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One of the biggest tragedies isn't just that the childhood is wasted, but that many people never learn to have agency once it is available. I'm not saying you n

One of the biggest tragedies isn't just that the childhood is wasted, but that many people never learn to have agency once it is available. I'm not saying you need to start your own business or anything like that, but it seems like most people live their lives never questioning the scripts that are given to them. The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it. Essentially we waste all out vitality and youth making other people rich, so that one day when we're old and infirm, we can finally do the things we like with the short time we have left. I think most of us never even think about it because it's too bleak of a reality. I feel somewhat fortunate in that the work I do is something I would generally enjoy doing even if I wasn't being paid for it, but I still have a nagging fear that what I could be is much more than what I am yet I lack the proper tools and perspectives to become that person (and I don't think that just starting my own business, like a lot of people here want to do, is really sufficient, it's just a small part of inventing your own life script).

qqtt 5y ago
> The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it. On the flip side, if you step outside the bubble of comfort that Western society generally affords people, you'll find that life is "nasty, brutish & short" as Hobbes put it. We've come a very very long way in a short time towards raising our standard of living and our expectations for what our lives can be - especially for regular folk from humble beginnings who aren't born into huge advantages. Not to say that we can't improve things further for Western society, but just to say that the script we are generally given is pretty damn good compared to historical averages.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > just to say that the script we are generally given is pretty damn good Honestly, it’s so good it’s boring. Not much challenge to life if the only thing you need to do to continue existing is plant your ass in the same chair every day.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    Nobody guarantees you that chair.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      True, but if you live anywhere in western Europe you have to work really hard to fuck up your life forever.
- esperent 5y ago
  I live in a non-western low income country. Life is not "nasty, brutish and short". Honestly, it makes me pretty angry when I hear people from the west espouse this sentiment. Have you ever lived in a non-western country, to state that with such assurance? Life here is beautiful, the sense of community is so much stronger than it is in the west and overall I'd say that people are less stressed. On the flip side, many things are harder for sure - wages are low and working hours are long, good healthcare is hard come by for many people. Short of living in an active conflict zone, of which there are only a few in the world, thankfully, life is not "nasty, brutish, and short". Perhaps, in future, before making such statements about the lives of people from cultures other than your own, you could take a few moments to try and empathize with them instead?
  - russelldjimmy 5y ago
    I think I get where you are coming from. I too live in a non-western third world nation. I relate to the points you make. But it isn’t obvious to me that the commenter meant to belittle life outside western nations. I think this wasn’t meant to be west vs non-west argument IMHO.
  - qqtt 5y ago
    "Bubbles of comfort" are not unique to Western countries, that is true. Every country on the planet offers a subset of their population a great life style, the only variable is how much of the country actually gets a) to partake in that lifestyle b) has the tools to reach that lifestyle when starting outside of it Doesn't matter if you are talking about North Korea or the United States. And yes, you can find abject generational poverty in the United States as well. The fact you could post your comment puts you in the top 40% of the world (roughly 60% don't have internet access). If you have internet from a mobile phone, you are roughly in the top 50%. Are you really looking outside your bubble of comfort?
    - peterlk 5y ago
      I similarly think that you are applying a techno-utopian lens to your analysis. My family and I have spent time with many people who did not have internet or other modern amenities (Mongolia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Kazakhstan, and several others), and your statement does not hold. It is not _entirely_ untrue, because a bacterial infection can kill you, however, the dynamics of life are just... different. People are still capable of all the emotion and fulfillment that you and I are, but life is slower, simpler, and more well-defined, so it is often easier to feel happy and fulfilled.
- mellavora 5y ago
  I'm positive to your overall sentiment that we should remember the physical health and comfort which we have achieved. The Hobbes quote, however, does not apply. Hobbes was comparing life with/without a sufficiently strong Leviathan ('central government') to provide basic protection of property rights, or at least a semblance of such protection. But the "long way" to which you refer, the physical comfort of modern life, is the fruit of the industrial revolution, roughly 150 years of history. Hobbes was much earlier, he probably never saw the IR coming.
