10 ms·
Why Is Silicon Valley So Obsessed with the Virtue of Suffering?
- youeseh 8y agoI really wish the New York Times would stick to news reporting.
- endorphone 8y agoGiven that they've always had lifestyle, arts, food, fashion and other writings under their umbrella, I'm going to guess that you're not a patron and your spurious opinion isn't relevant to them.
- currymj 8y agoit's in the Style section, which has basically always been writing articles about weird trends among a small number of rich people. readers have been complaining about this nonstop since it got started almost 30 years ago. generally when I find myself on the NYT website getting a sense of general annoyance, I look up and see that I'm reading a Style article, and then just relax and don't take it too seriously.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hashberry 8y agoIt's more profitable to make news than report on the news.
- gabbygab 8y agoHas there been a time on HN when a nytimes article hasn't been spammed to the frontpage? Without fail there is a nytimes article on the frontpage every time I visit HN.
- dougmwne 8y agoI think it's worth addressing this head-on even though you're getting downvoted presumably for being off-topic. In terms of US-based journalism, the industry has been gutted by ours truly. My observation is that there's hardly any traditional newsmedia content worthy of the HN front page and that the NYT is one of the very last daily papers worth reading along with the WSJ and Washington Post. The NYT has real journalists given the budget to do long form and investigative reporting and cultural commentary. That they would be one of the few general news outlets consistently producing content relevant to SV and tech should be no surprise. If you'll forgive me for reading between the lines, you dislike that the NYT's particular bias is being over represented on HN. But all media has always been biased and the only treatment is a diversity of sources. Unfortunately there's no longer much diversity when it comes to high-quality reporting, so even if HN's audience would want to upvote a different viewpoint, the papers that used to publish those viewpoints have long since turned to clickbait.
- return0 8y ago> The NYT has real journalists paid journalists. HN has a habit of elevating paid journalists to ultimate arbiters of truth
- whyaduck 8y agoWhat are unpaid journalists? Do they have editors and publishers to answer to? Do they have journalistic standards to uphold? Do they answer to anything other than advertising revenue? I don't understand what you're actually contrasting professional journalism with.
- return0 8y agoi don't think the opposite of 'real' is 'unpaid'
- whyaduck 8y agoYou described them as "paid". The opposite of _that_ would be unpaid. But the larger issue is that I don't really know what you're comparing professional journalism to. Is there actual volunteer journalism that attempts to enforce editorial standards and faces consequences when they fail?
- alexandercrohde 8y agoI feel the point you're making. The title is clearly linkbait, almost none of the comments I've read here are positive or feel the article is making a clear and well-evidenced point. Yet it's on front-page as though it's relevant, when it appears the majority are balking at the article. I think it's a question worth asking.
- mruts 8y agoArticles are meant to promote discussion, not affirmations of belief.
- alexandercrohde 8y agoMeh, the bar has to be higher than that. If you call a hoard of people speaking up to reject the article's validity successful because it "promotes discussion" then I don't know what to tell you.
- endorphone 8y agoComments seldom represent the majority in any venue, and for that matter "votes" don't necessarily either. However it's a general observational piece about a philosophy some prescribe to. Seems pretty interesting and worthy of conversation to me.
- dang 8y agoOn HN, what matters is not the site but the article. If it's a bad article that shouldn't be on HN, flag it. Many users did in this case. (There's a small karma threshold of 30 before an account is able to flag.) Please don't post off topic complaints like this, which add nothing of value. Like many other sites, the NYT publishes both articles that make good HN submissions and articles that make bad HN submissions. We want the good ones.
- astine 8y ago“As Rome took over, it surged in popularity because it was the one system of ethics that worked well for the rich and powerful.” Is this really true? Were Epicureanism or middle Platonism really adverse to being wealthy and powerful? I haven't gotten that impression.
- j-c-hewitt 8y agoUh... Rome did not conquer Europe by being gathering a lot of Facebook Likes. It did it by defeating the surrounding tribes, kingdoms, and rival empires. The Legions imposed Roman law and encouraged the adoption of Roman culture and ethics. Popularity did not have all that much to do with it. NYT reading level keeps plummeting every year to new bottoms.
