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> I imagine building solutions to problems I see in my surroundings. For some irrational reason, I feel a desire to give back to society. I think there is noth

> I imagine building solutions to problems I see in my surroundings. For some irrational reason, I feel a desire to give back to society. I think there is nothing irrational about this. Look up “purpose economy”. Grinding away your life in the interests of some company that basically just wants to achieve financial gains is not satisfying at all, we’re just normalizing it because it’s lucrative and we live in a world where bills need to be paid. The future isn’t build by greed and hustle, but by ambition and dreams. Don’t let people tell you off for this. Artists don’t do what they do because they seek any kind of validation for it, yet they shape the cultures that we identify with. All relevant progress, both individual and societal, comes from people who don’t care for the established worldly order. The future is build by dreamers and visionaries, not by people who confuse the treadmill for a life worth living. You do you.

chii 5y ago
> I think there is nothing irrational about this. it's not irrational. Unless you ignore the lower needs on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and spend your efforts on the higher needs. The lower needs are basic - sustenance and safety etc. If someone is wealthy enough to meet these needs with time and resources to spare, then it makes a lot of sense to spend the extra resources on the higher needs. But it is irrational to try to fulfil a higher need, when you don't already have the lower needs fulfilled first.
- hans1729 5y ago
  That’s true of course, it comes down to the relative position in maslows model. Maybe I just assumed that the HN-audience is at the top of the pyramid almost by definition, but failed to do the adequate elaboration. Thanks!
- hoseja 5y ago
  And that is why US is spending so much effort making sure the basic needs stay unmet.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    I had to think about it. Is it a conscious design effort or just a function otherwise unrelated issues?
    - nebulous_two 5y ago
      It's not a conscious design effort in the sense that the blueprints were designed and implemented this way. It's more that gradually with every political decision that is based on greed, we sink deeper in a world that is defined by it.
    - hoseja 5y ago
      I don't think any social engineers have been quite so mask-off but I'm not sure.
    - jjoonathan 5y ago
      It's the net effect of asset holders working in their collective self interest and a society that allows them to. They are on the other side of the bargaining table from the needy and much, much stronger. The moment the lower classes obtain a bit of spare cash and start to think about climbing Maslow's Hierarchy, rent goes up and the spare cash vanishes. Or wages inflate away and shareholders benefit. In any case, someone with an asset is standing by to hoover up the cash. It's not exactly malice -- it's self interest with lopsided power dynamics and neglect for side effects -- but the dedication with which people weave excuses around this process can really feel like it's malicious some times.
  - TOMDM 5y ago
    What money is the US spending in order to worsen it's own citizens basic needs? Not needs it stubbornly refuses to subsidize, but actively making sure they remain unmet?
    - smordistan 5y ago
      Universal health care for one. Were you actually asking in good faith? This gets brought up fairly often.
WalterBright 5y ago
Some people enjoy their work very much. They're not "grinding away". For example, I know salesmen who enjoy what they do a lot. People who build houses like building houses, etc. > The future isn’t build by greed and hustle, but by ambition and dreams. Those two are not distinct at all from each other. BTW, dreamers don't accomplish anything unless it is accompanied by the other three.
onion2k 5y ago
The future isn’t build by greed and hustle, but by ambition and dreams. I'm struggling to think of a significant example of where this has been true in the past. Large scale change that someone can attribute to their own effort only seems to happen when they monetize it.
- black_puppydog 5y ago
  Linux? You could argue that red hat did the monetization there, but torvalds didn't, not before it got bigger. Penicillin would also be one. It had to be forced on the industry because they couldn't monetize it, so you could argue that "more hustle would have helped".
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    > Penicillin would also be one. Short term benefit, long term disaster. Penicillamine (metabolised penicillin) causes copper depletion reduces Interleukin-2 which increases the risk of some cancers and the effectiveness of the white blood cells. To the OP: Find a problem you can fix, want to fix, monetise and try to stay legal. I'm learning that govt legislation is sometimes a posterior covering position whilst trying to maintain some semblance of authority over the population. This can hold back innovation so where legislation controls your activities (food supplement legislation is a good example), and there will be, make sure you have the arguments figured out before hand because you might be calling upon them in court as one of your customers may be forcing you to court directly or indirectly whether you like it or not.
    - t_mann 5y ago
      Re Penicilin: the 'short term' benefits of not dying from a lung infection are pretty significant though. We might have better drugs today, but it was quite a miracle back then.
      - Terry_Roll 5y ago
        I'm not knocking the use of antibiotics, but you never get a GP telling you to take a copper supplement after course do you? Getting the diet right in the first place can also help enormously with prevention. And I find some medical tests can actually qualify me with a disease just from taking some supplements, like taking creatine and then my estimated glomular filtration rate shows high levels of creatinine which is used to indicate some stage of kidney disease all because the test cant factor in creatine supplementation. Or I could take above RDA amounts of B6 which will increase my immune system response but the test could also indicate me with a different type of disease, and its not until we are several tests later do the medical experts start enquiry about my diet? We dont live in the 1990's or earlier when vitamin and mineral supplementation was a novelty, its fairly wide spread now.
magicroot75 5y ago
I think it's important to note that the generic "artist" doesn't shape the world around us. A miniscule elite of artists shape the world around us. The vast majority live and operate in obscurity.