- tluyben2 5y ago
  Universal income would be a next step in that.
planet-and-halo 5y ago
I suspect we are all the prisoners of long-dead economists. Their ideas of people as atomic resources were useful abstractions in some ways (I agree with the point below that their work has led to great material prosperity), but they have also influenced entire generations of overly bureaucratic and inhumane policies. People are treated as "things" to be "managed," and as a consequence they develop learned helplessness.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  Economics is the new god, the god of materialism. At some point in the 20th century we decided that material prosperity is really all you need for a happy and healthy society. Doesn’t seem to be working out so well…
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    By what measure? (Not sure I disagree just curious)
    - jkhdigital 5y ago
      It's a good and fair question, and of course I'm going to dodge it because I wasn't prepared to defend my statement. Probably should have ended with a rhetorical question instead.
    - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
      If I may attempt to answer it: Because it works for politicians, and the line of people behind the politicians with their left hands offering $X and their right hands demanding special treatment worth 100x$X.
      - bosie 5y ago
        whats the measure here?
  - handmodel 5y ago
jkhdigital 5y ago
For all but the last ~150 years or so of human existence, meaning and purpose came almost exclusively from (1) raising a family and (2) religion. I think the cruelest tragedy of modernity is that we no longer teach our children that life can actually be quite rewarding and fulfilling outside of one’s profession.
- terminalcommand 5y ago
  I beg to differ, this is way too simplistic. People pursued hobbies such as music, painting, theater, literature etc. Raising a family and religion were important, but I don't think people were very different from our times. To prove this just look at old folk musical instruments and their development. It is fascinating really.
- watwut 5y ago
  That is quite literally not true. Ypu need just a brief look at history or antiquity to see that.
- Sander_Marechal 5y ago
  I am convinced that (organised) religion has done far more harm to the world than good.
- shakow 5y ago
  > came almost exclusively from (1) raising a family and (2) religion And the military, and politics, and arts, and friends, and philosophy, and sciences, ... It's a big fat modern-times bias to imagine that our 19th century ancestors were so simplistic. Just read Zola or Dostoïevski, many characters and/or situations could be transposed nearly intact in modern times.
- cik 5y ago
  To me this is a fascinating byproduct of North American life... especially having left. The reality is that that work is the least important part of my character - though it pays for things. I have no idea what the majority of people in my community do. We simply never discuss work, there's so much more between family, nature, and the goings on in the world. The complete reverse was true in North America - the first question after "what's your name" was invariably "what do you do".
sillysaurusx 5y ago
I went and did the other side, living nontraditionally and trying to be what I wanted. I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. My current hypothesis is that the team is all that matters. The work can be the most boring, crud-type work. As long as you’re working with people you like on something vaguely interesting, who cares? 20yo me would be mortified to hear myself say this, but the chances of either of us influencing the world is quite small. I’m happy I threw all of my effort into doing something I wanted, but my honest answer is that you’re not really missing out on much. Relax and enjoy yourself. Most days, I end up wishing I’d had kids 5 years ago. It was nice to prioritize myself, but you can’t prioritize a family you never focused on building. (I had no idea I even wanted a family or that it was important to me until about… 29?) I guess my point is, the “relax and enjoy yourself” mentality isn’t so bad. No one will probably remember us the way they’ll remember pg. But I’ve helped thousands of devs directly, whether in DMs or by contributing code, and I think I only care whether those folks might remember me. So that’s the area you can really make an impact: on the people around you, in your day to day life. Maybe I’ll wake up in a few years and realize this is a terrible mistake, but that seems unlikely.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  Amen. I’m a sober alcoholic, and if I died tomorrow I’d be content knowing that I did at least one worthwhile thing with the time I had: I helped another alcoholic, a 23 year old man who tried to kill himself shortly before I met him, get sober and start working and move out of his mom’s basement and stand up straight and look other people in the eyes and then go and help a few other people stop drinking. Not a single professional accomplishment is within an order of magnitude of that level of fulfillment. Just help one f*cking person become more than they thought they could be and you’ll die happy—why didn’t they tell us it was this simple?
  - 6510 5y ago
