17 ms·

From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo

by Toine 5y ago

From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. I hope young people don't read this and blindly believe it.

danielvaughn 5y ago
I think you're severely misreading the original comment, and to be frank, your interpretation is pretty juvenile. Nowhere does the person say that we are robots.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  Yeah, I took it as rather the opposite of saying that we are robots. Ultimately, being responsible for one's self is a choice, which is something robots can't do.
  - danielvaughn 5y ago
    Right. I didn't even take it as disagreeing with the piece - there's enough nuance there to see harmony between the post and the comment.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market calculations, not human actualisation and need-fulfilment. It's an ideological position, and a harmful one at that. We aren't all totally independent actors competing in a ruthless market to maximise profits.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    OP did not say that you have to optimize for profit. However, they said that we have to optimize for something. In other words, there's opportunity cost to everything we do.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      > You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. > It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal hazard, reputational hazard, etc. This is an argument that you have the responsibility alone to optimise your behaviour in the market. Yes, your utility function could be oriented towards something other than profit, but OP specifically oriented their argument towards getting "good returns". While this is the direction that neoliberal capitalism pushes you in, what with the social alienation and commodification of everything in life, but that's because it's not aligned with human wellbeing. Your self-image should not be one of a company optimising its market behaviour; this precludes socialising, spending time in nature, exercising for reasons beyond increased economic productivity. It reduces human existence down to rational behaviour in a market. To present an alternative, because criticism in a vacuum isn't very effective: I personally think that you should optimise your involvement in the economy, so that you are minimally involved in the economy, so that you can spend your precious little time on earth doing things that actually matter to you - whether that's social relationships, hobbies, communities, whatever. The market is something to be avoided, not exploited. To do this effectively you have to understand the market, sure, but it's the same way an accountant for an enterprise company has to deeply understand tax law in order to avoid paying taxes. If that's also what OP was arguing for then that's a whole other thing, but that's not the impression I got at all with the whole "you are a company, start acting like one" spiel.
      - KptMarchewa 5y ago
        "Good returns" are what you'll make of your time that's worthwhile to you. The interpretation that this means only money is entirely your interpretation.
draw_down 5y ago
lotsofpulp 5y ago
Different perspectives for looking at the same thing provide different benefits, and they can be held simultaneously. For example, getting married to someone involves love and commitment and all that jazz, but I also like to advise also looking at it as a business, especially if you have or are going to have children. It is no different in that the two parents (and maybe even other adults in a multi family household) need to manage tasks, inventory, money, etc. That does not mean you should treat your family or yourself exactly as a business, but there are some aspects that are beneficial if managed in that manner.
- ftlio 5y ago
  Yes, the idea that you can't hold "the neoliberal view" of your household, and "the communist view" and the "romantic view", and the "spiritual view" all together for all their benefits and tradeoffs seems worse to me than even subscribing to one holistically without this imperative. I've had this called out as absolutely faux pas if not totally asinine by people who are deep into philosophy, but I'm doing great, a lot better than some of them born with silver spoons.
  - bckr 5y ago
    > faux pas if not totally asinine These people are embarrassed that you can think for yourself. Life has such a high fractal dimension. It's highly unlikely that a single theory, expressed in a serial language, can be a very good description of life, at all. But it feels good to believe one thing strongly. It feels so, so good. And it feels good to hate people who believe the other thing, and to think they're wrong. But the right way really is to believe in all the things at once. It's weird, schizoid, scary, and completely logical. I'd like to put something together to help people understand this. I think the quickest way to get there is: * math doesn't work the way you think: see Wittgenstein * space and time don't work the way you think: see Einstein * matter doesn't work the way you think: see the double slit experiment * rationality doesn't work the way you think: see tons of psychology Given the above, do you think anything could possibly work the way you think it works? The best way forward is to just be incredibly weird. (And yet, somehow, be incredibly normal at the same time).
caffeine 5y ago
> We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. Totally agree. > We are NOT companies Actually, we are humans. However, when it comes to our economic activity, we are also a company. Both things can be true at once. > this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. Woah. Anything you specifically disagree with? I put it in economic terms to address the article, but if you replace “company of one” with “life” and “returns” with “outcomes”, the message is largely the same.. Edit: I think you disagreed so hard because you think I’m saying “you’re only an adult if you think everything is about money and personal gain.” But what I was trying to say was “you’re an adult once you realise you’re it; you can fail; and it’s nobody else’s job to make sure you don’t” - which I didn’t think was such a controversial point..