- adrianratnapala 8y agoThe claim is not that Roman ethics was spread through popularity with the rich. The claim is that one particular strand of ethics within Roman culture did so. That said, I am not sure that Stoicism was particularly rich-friendly, nor that it was necessarily more successful than its competitors.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- FabHK 8y agoAnd one of the most famous texts espousing Stoicism, the Enchiridion [1], compiles the teachings of Epictetus, a crippled former slave who "lived a life of great simplicity, with few possessions" [2]. Not exactly the rich and powerful. [1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/the-enchiridion/elizabeth-carter https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/the-enchiridion/... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epictetus#cite_note-simpl1-11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epictetus#cite_note-simpl1-11
- brians 8y agoThe quoted Dr. Palmer’s novels caricature a far future SV ethos well. Start with Too Like the Lightning and believe the narrator when he tells you he’s a bad dude.
- robertelder 8y agoI think the famous 'lorem ipsum' text (the English translation of it) is very instructive on this topic (see Wikipedia for full translation): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum
- robertelder 8y agoMight as well save you a click I guess: [32] But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing of a pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? [33] On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse.
- asveikau 8y agoI've literally been downvoted on HN for saying this before, but I always thought "dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit" is a great turn of phrase. The use of the subjunctive, the short repetitive words, says a lot without saying much.
- hvs 8y agoThe philosophy is handy if you already believe that the rich are meant to be rich and the poor meant to be poor. Wow. That's pretty succinct way to say you don't understand Stoicism at all.
- fatbird 8y agoIt's not an interpretation of stoicism, it's an observation about the convenience of stoicism to a certain kind of self-interest--much like Reddit's supposed commitment to freedom of speech also happens to be a much cheaper option than thorough and effective site-wide moderation.
- lutorm 8y agoExcept stoicism doesn't say what the article claims it does, so maybe it's about the convenience of a corruption of stoicism. Kind of how the "prosperity gospel" is a very convenient form of Christianity to have if you're wealthy, even though it seems in opposition to the general interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. You can't blame Jesus for people thinking their wealth is sanctioned by God just because people adhere to the prosperity gospel.
- nimmer 8y agoConvincing employees that hard work is a source of pride is the oldest trick in the book. See: https://mashable.com/2017/06/05/you-are-a-doer-gig-economy/ https://mashable.com/2017/06/05/you-are-a-doer-gig-economy/
- mbrodersen 8y agoYep agree. It is annoying when people who don't understand Stoicism think and talks as if they do.
- return0 8y agomaybe because if they were epicureans they wouldn't be successful in a competitive environment. and its not like stoicism makes suffering a virtue (but maybe makes pleasure a guilt)
- LifeLiverTransp 8y agoEverytime stoicism comes up, im reminded of the seneca reading cyborg in the "Last of his kind" from andreas eschbach. Its a fantastic view on the space age dream crippling a human beeing and the recovering of its dignity and will to live through stoicism. Stoicism- is to have the dignity of not beeing a slave of ones own emotions, in happiness as in suffering.
- perfmode 8y agoSee Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic
- walkingolof 8y agoAnd from reading that article, it seems that they got it all wrong, its all about virtue and your inner citadel, not about "bringing the pain".... But if you want to really know what Stoicism is really about, here are some links An introduction, Stoicism 101: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seLLJP3H1FU&t=201s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seLLJP3H1FU&t=201s A pod cast https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations
- lutorm 8y agoThe book by Irvine mentioned in the article is also pretty good, but it's pretty clear the author didn't read it since it then proceeds with a complete mischaracterization of what Stoicism is about.
- onemoresoop 8y ago"The Cicero Institute promises to fight for the business opportunities of entrepreneurs by focusing on deregulation, with special attention paid to making it easier to build start-ups around prisons, health care and education. Mr. Lonsdale proposes that “private prison contracts tie financial incentives to performance measures,” for instance."
- jasonhansel 8y agoIt is worth noting that the Stoics in general were opposed to innovations in technology. From Seneca, Letter 90: "Reason did indeed devise all these things, but it was not right reason. It was man, but not the wise man, that discovered them." The early Stoics also opposed wealth inequality: they held that we should be "like a flock feeding together with equal right in one common pasture." Sources: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_90 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/L... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_(Zeno) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_(Zeno)
- jasonhansel 8y agoAlso: Cicero was not a Stoic, and did not claim to be one; in De Finibus book 4 he takes great pains to refute Stoic ethics.
- geoka9 8y ago> who likes to walk five miles to work each day The author must really hate walking if she thinks it's an example of stoicism.
- Mr_Shiba 8y agoI take 5 miles of walking over 5 minutes of traffic everyday.
- mruts 8y agoWould you take it if you only had 10 minutes to live unless you got to a hospital? Or what if your wife is about to give birth. Or if you were late to work? Time has value. It’s foolish to think otherwise.