    The whole society seems designed top down to keep us fighting and arguing, live at the expense of others is the mantra. It seems it took a lot of engineering to get us this far from our natural state of caring. The Chinese seem to indoctrinate with a slightly different model where you are to believe society comes before the individual. The sensible model seems rather obvious: One has to organize their own show before one is of [much] use to others. Until that time one should give the others the opportunity to help you with that and be grateful. Its not an embarrassment if you plan to do the same.
wombatmobile 5y ago
This is the argument Hubert Dreyfuss advances to postulate Artificial General Intelligence can never be achieved - because computers are not “in the world.” > One of the leading critics was the philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, who argued that computers, who have no body, no childhood and no cultural practice, could not acquire intelligence at all. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0494-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0494-4
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Just raise them as you would a child? Give them a body, upgrade it so they grow every few years. Lets see where we end up.
  - concordDance 5y ago
    > Just raise them as you would a child? That could only work even in theory if you've programmed in all the innate behaviours/desires human children have. And in practice raising superintelligent children who can clone themselves and rewrite their minds is not a thing we know how to do.
    - curtainsforus 5y ago
      That doesn't mean it's impossible to create artificial intelligences, though, which was Dreyfus' point.
    - ElFitz 5y ago
      > And in practice raising superintelligent children who can clone themselves and rewrite their minds is not a thing we know how to do. We could learn to. Through trial and error. Even though a too big mistake means creating a psychopathic superinterlligent child who can clone itself, rewrite turns mind and easily hack the few American ICBMs not protected by the wondrous safety of floppy disks.
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        Seems a bit crazy to assume we’ll jump from ‘not close to human’ to ‘superintelligent’ without going through ‘barely adequate’?
eikenberry 5y ago
> The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it. Not if you've studied much history. Modern western society is awesome compared to what nearly all of our ancestors lived through. Wanting more is good, but denigrating things that nearly anyone from history would kill for doesn't sound right.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >Modern western society is awesome compared to what nearly all of our ancestors lived through. Any sane person would agree with you in the sense that it's definitely better to be alive in 2021 than 1621. If you you shorten the timespan and only look at cultural changes since, say, the 1970s, though, it seems we've sacrificed a lot of what makes us human (community, interconnectedness, a sense of wonder about the future etc.) at the altar of free market economics and received little of actual value in return (Uber Eats, iPhones, Netflix etc.).
  - megameter 5y ago
    It's clear to me that it's too easy to be Panglossian about our material conditions. Just thinking about the time frame I grew up within(1980's-2000's US) there were a lot of things that I now see as definitely bad and that have, in fact, all started to change in my adult life: * The omnipresent nature of sweetened food and drink * Car-dependent culture * Mass media culture * Simpsons-style dysfunctional nuclear families * The whole array of corrupt policies and programs, cults-in-disguise(e.g. "troubled teen" schools), and ideologically driven movements; while we're hardly free of those things, and there are plenty of new or intensified versions of them, I believe there are also more ways to find a sustainable path outside those frameworks these days. But if you asked me if life was good in 2000, I would be mostly in agreement, because my life seemed pretty good - I was told it was! But then I look back on it and it's like, nooo, actually, there were all these pieces that traumatized me, removed my agency, were bad for my health or made me settle for less. And I believe the same would be true if I had been experiencing life in 1970's. Like, sure, in 1621 I'd probably have died at a young age. But I am on the hedonic treadmill with respect to life quality too. It doesn't matter to my feelings that now is the best time, if better is still possible.
ehnto 5y ago
I have tried both sides of the coin and have settled for somewhere in the middle, which for me is contracting. For myself, I burned out pretty hard on 9-5 work, so I don't take on a full time workload and I don't take on work that requires butt-in-seat engagment, even remotely. In that way I retain full agency over my time, and great flexibility in when I work. I work when I am feeling the most effective, and I can eliminate all that dead time wasted at traditional jobs, where you are just tabbing mindlessly between screens because you have spent your focus budget for the day.
- bjornsing 5y ago
  I’m starting to think this is the direction I want to go in. The butts-in-seats culture is strong here in Sweden though (strangely upheld by the butts in the seats themselves). So I’m a bit worried it will be a “dead end career wise” and not sustainable until retirement (I’m 43). Any thoughts on this? How do you find work and what makes you think you will continue to find work for 10, 15 or 20 years?
  - ehnto 5y ago
