5 ms·

To some extent what you describe is paradigmatic - the product of a particular set of circumstances (one might even say an ideology, if they were of that frame

To some extent what you describe is paradigmatic - the product of a particular set of circumstances (one might even say an ideology, if they were of that frame of mind). Its not inherent to the human condition. Imagine, either as a practical possibility, or an as yet manifested, potentially utopian ideal, where your time wasn't being metered out by any immediate demands and you moved through life on the basis of purely aesthetic concerns. Think of the supposed hunter-gatherers who lived in times of abundance. Only a bit of time was given each day to the dumb gods of survival. The rest of the time could be used for leisure - an idea almost dead in contemporary life (as your comment demonstrates). In fact, just a few days ago, Paul Graham was posting about one important aspect of genius: an impractical (say aesthetically motivated) obsession unconnected to (though perhaps restrained by) practical concerns. Almost every human has some purely aesthetic desires which they would like to act on in the portion of their life which they can carve out from practicalities of survival. I see the social contract or whatever you'd like to call it (if the name contract offends) as an attempt to carve out some portion, hopefully not too meager, of our lives out for just such living, for every human. Its only an immediate condition of modernity, which I'd attribute vaguely to the vague "liberal" zeitgeist, which makes that idea seem alien to all but the wealthiest. Its certainly true that we could rationalize our every moment but in almost any reasonable account a person who wanted to do that or who tried would be considered mentally ill and certainly unhappy. Its inhuman. Its not what we should want. When I spend time with my two year old son I'm not fucking filling in a god-damned column in some great spreadsheet in the sky, is what I'm saying. That should be the privilege of every person.

WalterBright 7y ago
> Its not inherent to the human condition. It is. Should you give up hunting that mastondon and instead look for easier and less risky prey? > When I spend time with my two year old son I'm not fucking filling in a god-damned column in some great spreadsheet in the sky You are, whether you consciously realize it or not. You are always making cost-benefit choices. Watch TV or read a book. Play with kid or have a beer with buddies. Etc.
- nathan_compton 7y ago
  I think you are conflating two distinct things, one of which is an incontrovertible reality and the other not. Its certainly the case that in a sense we are always making choices which you could apply a cost benefit analysis to (although and as an aside, there is no universally agreed upon system for making such analyses, so what this means is unclear). What isn't necessarily true is that any particular person at any particular time is performing, even subconsciously, a cost benefit analysis. What I'm trying to get across is that it is the preference of the vast majority of human beings to not be so performing all the time. If you really must think of the spreadsheet, think of it this way: most people prefer for most of their decisions to be made ahead of time and for the circumstances of life, if at all possible, the change infrequently enough that they don't need to go back to the spreadsheet every single minute of their lives. If you find that people react negatively to modernity, it might be because the liberal fantasy is that we're all just fucking going crazy on our spreadsheets all of the time (unless we're rich, then we pay someone else to think about our spreadsheets all the time and we live on the margins, as irrational and happy as pigs in the mud).
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    > What isn't necessarily true is that any particular person at any particular time is performing, even subconsciously, a cost benefit analysis. Every time a person makes a decision, they are doing a cost benefit analysis, regardless of whether they are aware of it or not. > What I'm trying to get across is that it is the preference of the vast majority of human beings to not be so performing all the time. It is true that many people (including me) prefer to "wing" decisions because they don't want to expend effort on it. But that itself is yet another cost-benefit decision.
  - carapace 7y ago
    I'll jump in here: we are the process and product of evolution so we must be doing cost benefit analysis all the time. It's almost entirely unconscious (or automatic if you prefer) but it's got to be happening (or we would have been out-adapted and failed to exist in the first place.)

WalterBright 7y ago

> Its not inherent to the human condition. It is. Should you give up hunting that mastondon and instead look for easier and less risky prey? > When I spend time with my two year old son I'm not fucking filling in a god-damned column in some great spreadsheet in the sky You are, whether you consciously realize it or not. You are always making cost-benefit choices. Watch TV or read a book. Play with kid or have a beer with buddies. Etc.

nathan_compton 7y ago
I think you are conflating two distinct things, one of which is an incontrovertible reality and the other not. Its certainly the case that in a sense we are always making choices which you could apply a cost benefit analysis to (although and as an aside, there is no universally agreed upon system for making such analyses, so what this means is unclear). What isn't necessarily true is that any particular person at any particular time is performing, even subconsciously, a cost benefit analysis. What I'm trying to get across is that it is the preference of the vast majority of human beings to not be so performing all the time. If you really must think of the spreadsheet, think of it this way: most people prefer for most of their decisions to be made ahead of time and for the circumstances of life, if at all possible, the change infrequently enough that they don't need to go back to the spreadsheet every single minute of their lives. If you find that people react negatively to modernity, it might be because the liberal fantasy is that we're all just fucking going crazy on our spreadsheets all of the time (unless we're rich, then we pay someone else to think about our spreadsheets all the time and we live on the margins, as irrational and happy as pigs in the mud).
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > What isn't necessarily true is that any particular person at any particular time is performing, even subconsciously, a cost benefit analysis. Every time a person makes a decision, they are doing a cost benefit analysis, regardless of whether they are aware of it or not. > What I'm trying to get across is that it is the preference of the vast majority of human beings to not be so performing all the time. It is true that many people (including me) prefer to "wing" decisions because they don't want to expend effort on it. But that itself is yet another cost-benefit decision.
- carapace 7y ago
  I'll jump in here: we are the process and product of evolution so we must be doing cost benefit analysis all the time. It's almost entirely unconscious (or automatic if you prefer) but it's got to be happening (or we would have been out-adapted and failed to exist in the first place.)