliott 16y agoThe majority of people will be unable to work a shorter work week, even if they all wanted to. Our system isn't setup for shorter work weeks and less "productivity" hours. It's frowned upon by upper management at most companies, and is thus enforced by middle and lower management tiers. Our system rewards timeliness over nearly anything else. Home construction companies bid on how quickly they can build the property while staying "on quality" and "on track." Therefore they're not going to let their blue collar guys work less hours per week. They want to churn out as many houses as quickly as they can. This strategy of working less will only work for a select few, who have the nerve, smarts, and strategy to design a custom life that permits it. They'll have to be bold and push against the grain, and inform anyone they conduct business with how they operate. It won't be easy. And that alone will make it less likely that it will happen for a large number of people to do it.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- eplanit 16y agoHow are these misconceptions? The misconception of the 90s dot-com era was that Success = IPO. People had to learn (the hard way) that a business' value is related to the actual value it creates in the market, not in the speculative value it generates in the minds of investors.
- goatforce5 16y agoOooh. Po Bronson is probably my favourite author. There's something about his writing style that pushes my buttons. It's probably worth nothing that he used to do a lot of writing for Wired magazine (eg http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.12/hotmale.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.12/hotmale.html ) and his second novel, The First $20m Is Always The Hardest, was about a startup ( http://pobronson.com/index_first_20_million.htm http://pobronson.com/index_first_20_million.htm ). His site has lots of excerpts and monologues worth reading (eg http://pobronson.com/The%20Cooks%20Story.pdf http://pobronson.com/The%20Cooks%20Story.pdf is totally awesome). He's also has the distinction of being the author of my favourite novel. Here's the first chapter: http://pobronson.com/filth.htm http://pobronson.com/filth.htm (love that first line!).
- quickpost 16y agoI also loved Bombardiers. Great book that didn't get a lot of traction - highly recommend it for anyone considering a career in finance.
- goatforce5 16y agoIt came out at the wrong time - people didn't want to believe that the financial industry was screwed up. If it got re-released now (or if someone finally made a movie of it) people would probably be more receptive. Pointless anecdote: went to see him give a talk a few years back in London. I bought his new book, got him to sign it, and then whipped out my first edition hardback of Bombardiers that I picked up in Oz years previously. He seemed surprised(/touched) to see it, we had a little chat, and then he wrote a genuinely nice message in the book. He's totally a class act.
- SkyMarshal 16y agoI loved Bombardiers too. Catch-22 applied to the financial 'industry'. Those are the only two books I've read that managed to pull off that style of satire. If anyone knows any others, I'd love to know.
- Psyonic 16y agoNot really related at all to this discussion, and not technically the first line (though its on the first page), but this line from Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer was the most captivating book starter for me ever: "I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive." How could you not keep reading after that?
- Jun8 16y agoAlmost all of the people I interviewed found their calling ! after great difficulty ...the catfish farmer used to be an investment banker, the truck driver had been an entertainment lawyer, a chef had been an academic, and the police officer was a Harvard MBA. Hmm, I think there might be some inherent bias here. These people were so interesting because Bronson chose the interesting ones (he says he selected 70 out of hundreds).
- Psyonic 16y agoYa, seriously. I'm pretty sure most farmers, truck drivers, and police officers didn't start in lucrative careers first.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- kunley 16y agoI like the general idea of making stuff which makes people spending less time at a computer, not more. Like giving the information they need and can use in daily life. This approach excludes working on most social network stuff or things built on the top of it just for the sake of being another 'social' thing. Cmon people, what's 'social' is happening behind the scenes in our lives, not in teh networkz.