    My thought is that if I can't find work as a contractor then I'd have as little chance at finding work at a company, so it may be time to retrain anyway. I am assuming you're a software developer, I'm by no means an expert on contracting, but my two recommendations are: Specialize in a domain, and stay on the technology bandwagon. You can't pin your career on a technology, they go obsolete too fast, but you can specialize in an industry domain. I specialized in eCommerce, and I've had to use dozens of different technologies, each project brings in a new tech stack and a new set of idioms. I have a friend in motorsport/automotive software, which is an exciting field by the sounds of it. There are dozens of industries that need software but aren't solely software companies, and I think that's where much contract work is. I am ideologically against the rapid technology swapping our industry loves, I really prefer to dig in deep to a framework or stack, but this is work so I keep my eyes up and forward. Sometimes all you need is to recognize the buzzword, say "Yep I've heard of that", then go home and do some research to make sure you can pull it off before accepting the contract.
gabaix 5y ago
If you haven't read it yet, you might want to read De Brevitate Vitae [1] by Seneca. You will find many similarities. [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_shortness_of_life https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_shortness_of_life
papito 5y ago
Because risk. Rich, privileged people can try different things with zero risk of becoming destitute. And that's how they practically stumble into new opportunities. Adam Neumann was making collapsible heels and toddler knee-pads before he decided to try the pyramid that is WeWork, which ultimately bought him a private jet and multiple houses. Me? I didn't have a chance to "try" things. My room for error was zero. Must get above 90 average. Must get scholarship. MUST find job. MUST be there at 9AM. MUST pay rent. Now I am saving money to take one year off to work on my own thing, but only because my first future ex-wife works for NYC and I can be on her insurance. Without that safety net, at 40, no way. So, not everyone can be born a failson like Jared Kushner, but what we CAN have is a safety net to let people take risks.
- tluyben2 5y ago
  > Because risk. Rich, privileged people can try different things with zero risk of becoming destitute You can do that as well in many EU countries. Without being rich.
  - papito 5y ago
    The world you describe is alien to me.
    - tluyben2 5y ago
      Been living there for almost 50 years. Works fine.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        We don't seem to generate much more innovation than our overseas cousins, though. A safety net may lead some people to experiment and play with things, others to slouching off. This even applies outside the public sphere. A stereotype of a bored millionaire's son with no energy to do anything substantial exists for a reason.
        5y ago
tluyben2 5y ago
I never did that and will never do that (at almost 50 y/o); I was raised with Christianity but no-one could answer my questions at a very young age so I have no faith which means I have 1 go at this life. So no offices, suits, bosses, jobs, meetings or whatever. I had 2 kind of stressful years in my life and I am well off; I do whatever I want and is good for my family. I think it's a good score. It helps living in the EU; I never had to worry about living on the streets which makes some decisions easier.
RandomLensman 5y ago
Exercising agency usually brings a lot of uncertainty and risk with it and I think a lot of people don't like that (as in owning decisions). If you look at what people do in life, very few pick professions or businesses with high agency. Pretty sure that is not just some function of upbringing but risk tolerance and attitudes vary and not everyone wants to be a surgeon, trader, entrepreneur, racing driver, etc. A lot of high paying professions actually are fairly agency free, e.g. consulting and other professional services - so as far as putting a price on it, agency is not necessarily rewarded much
jraby3 5y ago
I’ve thought about this a lot. What it comes down to is that the only true agency you have is by strengthening your mind. That’s really the only solution I could come up with. Because at the end of the day everything gets old - every act, job, etc. (hedonistic treadmill). And having complete freedom isn’t a solution. You’re still trapped within your own head 24/7. Taking time to pursue meditation and other activities that help you be happy no matter what the circumstances of the external world seem like the best choice of activity when younger in order to build agency.
- andy_ppp 5y ago
  Discipline equals Freedom
snowflake_ptr 5y ago
> we waste all out vitality and youth making other people rich If you meant "we waste all our vitality and youth" - that's wrong. A US working week is 40 hours, which is less than one fourth of the 168 real hours in a week, and less than half of its waking hours (assuming 9 hours for sleep). As for the "making other people rich" part - that's a product of you (and other people) making easy decisions in life, like buying on Amazon, searching on Google, using Windows & Facebook, watching Netflix, owning an Android or Apple phone, buying products based on price instead of doing research (or buying locally), not organizing or joining a union, not contacting your representatives about worrying issues, and so on. Any power structure (companies and governments) will become overrun by bad actors if those inside of (and under) it don't pay attention to it and stay engaged. Americans seem to have been checked out for the past few decades, and now it's coming back to bite us. Not a surprise.