chii 5y ago

> I think there is nothing irrational about this. it's not irrational. Unless you ignore the lower needs on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and spend your efforts on the higher needs. The lower needs are basic - sustenance and safety etc. If someone is wealthy enough to meet these needs with time and resources to spare, then it makes a lot of sense to spend the extra resources on the higher needs. But it is irrational to try to fulfil a higher need, when you don't already have the lower needs fulfilled first.

hans1729 5y ago
That’s true of course, it comes down to the relative position in maslows model. Maybe I just assumed that the HN-audience is at the top of the pyramid almost by definition, but failed to do the adequate elaboration. Thanks!
hoseja 5y ago
And that is why US is spending so much effort making sure the basic needs stay unmet.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  I had to think about it. Is it a conscious design effort or just a function otherwise unrelated issues?
  - nebulous_two 5y ago
    It's not a conscious design effort in the sense that the blueprints were designed and implemented this way. It's more that gradually with every political decision that is based on greed, we sink deeper in a world that is defined by it.
  - hoseja 5y ago
    I don't think any social engineers have been quite so mask-off but I'm not sure.
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    It's the net effect of asset holders working in their collective self interest and a society that allows them to. They are on the other side of the bargaining table from the needy and much, much stronger. The moment the lower classes obtain a bit of spare cash and start to think about climbing Maslow's Hierarchy, rent goes up and the spare cash vanishes. Or wages inflate away and shareholders benefit. In any case, someone with an asset is standing by to hoover up the cash. It's not exactly malice -- it's self interest with lopsided power dynamics and neglect for side effects -- but the dedication with which people weave excuses around this process can really feel like it's malicious some times.
- TOMDM 5y ago
  What money is the US spending in order to worsen it's own citizens basic needs? Not needs it stubbornly refuses to subsidize, but actively making sure they remain unmet?
  - smordistan 5y ago
    Universal health care for one. Were you actually asking in good faith? This gets brought up fairly often.

WalterBright 5y ago

Some people enjoy their work very much. They're not "grinding away". For example, I know salesmen who enjoy what they do a lot. People who build houses like building houses, etc. > The future isn’t build by greed and hustle, but by ambition and dreams. Those two are not distinct at all from each other. BTW, dreamers don't accomplish anything unless it is accompanied by the other three.

onion2k 5y ago

The future isn’t build by greed and hustle, but by ambition and dreams. I'm struggling to think of a significant example of where this has been true in the past. Large scale change that someone can attribute to their own effort only seems to happen when they monetize it.

black_puppydog 5y ago
Linux? You could argue that red hat did the monetization there, but torvalds didn't, not before it got bigger. Penicillin would also be one. It had to be forced on the industry because they couldn't monetize it, so you could argue that "more hustle would have helped".
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  > Penicillin would also be one. Short term benefit, long term disaster. Penicillamine (metabolised penicillin) causes copper depletion reduces Interleukin-2 which increases the risk of some cancers and the effectiveness of the white blood cells. To the OP: Find a problem you can fix, want to fix, monetise and try to stay legal. I'm learning that govt legislation is sometimes a posterior covering position whilst trying to maintain some semblance of authority over the population. This can hold back innovation so where legislation controls your activities (food supplement legislation is a good example), and there will be, make sure you have the arguments figured out before hand because you might be calling upon them in court as one of your customers may be forcing you to court directly or indirectly whether you like it or not.
  - t_mann 5y ago
    Re Penicilin: the 'short term' benefits of not dying from a lung infection are pretty significant though. We might have better drugs today, but it was quite a miracle back then.
    - Terry_Roll 5y ago
      I'm not knocking the use of antibiotics, but you never get a GP telling you to take a copper supplement after course do you? Getting the diet right in the first place can also help enormously with prevention. And I find some medical tests can actually qualify me with a disease just from taking some supplements, like taking creatine and then my estimated glomular filtration rate shows high levels of creatinine which is used to indicate some stage of kidney disease all because the test cant factor in creatine supplementation. Or I could take above RDA amounts of B6 which will increase my immune system response but the test could also indicate me with a different type of disease, and its not until we are several tests later do the medical experts start enquiry about my diet? We dont live in the 1990's or earlier when vitamin and mineral supplementation was a novelty, its fairly wide spread now.

magicroot75 5y ago

I think it's important to note that the generic "artist" doesn't shape the world around us. A miniscule elite of artists shape the world around us. The vast majority live and operate in obscurity.