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> We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven. Totally agree. > We are NOT companies Actually, we ar

> 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.
kqr 5y ago
What set me off (not the one you're responding to) about your comment was the bit about not having a right to a good outcome. Depending on what one means by "good", that one doesn't have a right to it is a fairly strong statement of political opinion, but it was presented as a universal truth. I also think it's very important that people are allowed to enter risky ventures and "fail" while still being secure of a somewhat good outcome. Anything else puts a lid on innovation. (As they say, if you don't fail a lot, you aren't running bold enough experiments.) ---- You may have meant it descriptively ("I have observed that most societies don't allow for individual failure") and not prescriptively ("societies shouldn't allow for individual failure") but the rest of your comment was written in a prescriptive tone so it was hard to pick up on. Either way, congrats on writing a popular and controversial comment!
- andrewjl 5y ago
  This is a common pattern in social science discourse. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem
- vasco 5y ago
  How is it political opinion to realize a fact of the universe, which is that living beings need to take care of themselves and make good decisions for themselves or else "they fail". Barring the simplification, what you're responding to sounded like just a descriptive statement rather than a political stand.
  - pavlov 5y ago
    But it is not an axiom of the human condition that everyone must take care of themselves or fail. Taken literally that means no infant could survive, and then we'd have no adults either. From that point of view it's probably more defining of humanity as a species that we take care of others, not that we survive personally at all costs. There are thousands or millions of species on this planet that only do the latter, and they don't write books and invent recipes and create startups.
- RosanaAnaDana 5y ago
andrewjl 5y ago
> “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” There's an embedded ambiguity in your sentence in that there are two kinds of failure. One is a failure of endeavor where one don't get what one necessarily wants but who has the basics. Two is a catastrophic type failure with some combination of deprivation, insecurity, and health problems as a result. Most people would agree with your statement when it comes to one. When it comes to two I don't think such a consensus exists. My interpretation of the disagreement you are replying to is that possibly differing definitions of failure are being used.
- caffeine 5y ago
  > There's an embedded ambiguity in your sentence in that there are two kinds of failure. Fair enough. In 2008 somebody asked me if I wanted to try cocaine. I didn’t. He eventually moved on to heroine and his life is now utterly “failed.” in the worst sense. My life is good. In 2013 somebody told me I need to buy as much bitcoin as I can. I didn’t. That guy is now a billionaire and I’m still an average dude. Personally I see those two situations as basically the same: decision -> outcome. There is a continuum of outcomes and the “fail” end could be really catastrophic, for you, your finances, your life, loved ones, possibly even the whole planet in the extreme.
jbverschoor 5y ago
It’s the other way around.. a company act as a legal person. Companies are people. (natural person vs legal person in Dutch)
- blaser-waffle 5y ago
  Maybe "people" in a "legal entity" sense, but companies are definitely not people, and shouldn't ever be.

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.

kqr 5y ago

What set me off (not the one you're responding to) about your comment was the bit about not having a right to a good outcome. Depending on what one means by "good", that one doesn't have a right to it is a fairly strong statement of political opinion, but it was presented as a universal truth. I also think it's very important that people are allowed to enter risky ventures and "fail" while still being secure of a somewhat good outcome. Anything else puts a lid on innovation. (As they say, if you don't fail a lot, you aren't running bold enough experiments.) ---- You may have meant it descriptively ("I have observed that most societies don't allow for individual failure") and not prescriptively ("societies shouldn't allow for individual failure") but the rest of your comment was written in a prescriptive tone so it was hard to pick up on. Either way, congrats on writing a popular and controversial comment!

andrewjl 5y ago
This is a common pattern in social science discourse. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem
vasco 5y ago
How is it political opinion to realize a fact of the universe, which is that living beings need to take care of themselves and make good decisions for themselves or else "they fail". Barring the simplification, what you're responding to sounded like just a descriptive statement rather than a political stand.
- pavlov 5y ago
  But it is not an axiom of the human condition that everyone must take care of themselves or fail. Taken literally that means no infant could survive, and then we'd have no adults either. From that point of view it's probably more defining of humanity as a species that we take care of others, not that we survive personally at all costs. There are thousands or millions of species on this planet that only do the latter, and they don't write books and invent recipes and create startups.
RosanaAnaDana 5y ago

andrewjl 5y ago

> “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” There's an embedded ambiguity in your sentence in that there are two kinds of failure. One is a failure of endeavor where one don't get what one necessarily wants but who has the basics. Two is a catastrophic type failure with some combination of deprivation, insecurity, and health problems as a result. Most people would agree with your statement when it comes to one. When it comes to two I don't think such a consensus exists. My interpretation of the disagreement you are replying to is that possibly differing definitions of failure are being used.

caffeine 5y ago
> There's an embedded ambiguity in your sentence in that there are two kinds of failure. Fair enough. In 2008 somebody asked me if I wanted to try cocaine. I didn’t. He eventually moved on to heroine and his life is now utterly “failed.” in the worst sense. My life is good. In 2013 somebody told me I need to buy as much bitcoin as I can. I didn’t. That guy is now a billionaire and I’m still an average dude. Personally I see those two situations as basically the same: decision -> outcome. There is a continuum of outcomes and the “fail” end could be really catastrophic, for you, your finances, your life, loved ones, possibly even the whole planet in the extreme.

jbverschoor 5y ago

It’s the other way around.. a company act as a legal person. Companies are people. (natural person vs legal person in Dutch)

blaser-waffle 5y ago
Maybe "people" in a "legal entity" sense, but companies are definitely not people, and shouldn't ever be.