qqtt 5y ago

> The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it. On the flip side, if you step outside the bubble of comfort that Western society generally affords people, you'll find that life is "nasty, brutish & short" as Hobbes put it. We've come a very very long way in a short time towards raising our standard of living and our expectations for what our lives can be - especially for regular folk from humble beginnings who aren't born into huge advantages. Not to say that we can't improve things further for Western society, but just to say that the script we are generally given is pretty damn good compared to historical averages.

Aeolun 5y ago
> just to say that the script we are generally given is pretty damn good Honestly, it’s so good it’s boring. Not much challenge to life if the only thing you need to do to continue existing is plant your ass in the same chair every day.
- nine_k 5y ago
  Nobody guarantees you that chair.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    True, but if you live anywhere in western Europe you have to work really hard to fuck up your life forever.
esperent 5y ago
I live in a non-western low income country. Life is not "nasty, brutish and short". Honestly, it makes me pretty angry when I hear people from the west espouse this sentiment. Have you ever lived in a non-western country, to state that with such assurance? Life here is beautiful, the sense of community is so much stronger than it is in the west and overall I'd say that people are less stressed. On the flip side, many things are harder for sure - wages are low and working hours are long, good healthcare is hard come by for many people. Short of living in an active conflict zone, of which there are only a few in the world, thankfully, life is not "nasty, brutish, and short". Perhaps, in future, before making such statements about the lives of people from cultures other than your own, you could take a few moments to try and empathize with them instead?
- russelldjimmy 5y ago
  I think I get where you are coming from. I too live in a non-western third world nation. I relate to the points you make. But it isn’t obvious to me that the commenter meant to belittle life outside western nations. I think this wasn’t meant to be west vs non-west argument IMHO.
- qqtt 5y ago
  "Bubbles of comfort" are not unique to Western countries, that is true. Every country on the planet offers a subset of their population a great life style, the only variable is how much of the country actually gets a) to partake in that lifestyle b) has the tools to reach that lifestyle when starting outside of it Doesn't matter if you are talking about North Korea or the United States. And yes, you can find abject generational poverty in the United States as well. The fact you could post your comment puts you in the top 40% of the world (roughly 60% don't have internet access). If you have internet from a mobile phone, you are roughly in the top 50%. Are you really looking outside your bubble of comfort?
  - peterlk 5y ago
    I similarly think that you are applying a techno-utopian lens to your analysis. My family and I have spent time with many people who did not have internet or other modern amenities (Mongolia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Kazakhstan, and several others), and your statement does not hold. It is not _entirely_ untrue, because a bacterial infection can kill you, however, the dynamics of life are just... different. People are still capable of all the emotion and fulfillment that you and I are, but life is slower, simpler, and more well-defined, so it is often easier to feel happy and fulfilled.
mellavora 5y ago
I'm positive to your overall sentiment that we should remember the physical health and comfort which we have achieved. The Hobbes quote, however, does not apply. Hobbes was comparing life with/without a sufficiently strong Leviathan ('central government') to provide basic protection of property rights, or at least a semblance of such protection. But the "long way" to which you refer, the physical comfort of modern life, is the fruit of the industrial revolution, roughly 150 years of history. Hobbes was much earlier, he probably never saw the IR coming.
tluyben2 5y ago
Universal income would be a next step in that.

planet-and-halo 5y ago

I suspect we are all the prisoners of long-dead economists. Their ideas of people as atomic resources were useful abstractions in some ways (I agree with the point below that their work has led to great material prosperity), but they have also influenced entire generations of overly bureaucratic and inhumane policies. People are treated as "things" to be "managed," and as a consequence they develop learned helplessness.