- dxdm 5y ago
  What you wrote sounds extremely biased towards turning life into economical transactions on the labor market, while I think there's already too much of this mindset, and people need to be reminded that there is much more to life than economic theory.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 5y ago
  Despite enjoying Smurfs, a show about hardcore social animals, as a kid, I still hope young people believe they can fail.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    Being a parent, you get a sense for what young people believe, and why. It comes from you, but also from friends at school, and of course media - books, tv, movies, games. IMHO the 'ability to fail' message is quite poor, overall, from media. Mr. Rogers being the (usual) exception. That said, failure occurs often in real life, desired goals always exceed capability, hopefully you can give them iterated games they can experience failure, adaptation, and success at their own pace. Often they will invent their own games, which we too often call "misbehavior". But yes, entertainment obsession in kids (on-demand media plus working single parent works out quite badly for the kids), media emphasis on those who are unaccountably good at a thing, means media portrays failing far less often than is realistic, and when it does it's a Rocky style training montage. Plus no-one really wants to write the manual for kids on how to give up on your dreams.
BobbyJo 5y ago
> We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. We are companies. You can be a company of one and not a robot. Being a company of one doesn't imply giving up free will or somehow not being meat and bone. That's nothing to do with the statement he's making. I hope every young person reads it and take it seriously, because it's reality. No one can manage your time, your money, your mental health, like you. No one will.
knubie 5y ago
> We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. It’s just an analogy. A different way of looking at the decisions you make throughout your life.
- chc 5y ago
  And so is "We are not companies," but you apparently felt the need to argue with that.
jka 5y ago
> This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies That's true, although, in a way, I think it's reasonable for the parent commentor to want to identify as a corporation if that's what they feel like. Are there preferred pronouns for corporate identities? Perhaps people would display a personal stock ticker symbol instead?
- caffeine 5y ago
  Hah! I hadn’t intended that at all but this is hilarious. I wonder if the IRS would play along: “I identify as a corporation so you may only tax me on my profits not my income”
  - jka 5y ago
    Well, without agreeing or disagreeing yet: if corporate personhood is considered valid, then perhaps personal corporatehood should be as well. (in practice: there are probably a lot of reasons why it's a terrible idea)
sanderjd 5y ago
The parent comment didn't say that the "company of one" is all that you are. It is a useful concept for the part of a person's life that entails their career, and it's also critical to recognize that a career is only one of a number of the important facets of a life. So I agree with you that it's a very partial treatment, but I didn't read it as attempting to be totalizing.
lr4444lr 5y ago
It's harsh, but the conclusion of what he's saying is also very liberating, namely, that in your interactions with your employer, there is no "social animal" on the other side of the table caring about your needs, so learn its language to protect yourself and take responsibility over preserving your own humanity.
KolenCh 5y ago
This comment is a very emotional, irrational response to a very logical analysis. What a contrast. The kind of response is also very childish (, not in the sense I am insulting you as childish, but actually just some kind of reaction that would comes from a child. Eg emotion and incoherent thoughts.) Eg The “decades of brainwashing” comes out of nowhere and essentially projecting a political view to a logical argument. If you think the argument is wrong, argue with facts not branding it as something and attract that thing in general. “We are NOT companies”. Again sounds like an argument made by a poor politician (I mean good politician wouldn’t fall into this kind of fallacy.) Clearly it was an analogy to illustrate a fact. I mean what’s this argument arguing against? What’s “are” means in this context? In Chinese there’s an idiom 白馬非馬 comes from a similar fallacy: is black horse a horse? Is white horse a black horse? Therefore white horse is not a horse. “We don’t live in an economy”: what? What kind of brainwashing would results in that conclusion? “We are … social animals” and then quote “scientifically proven”. What’s the point? “We are just a bunch of carbon and stuffs worth collectively not more than a few bucks.” This is scientifically proven too. We should all quote random facts to argues against some view we don’t like. This is so sad, really. I hope any people would exercise more logic and stops politicize things and argue based on hatred, not on HN at least.
leonroy 5y ago
> This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. I think you're taking the OP's comments out of context. They did not say that we are not social animals, etc. they made an allegorical comparison likening a person and their value in the marketplace to a company. That does not mean a person does not have value as a human being, as a member of the community, as a friend, partner, parent etc. I think the comparison is apt when weighing up our careers - which is what the actual article is about - that is of course my own humble opinion, but you're implying meaning which I don't see in the OP's comment.
FredPret 5y ago
It’s actually harsher than that. A company that fails typically doesn’t kill the owners. But as the CEO of you, you can easily get yourself killed in a couple of minutes of bad calls. The laws of physics are the only laws.

