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Wants to hash out ideas for cooperation, but cooperation on what? There can be no co-operation without operation, which requires an opus or operand upon which

Wants to hash out ideas for cooperation, but cooperation on what? There can be no co-operation without operation, which requires an opus or operand upon which to operate, ideally in your preferred modus operandi. What I'm saying is, "cooperation" and all those words above contain the word work. The work defines the team, not the other way around. The work, essentially, does you. (And I'm not even in Soviet Russia.) It's confusing that this is posted on HN where the default topic/theme is software, yet there is a fairly emphatic rejection of "software-related ideas." That leaves only one indication as to what the work is, namely that the people doing it should be "technical." You're afraid of unemployment and loss of status, that's clear. Having met the ass-end of unemployment, eviction, arrest and jail myself, I'm not so worried about that. Some courage is called-for. Who knows, you might even find that unemployment turns out to be a blessing, and that it enables you to give up this shitty idea (about which I'm not supposed to make any mistake) that your status as a man depends on it. Oh I've made no mistake friend. Society is harsh on everybody in case you haven't noticed. Therefore "society" is probably a shitty place to look for messages about your worth. Continuing. "Programmers" (psychologist recognizes this as projection, i.e. you yourself) could accomplish a lot by not being reclusive. That might be true, but it would inherently be accomplishment in a related but separate realm. I won't say it's like trying to milk a bull, because many people have both things in their nature. But I will say there are only finite hours in the day, and "technical" people need to think at some point, and by definition can't spend those thinking hours doing the social ramble, and vice versa. What are you interested in doing? Again the question comes back to, what is the work?

dennis_jeeves 9y ago
>What I'm saying is, "cooperation" and all those words above contain the word work. Your observations are fair enough, if I understood you correctly. So there is indeed some kind of work involved. The work of talking, discussing, negotiating, risking some effort/money (not a lot though, that is a recipe for failure). In short start small, and then move on to bigger ventures.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  I'm just saying it's very hard to proceed without some idea of what the work is, i.e. the task, the goal, the central thing you'll try to accomplish. It seems you're trying to build the team without knowing that yet, whereas I'm saying you might have to know it in order to build the team. Obviously it's a chicken-and-egg problem, and I also could be wrong, or even if right, it's not the only possible truth. But at the very least I can say that in my experience, once you know where you're headed, the team almost seems to build itself. On the other hand throwing a team together and collaboratively seeing where it wants to go, can work too... so long as no one involved hangs onto any of their preconceived notions and can get behind the group's new common direction. And hey, deciding that (i.e. the direction) can be more of an exploratory/creative thing, which as you say, also involves some work, but can also be fun. Here's hoping you do find some fun in it, like it's a rebirth process rather than something with a crisis-avoidance flavor, which is the effect of thinking about age discrimination and poverty and the like! Anyway good luck!

dennis_jeeves 9y ago

>What I'm saying is, "cooperation" and all those words above contain the word work. Your observations are fair enough, if I understood you correctly. So there is indeed some kind of work involved. The work of talking, discussing, negotiating, risking some effort/money (not a lot though, that is a recipe for failure). In short start small, and then move on to bigger ventures.

rdiddly 9y ago
I'm just saying it's very hard to proceed without some idea of what the work is, i.e. the task, the goal, the central thing you'll try to accomplish. It seems you're trying to build the team without knowing that yet, whereas I'm saying you might have to know it in order to build the team. Obviously it's a chicken-and-egg problem, and I also could be wrong, or even if right, it's not the only possible truth. But at the very least I can say that in my experience, once you know where you're headed, the team almost seems to build itself. On the other hand throwing a team together and collaboratively seeing where it wants to go, can work too... so long as no one involved hangs onto any of their preconceived notions and can get behind the group's new common direction. And hey, deciding that (i.e. the direction) can be more of an exploratory/creative thing, which as you say, also involves some work, but can also be fun. Here's hoping you do find some fun in it, like it's a rebirth process rather than something with a crisis-avoidance flavor, which is the effect of thinking about age discrimination and poverty and the like! Anyway good luck!