jkhdigital 5y ago
Economics is the new god, the god of materialism. At some point in the 20th century we decided that material prosperity is really all you need for a happy and healthy society. Doesn’t seem to be working out so well…
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  By what measure? (Not sure I disagree just curious)
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    It's a good and fair question, and of course I'm going to dodge it because I wasn't prepared to defend my statement. Probably should have ended with a rhetorical question instead.
  - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    If I may attempt to answer it: Because it works for politicians, and the line of people behind the politicians with their left hands offering $X and their right hands demanding special treatment worth 100x$X.
    - bosie 5y ago
      whats the measure here?
- handmodel 5y ago

jkhdigital 5y ago

For all but the last ~150 years or so of human existence, meaning and purpose came almost exclusively from (1) raising a family and (2) religion. I think the cruelest tragedy of modernity is that we no longer teach our children that life can actually be quite rewarding and fulfilling outside of one’s profession.

terminalcommand 5y ago
I beg to differ, this is way too simplistic. People pursued hobbies such as music, painting, theater, literature etc. Raising a family and religion were important, but I don't think people were very different from our times. To prove this just look at old folk musical instruments and their development. It is fascinating really.
watwut 5y ago
That is quite literally not true. Ypu need just a brief look at history or antiquity to see that.
Sander_Marechal 5y ago
I am convinced that (organised) religion has done far more harm to the world than good.
shakow 5y ago
> came almost exclusively from (1) raising a family and (2) religion And the military, and politics, and arts, and friends, and philosophy, and sciences, ... It's a big fat modern-times bias to imagine that our 19th century ancestors were so simplistic. Just read Zola or Dostoïevski, many characters and/or situations could be transposed nearly intact in modern times.
cik 5y ago
To me this is a fascinating byproduct of North American life... especially having left. The reality is that that work is the least important part of my character - though it pays for things. I have no idea what the majority of people in my community do. We simply never discuss work, there's so much more between family, nature, and the goings on in the world. The complete reverse was true in North America - the first question after "what's your name" was invariably "what do you do".

sillysaurusx 5y ago

I went and did the other side, living nontraditionally and trying to be what I wanted. I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money. My current hypothesis is that the team is all that matters. The work can be the most boring, crud-type work. As long as you’re working with people you like on something vaguely interesting, who cares? 20yo me would be mortified to hear myself say this, but the chances of either of us influencing the world is quite small. I’m happy I threw all of my effort into doing something I wanted, but my honest answer is that you’re not really missing out on much. Relax and enjoy yourself. Most days, I end up wishing I’d had kids 5 years ago. It was nice to prioritize myself, but you can’t prioritize a family you never focused on building. (I had no idea I even wanted a family or that it was important to me until about… 29?) I guess my point is, the “relax and enjoy yourself” mentality isn’t so bad. No one will probably remember us the way they’ll remember pg. But I’ve helped thousands of devs directly, whether in DMs or by contributing code, and I think I only care whether those folks might remember me. So that’s the area you can really make an impact: on the people around you, in your day to day life. Maybe I’ll wake up in a few years and realize this is a terrible mistake, but that seems unlikely.

jkhdigital 5y ago
Amen. I’m a sober alcoholic, and if I died tomorrow I’d be content knowing that I did at least one worthwhile thing with the time I had: I helped another alcoholic, a 23 year old man who tried to kill himself shortly before I met him, get sober and start working and move out of his mom’s basement and stand up straight and look other people in the eyes and then go and help a few other people stop drinking. Not a single professional accomplishment is within an order of magnitude of that level of fulfillment. Just help one f*cking person become more than they thought they could be and you’ll die happy—why didn’t they tell us it was this simple?
- 6510 5y ago
  The whole society seems designed top down to keep us fighting and arguing, live at the expense of others is the mantra. It seems it took a lot of engineering to get us this far from our natural state of caring. The Chinese seem to indoctrinate with a slightly different model where you are to believe society comes before the individual. The sensible model seems rather obvious: One has to organize their own show before one is of [much] use to others. Until that time one should give the others the opportunity to help you with that and be grateful. Its not an embarrassment if you plan to do the same.

wombatmobile 5y ago

This is the argument Hubert Dreyfuss advances to postulate Artificial General Intelligence can never be achieved - because computers are not “in the world.” > One of the leading critics was the philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, who argued that computers, who have no body, no childhood and no cultural practice, could not acquire intelligence at all. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0494-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0494-4