by Toine 5y ago

danielvaughn 5y ago

I think you're severely misreading the original comment, and to be frank, your interpretation is pretty juvenile. Nowhere does the person say that we are robots.

ravenstine 5y ago
Yeah, I took it as rather the opposite of saying that we are robots. Ultimately, being responsible for one's self is a choice, which is something robots can't do.
- danielvaughn 5y ago
  Right. I didn't even take it as disagreeing with the piece - there's enough nuance there to see harmony between the post and the comment.
beaconstudios 5y ago
the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market calculations, not human actualisation and need-fulfilment. It's an ideological position, and a harmful one at that. We aren't all totally independent actors competing in a ruthless market to maximise profits.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  OP did not say that you have to optimize for profit. However, they said that we have to optimize for something. In other words, there's opportunity cost to everything we do.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    > You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. > It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal hazard, reputational hazard, etc. This is an argument that you have the responsibility alone to optimise your behaviour in the market. Yes, your utility function could be oriented towards something other than profit, but OP specifically oriented their argument towards getting "good returns". While this is the direction that neoliberal capitalism pushes you in, what with the social alienation and commodification of everything in life, but that's because it's not aligned with human wellbeing. Your self-image should not be one of a company optimising its market behaviour; this precludes socialising, spending time in nature, exercising for reasons beyond increased economic productivity. It reduces human existence down to rational behaviour in a market. To present an alternative, because criticism in a vacuum isn't very effective: I personally think that you should optimise your involvement in the economy, so that you are minimally involved in the economy, so that you can spend your precious little time on earth doing things that actually matter to you - whether that's social relationships, hobbies, communities, whatever. The market is something to be avoided, not exploited. To do this effectively you have to understand the market, sure, but it's the same way an accountant for an enterprise company has to deeply understand tax law in order to avoid paying taxes. If that's also what OP was arguing for then that's a whole other thing, but that's not the impression I got at all with the whole "you are a company, start acting like one" spiel.
    - KptMarchewa 5y ago
      "Good returns" are what you'll make of your time that's worthwhile to you. The interpretation that this means only money is entirely your interpretation.

draw_down 5y ago

lotsofpulp 5y ago

Different perspectives for looking at the same thing provide different benefits, and they can be held simultaneously. For example, getting married to someone involves love and commitment and all that jazz, but I also like to advise also looking at it as a business, especially if you have or are going to have children. It is no different in that the two parents (and maybe even other adults in a multi family household) need to manage tasks, inventory, money, etc. That does not mean you should treat your family or yourself exactly as a business, but there are some aspects that are beneficial if managed in that manner.

ftlio 5y ago
Yes, the idea that you can't hold "the neoliberal view" of your household, and "the communist view" and the "romantic view", and the "spiritual view" all together for all their benefits and tradeoffs seems worse to me than even subscribing to one holistically without this imperative. I've had this called out as absolutely faux pas if not totally asinine by people who are deep into philosophy, but I'm doing great, a lot better than some of them born with silver spoons.
- bckr 5y ago
  > faux pas if not totally asinine These people are embarrassed that you can think for yourself. Life has such a high fractal dimension. It's highly unlikely that a single theory, expressed in a serial language, can be a very good description of life, at all. But it feels good to believe one thing strongly. It feels so, so good. And it feels good to hate people who believe the other thing, and to think they're wrong. But the right way really is to believe in all the things at once. It's weird, schizoid, scary, and completely logical. I'd like to put something together to help people understand this. I think the quickest way to get there is: * math doesn't work the way you think: see Wittgenstein * space and time don't work the way you think: see Einstein * matter doesn't work the way you think: see the double slit experiment * rationality doesn't work the way you think: see tons of psychology Given the above, do you think anything could possibly work the way you think it works? The best way forward is to just be incredibly weird. (And yet, somehow, be incredibly normal at the same time).

caffeine 5y ago

> We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. Totally agree. > We are NOT companies Actually, we are humans. However, when it comes to our economic activity, we are also a company. Both things can be true at once. > this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. Woah. Anything you specifically disagree with? I put it in economic terms to address the article, but if you replace “company of one” with “life” and “returns” with “outcomes”, the message is largely the same.. Edit: I think you disagreed so hard because you think I’m saying “you’re only an adult if you think everything is about money and personal gain.” But what I was trying to say was “you’re an adult once you realise you’re it; you can fail; and it’s nobody else’s job to make sure you don’t” - which I didn’t think was such a controversial point..