- alkonaut 8y agoIf you have 8h of time to do work including commute, like most parents with kids in daycare, then taking long walks is a pretty big luxury. Unless you can do work (calls etc) during the walk of course.
- ip26 8y agoIf you would otherwise take time for exercise at other points in the day, you're actually saving time by walking :)
- 8y ago
- robenkleene 8y agoMark Greif (of n+1 fame) has addressed this in a slightly different context: > Many of us try to justify our privileges by pretending that our superb tastes and intellect prove we deserve them, reflecting our inner superiority. Those below us economically, the reasoning goes, don’t appreciate what we do; similarly, they couldn’t fill our jobs, handle our wealth or survive our difficulties. Of course this is a terrible lie.[1] [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/books/review/Greif-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/books/review/Greif-t.html
- MFLoon 8y agoThat doesn't really sound anything like misdirected stoicism... that's just being a garden variety asshole.
- Pharmakon 8y agoThere seems to be significant overlap between the two populations. SV “Stoics” are not the most loveable or even tolerable folks, and it’s not a shock that they draw a degree of scorn, mockery and ire. Where I think that reaction goes wrong is that assigns to malice what is more properly explained by a combination of cluelessness and a lack of social skills. Instead of blaming the cogs who drank the Kool-Aid I wish people would direct their scorn to the people pulling their strings. Recognize it for what it is, a pseudo intellectual means of control for a group that would be largely unmoved by more common religious, or social structures. It’s also a coping mechanism for people working jobs they hate in a place they can’t really afford, while surrounded by the lottery winners of their field.
- nindalf 8y agoThis article looks like an excuse to heap scorn on folks that the author (and perhaps NYT generally) doesn't like. * Kevin Rose, Jack Dorsey and a couple of others are into this subculture. From there the author makes the sweeping claim that "Silicon Valley" loves it. Sampling bias, much? * "Rank-and-file tech workers frequently have more than one Stoic text on their bookshelves." [Citation needed]. * "Stoics believed that everything in the universe is already perfect and that things that seem bad or unjust are secretly good underneath. The philosophy is handy if you already believe that the rich are meant to be rich and the poor meant to be poor." Fuck no. Stoicism about personal responsibility, about changing what you can and accepting what you can't. Marcus Aurelius asks why you think the world should be fair, he doesn't claim that it is fair. A newspaper that publishes BS like this degrades itself.
- refurb 8y agoThey got you and a lot of other people to click on it, no? After reading a lot of mainstream media article like this I'm starting to wonder whether stuff like this is entirely intentional. There is no intent to stimulate intellectual disclosure, just to evoke a reaction and get more clicks.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- darkpuma 8y agoRight, finding virtue in suffering is more a trait of Christianity than Stoicism. Stoicism doesn't think suffering is virtuous. Stoicism's approach to suffering is giving you the tools to endure suffering you can't avoid, and the tools to recognize and seize opportunities when you can avoid suffering. It does not teach people to seek out suffering or to endure suffering when it's within their power to prevent or avoid it. Christianity on the other hand is all about virtue in suffering, perhaps best communicated by the anecdote of Christ having the opportunity to avoid suffering on the cross, but refusing that opportunity. (There is a great deal to be said about how Christianity finds virtue in suffering, enough to fill books, but this singular example is perhaps the most vivid, and maybe even the root of it.) The confusion may arise because Christians have often voiced some tentative respect for Stoicism, but they in fact have very different approaches to suffering.
- rhacker 8y agoAll of this stuff is related - from open source - stoic, to google - do no evil to Apple - we won't compromise privacy even for murderers because hey rights. I do feel like the walls are starting to fall. The friendly attitude is dropping and we're starting to see through the fake promises and platitudes. We have startups that claim they are housing the poor or cleaning drinking water for people in Africa, and time and again someone investigates the truth and things fall apart. In the end we find out those were all sales tactics. Maybe even believed by the people selling them, but in the end it HAS to somewhat fit into some exact money making puzzle. It doesn't matter if the REST of the corporation they are building is robotizing jobs and getting rid of employees (hey they are freeing the burdens of people - who cares if they can't afford the house anymore). Then comes in Basic Income. And there is no effort from Google or Facebook to foot the bill either - they're merely doing the cheap thing - lobbying - to have our taxes pay for it. These are all showmanship efforts to justify the rest. What is worse is that each of these companies is like a magnet with Good [ --- ] Bad poles. ALL of the Bad on the right is justified by some platitude connected to the Good. The goal is to simply hide the bad. So if stoicism is part of all of it, I think that's just another self-lie. I do think that people are good, in general, but in modern society we have made justification part of the mental process. The first step in creating your company is to convince yourself that you're doing good. Then you can turn on the steam roller. I guess see also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19492813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19492813
- anigbrowl 8y agoA culture of occupational martyrdom makes it much easier to build a pyramid. People are rushing to supply correct definitions of stoicism but oddly those stoic sentiments rarely appear discussions about IPOs and how to be a billionaire.