Aeolun 5y ago
Just raise them as you would a child? Give them a body, upgrade it so they grow every few years. Lets see where we end up.
- concordDance 5y ago
  > Just raise them as you would a child? That could only work even in theory if you've programmed in all the innate behaviours/desires human children have. And in practice raising superintelligent children who can clone themselves and rewrite their minds is not a thing we know how to do.
  - curtainsforus 5y ago
    That doesn't mean it's impossible to create artificial intelligences, though, which was Dreyfus' point.
  - ElFitz 5y ago
    > And in practice raising superintelligent children who can clone themselves and rewrite their minds is not a thing we know how to do. We could learn to. Through trial and error. Even though a too big mistake means creating a psychopathic superinterlligent child who can clone itself, rewrite turns mind and easily hack the few American ICBMs not protected by the wondrous safety of floppy disks.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      Seems a bit crazy to assume we’ll jump from ‘not close to human’ to ‘superintelligent’ without going through ‘barely adequate’?

eikenberry 5y ago

> The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it. Not if you've studied much history. Modern western society is awesome compared to what nearly all of our ancestors lived through. Wanting more is good, but denigrating things that nearly anyone from history would kill for doesn't sound right.

AussieWog93 5y ago
>Modern western society is awesome compared to what nearly all of our ancestors lived through. Any sane person would agree with you in the sense that it's definitely better to be alive in 2021 than 1621. If you you shorten the timespan and only look at cultural changes since, say, the 1970s, though, it seems we've sacrificed a lot of what makes us human (community, interconnectedness, a sense of wonder about the future etc.) at the altar of free market economics and received little of actual value in return (Uber Eats, iPhones, Netflix etc.).
- megameter 5y ago
  It's clear to me that it's too easy to be Panglossian about our material conditions. Just thinking about the time frame I grew up within(1980's-2000's US) there were a lot of things that I now see as definitely bad and that have, in fact, all started to change in my adult life: * The omnipresent nature of sweetened food and drink * Car-dependent culture * Mass media culture * Simpsons-style dysfunctional nuclear families * The whole array of corrupt policies and programs, cults-in-disguise(e.g. "troubled teen" schools), and ideologically driven movements; while we're hardly free of those things, and there are plenty of new or intensified versions of them, I believe there are also more ways to find a sustainable path outside those frameworks these days. But if you asked me if life was good in 2000, I would be mostly in agreement, because my life seemed pretty good - I was told it was! But then I look back on it and it's like, nooo, actually, there were all these pieces that traumatized me, removed my agency, were bad for my health or made me settle for less. And I believe the same would be true if I had been experiencing life in 1970's. Like, sure, in 1621 I'd probably have died at a young age. But I am on the hedonic treadmill with respect to life quality too. It doesn't matter to my feelings that now is the best time, if better is still possible.

ehnto 5y ago

I have tried both sides of the coin and have settled for somewhere in the middle, which for me is contracting. For myself, I burned out pretty hard on 9-5 work, so I don't take on a full time workload and I don't take on work that requires butt-in-seat engagment, even remotely. In that way I retain full agency over my time, and great flexibility in when I work. I work when I am feeling the most effective, and I can eliminate all that dead time wasted at traditional jobs, where you are just tabbing mindlessly between screens because you have spent your focus budget for the day.

bjornsing 5y ago
I’m starting to think this is the direction I want to go in. The butts-in-seats culture is strong here in Sweden though (strangely upheld by the butts in the seats themselves). So I’m a bit worried it will be a “dead end career wise” and not sustainable until retirement (I’m 43). Any thoughts on this? How do you find work and what makes you think you will continue to find work for 10, 15 or 20 years?
- ehnto 5y ago
  My thought is that if I can't find work as a contractor then I'd have as little chance at finding work at a company, so it may be time to retrain anyway. I am assuming you're a software developer, I'm by no means an expert on contracting, but my two recommendations are: Specialize in a domain, and stay on the technology bandwagon. You can't pin your career on a technology, they go obsolete too fast, but you can specialize in an industry domain. I specialized in eCommerce, and I've had to use dozens of different technologies, each project brings in a new tech stack and a new set of idioms. I have a friend in motorsport/automotive software, which is an exciting field by the sounds of it. There are dozens of industries that need software but aren't solely software companies, and I think that's where much contract work is. I am ideologically against the rapid technology swapping our industry loves, I really prefer to dig in deep to a framework or stack, but this is work so I keep my eyes up and forward. Sometimes all you need is to recognize the buzzword, say "Yep I've heard of that", then go home and do some research to make sure you can pull it off before accepting the contract.