dxdm 5y ago
What you wrote sounds extremely biased towards turning life into economical transactions on the labor market, while I think there's already too much of this mindset, and people need to be reminded that there is much more to life than economic theory.
0xdeadbeefbabe 5y ago
Despite enjoying Smurfs, a show about hardcore social animals, as a kid, I still hope young people believe they can fail.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Being a parent, you get a sense for what young people believe, and why. It comes from you, but also from friends at school, and of course media - books, tv, movies, games. IMHO the 'ability to fail' message is quite poor, overall, from media. Mr. Rogers being the (usual) exception. That said, failure occurs often in real life, desired goals always exceed capability, hopefully you can give them iterated games they can experience failure, adaptation, and success at their own pace. Often they will invent their own games, which we too often call "misbehavior". But yes, entertainment obsession in kids (on-demand media plus working single parent works out quite badly for the kids), media emphasis on those who are unaccountably good at a thing, means media portrays failing far less often than is realistic, and when it does it's a Rocky style training montage. Plus no-one really wants to write the manual for kids on how to give up on your dreams.

BobbyJo 5y ago

> We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. We are companies. You can be a company of one and not a robot. Being a company of one doesn't imply giving up free will or somehow not being meat and bone. That's nothing to do with the statement he's making. I hope every young person reads it and take it seriously, because it's reality. No one can manage your time, your money, your mental health, like you. No one will.

knubie 5y ago

> We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. It’s just an analogy. A different way of looking at the decisions you make throughout your life.

chc 5y ago
And so is "We are not companies," but you apparently felt the need to argue with that.

jka 5y ago

> This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies That's true, although, in a way, I think it's reasonable for the parent commentor to want to identify as a corporation if that's what they feel like. Are there preferred pronouns for corporate identities? Perhaps people would display a personal stock ticker symbol instead?

caffeine 5y ago
Hah! I hadn’t intended that at all but this is hilarious. I wonder if the IRS would play along: “I identify as a corporation so you may only tax me on my profits not my income”
- jka 5y ago
  Well, without agreeing or disagreeing yet: if corporate personhood is considered valid, then perhaps personal corporatehood should be as well. (in practice: there are probably a lot of reasons why it's a terrible idea)

sanderjd 5y ago

The parent comment didn't say that the "company of one" is all that you are. It is a useful concept for the part of a person's life that entails their career, and it's also critical to recognize that a career is only one of a number of the important facets of a life. So I agree with you that it's a very partial treatment, but I didn't read it as attempting to be totalizing.

lr4444lr 5y ago

It's harsh, but the conclusion of what he's saying is also very liberating, namely, that in your interactions with your employer, there is no "social animal" on the other side of the table caring about your needs, so learn its language to protect yourself and take responsibility over preserving your own humanity.

KolenCh 5y ago

This comment is a very emotional, irrational response to a very logical analysis. What a contrast. The kind of response is also very childish (, not in the sense I am insulting you as childish, but actually just some kind of reaction that would comes from a child. Eg emotion and incoherent thoughts.) Eg The “decades of brainwashing” comes out of nowhere and essentially projecting a political view to a logical argument. If you think the argument is wrong, argue with facts not branding it as something and attract that thing in general. “We are NOT companies”. Again sounds like an argument made by a poor politician (I mean good politician wouldn’t fall into this kind of fallacy.) Clearly it was an analogy to illustrate a fact. I mean what’s this argument arguing against? What’s “are” means in this context? In Chinese there’s an idiom 白馬非馬 comes from a similar fallacy: is black horse a horse? Is white horse a black horse? Therefore white horse is not a horse. “We don’t live in an economy”: what? What kind of brainwashing would results in that conclusion? “We are … social animals” and then quote “scientifically proven”. What’s the point? “We are just a bunch of carbon and stuffs worth collectively not more than a few bucks.” This is scientifically proven too. We should all quote random facts to argues against some view we don’t like. This is so sad, really. I hope any people would exercise more logic and stops politicize things and argue based on hatred, not on HN at least.

leonroy 5y ago

> This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. I think you're taking the OP's comments out of context. They did not say that we are not social animals, etc. they made an allegorical comparison likening a person and their value in the marketplace to a company. That does not mean a person does not have value as a human being, as a member of the community, as a friend, partner, parent etc. I think the comparison is apt when weighing up our careers - which is what the actual article is about - that is of course my own humble opinion, but you're implying meaning which I don't see in the OP's comment.

FredPret 5y ago

It’s actually harsher than that. A company that fails typically doesn’t kill the owners. But as the CEO of you, you can easily get yourself killed in a couple of minutes of bad calls. The laws of physics are the only laws.