- darkpuma 8y agoI don't know what it's like to be you, but IPOs and being a billionaire are well outside my sphere of experience.
- anigbrowl 8y agoYou'll see plenty of conversations on the topic here if you hang out long enough. I'm not a billionaire either so I have to store my cash in a swimming pool like everyone else.
- throwaway5752 8y agoThis is actually an interesting article to me. A lot of people are criticizing it here. There is a bit of condescension in the tone of the criticism. It was not hard to search for the author (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bowles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bowles) and find that she graduated magna cum laude from Columbia and was a Fulbright Fellow. That certainly doesn't mean she's correct about anything, but I think that casual dismissal of the article is a bit lazy. On a personal basis, it seems worth looking at how certain intellectual trends propagate through certain SV populations. Neotrophics/microdosing, Burning Man, and Stoicism are examples off the top of my head. In particular, it feels like the general point of the "Why are they attracted to Stoicism" section isn't completely incorrect. It is definitely a topic worthy of a longer form exploration.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- joejerryronnie 8y ago> it seems worth looking at how certain intellectual trends propagate through certain SV populations. Please keep in mind the SV populations sensationalized in articles such as this represent maybe 1-2% of the people in SV. Everyone else is simply trying to support their families and raise their kids the best they know how - pretty much exactly what the rest of America does.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- throwaway5752 8y agoI completely agree with you, and hope I didn't give an impression otherwise.
- repolfx 8y agoshe graduated magna cum laude from Columbia and was a Fulbright Fellow Not being from the US I don't fully grasp what these things are (is Columbia Ivy League?) but all knowing this does for me is make me conclude these qualifications don't seem to mean very much and may even be anti-correlated with intelligence - the author seems to be very sure she's making some deep social comment with this piece, but she isn't. I'm not exactly an expert on Stoicism, but even I knew it's not about pointlessly imposing suffering on yourself: it's about caring about what you can change or improve and accepting the rest.
- floatingatoll 8y agoThe article misses a key reason why Silicon Valley tech industry leaders would become Stoics: to learn to live with the misery their wealth is built upon. Many, if not most, Silicon Valley innovations over the past ten years have led directly to human suffering and misery. Facebook has inflicted widespread psychological damage to humanity's self-worth. Loot boxes introduced gambling to young children. YouTube recommendations promote racist and fascist content to adults and machine-generated content to children. I don't agree that this is a correct implementation of Stoicism, but from the decade I lived in SFbay, the following accurately models how I have seen many tech founders warp Stoicism into a way to avoid confronting their immoral behavior: Step 1: Have an idea that's profitable, at the cost of inflicting suffering on others. Step 2: Inflict that suffering, while twisting Stoicism to make "suffering" seem a virtue. Step 3: Profit from the results of your now-virtuous efforts, free of moral consequences from the 'virtue' you inflicted.
- FabHK 8y agoAs you state (I believe), that's not what Stoicism is about - it does not advocate to impose suffering on others. (It does suggest to voluntary undergo deprivations occasionally to reset the hedonistic treadmill: Seneca is said to have slept on the floor every now and then, to appreciate the bed afterwards.) Interesting theory though, that a simplistic caricature of Stoicism is invoked to justify immoral behaviour. Pity the article didn't seriously investigate that.
- floatingatoll 8y agoYeah. That’s my worry: they’re implementing what soothes their conscience and calling it stoicism.
- notfromhere 8y agothe stoicism of marcus aurelius is about personal responsibility and accepting what you can't change, which seems a handy ideology to push so that people don't try to affect change.
- 8y ago
- hellllllllooo 8y agoThis goes hand in hand with the culture of "anyone can do anything as long as the have an idea and are willing to work hard" culture of silicon valley. Experience in an area definitely reduces the suffering because you have a better idea where the problems are and know where to most effectivly apply effort.