gabaix 5y ago

If you haven't read it yet, you might want to read De Brevitate Vitae [1] by Seneca. You will find many similarities. [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_shortness_of_life https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_shortness_of_life

papito 5y ago

Because risk. Rich, privileged people can try different things with zero risk of becoming destitute. And that's how they practically stumble into new opportunities. Adam Neumann was making collapsible heels and toddler knee-pads before he decided to try the pyramid that is WeWork, which ultimately bought him a private jet and multiple houses. Me? I didn't have a chance to "try" things. My room for error was zero. Must get above 90 average. Must get scholarship. MUST find job. MUST be there at 9AM. MUST pay rent. Now I am saving money to take one year off to work on my own thing, but only because my first future ex-wife works for NYC and I can be on her insurance. Without that safety net, at 40, no way. So, not everyone can be born a failson like Jared Kushner, but what we CAN have is a safety net to let people take risks.

tluyben2 5y ago
> Because risk. Rich, privileged people can try different things with zero risk of becoming destitute You can do that as well in many EU countries. Without being rich.
- papito 5y ago
  The world you describe is alien to me.
  - tluyben2 5y ago
    Been living there for almost 50 years. Works fine.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      We don't seem to generate much more innovation than our overseas cousins, though. A safety net may lead some people to experiment and play with things, others to slouching off. This even applies outside the public sphere. A stereotype of a bored millionaire's son with no energy to do anything substantial exists for a reason.
      - 5y ago

tluyben2 5y ago

I never did that and will never do that (at almost 50 y/o); I was raised with Christianity but no-one could answer my questions at a very young age so I have no faith which means I have 1 go at this life. So no offices, suits, bosses, jobs, meetings or whatever. I had 2 kind of stressful years in my life and I am well off; I do whatever I want and is good for my family. I think it's a good score. It helps living in the EU; I never had to worry about living on the streets which makes some decisions easier.

RandomLensman 5y ago

Exercising agency usually brings a lot of uncertainty and risk with it and I think a lot of people don't like that (as in owning decisions). If you look at what people do in life, very few pick professions or businesses with high agency. Pretty sure that is not just some function of upbringing but risk tolerance and attitudes vary and not everyone wants to be a surgeon, trader, entrepreneur, racing driver, etc. A lot of high paying professions actually are fairly agency free, e.g. consulting and other professional services - so as far as putting a price on it, agency is not necessarily rewarded much

jraby3 5y ago

I’ve thought about this a lot. What it comes down to is that the only true agency you have is by strengthening your mind. That’s really the only solution I could come up with. Because at the end of the day everything gets old - every act, job, etc. (hedonistic treadmill). And having complete freedom isn’t a solution. You’re still trapped within your own head 24/7. Taking time to pursue meditation and other activities that help you be happy no matter what the circumstances of the external world seem like the best choice of activity when younger in order to build agency.

andy_ppp 5y ago
Discipline equals Freedom

snowflake_ptr 5y ago

> we waste all out vitality and youth making other people rich If you meant "we waste all our vitality and youth" - that's wrong. A US working week is 40 hours, which is less than one fourth of the 168 real hours in a week, and less than half of its waking hours (assuming 9 hours for sleep). As for the "making other people rich" part - that's a product of you (and other people) making easy decisions in life, like buying on Amazon, searching on Google, using Windows & Facebook, watching Netflix, owning an Android or Apple phone, buying products based on price instead of doing research (or buying locally), not organizing or joining a union, not contacting your representatives about worrying issues, and so on. Any power structure (companies and governments) will become overrun by bad actors if those inside of (and under) it don't pay attention to it and stay engaged. Americans seem to have been checked out for the past few decades, and now it's coming back to bite us. Not a surprise.