- CalChris 8y agoI'm skeptical about this Cicero Institute. Palantir, Niall Ferguson, private prison contracts, ...? It strikes me as west coast version of the Cato Institute. Also, I also don't think of Cicero as any sort of stoic. He was a lawyer, a politician and a republican. He certainly used stoicism in his orations from time to time but only out of convenience in the way an American politician might appeal to our 'rugged individualism'.
- tqi 8y agoSeems at odds with the stereotype of SV companies having to court their employees with an endless supply free food and cushy perks. Though I suppose "Why [is this non-representative subset of] Silicon Valley So Obsessed with the Virtue of Suffering?" is less catchy.
- qmanjamz 8y agoWhat a ridiculous, terrible article. To describe silicon valley as being obsessed with the virtue of suffering is just an outright lie.
- munificent 8y agoI think many of the commenters in this thread doth protest too much. I do think there is something to the article. What do you do when you've been raised with progressive liberal values that rail against inequality but then find yourself wildly rich? How do you feel good about yourself while knowing you have access to power and privilege almost no one else does? One option is to plow a lot of that money back into programs to help increase the prosperity of everyone. But then you end up poorer and who wants that? A simpler approach is to find some symbolic hair shirt you can wear, a little token suffering, as a way to assuage your guilt without making any real sacrifices. Of course, the irony is that the only reason these people do any of this "opt-in suffering" is because they are secure in the knowledge that they can stop it whenever they want. Dorsey's contemplative long walk is a lot less fun when it's your only way to get to work, and Rose's cold shower loses some of its charm when it's because the power's been cut off.
- darkpuma 8y agoThe problem is what you're describing has more in common with Catholicism (particularly penances) than it does with Stoicism. The article is poorly argued. For instance, the article provides no real evidence that Dorsy gives a shit about Stoicism, and provides no real evidence that a few anecdotes of penance-like behavior is a trend, let alone has any causal link to a perceived trend of Stoicism. Other HN commenters have suggested that the discrepancies between the behaviors described in the article and Stoicism are the result of techies corrupting Stoicism, but I think an alternative hypothesis should be considered: that the author has corrupted Stoicism in order to create a palatable narrative.
- munificent 8y agoFor what it's worth, I've seen Stoicism mentioned on HN way more than any other philosophy, except possibly libertarianism. The most frequently mentioned philosophy book is definitely Meditations. I don't think the author is off-base for claiming it's a thing in SV.
- toddh 8y agoOther people's suffering OK. For any of our suffering we immediately make an app to relieve it.
- darkpuma 8y agoDoes seeing other people suffer cause you to suffer? Probably, right? Unless you're some sort of psychopath who has no capacity for empathy. Therefore a stoic is encouraged to alleviate the suffering of others, when it's possible. The idea that stoicism calls on people to ignore all the social wrongs of the world is a malignment of the philosophy. It's not fatalistic, nor is it isolationist. Somebody who is a stoic acts to improve the world when it's possible.
- pmoriarty 8y agoThe article claims that: "Stoics believed that everything in the universe is already perfect and that things that seem bad or unjust are secretly good underneath. The philosophy is handy if you already believe that the rich are meant to be rich and the poor meant to be poor." But here are some of the things Seneca, one of the greatest of Stoics, said on the matter of wealth: "Would you rather have much, or enough? He who has much desires more - a proof that he has not yet acquired enough; but he who has enough has attained that which never fell to the rich man's lot - a stopping-point." "Money never made a man rich; on the contrary, it always smites men with a greater craving for itself." "we must spurn wealth: wealth is the diploma of slavery" "Why of your own accord postpone your real life to the distant future? Shall you wait for some interest to fall due, or for some income on your merchandise, or for a place in the will of some wealthy old man, when you can be rich here and now. Wisdom offers wealth in ready money, and pays it over to those in whose eyes she has made wealth superfluous." "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor." "What does it matter how much a man has laid up in his safe, or in his warehouse, how large are his flocks and how fat his dividends, if he covets his neighbour's property, and reckons, not his past gains, but his hopes of gains to come? Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough." Quoting Epicurus: "Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the whole world."
- mbrodersen 8y agoThe # of people who don't understand Stoicism but think they do clearly outnumber the # of people who actually know what they are talking about. Beginner mistake #1 is to think that Stoicism is about accepting suffering. It is the complete opposite. The key idea is to focus 100% on what you can change. And not waste any energy on things you can't change. You can think about it as optimizing the value generated of the limited time/cycles you have to impact things.