6 ms·

I think we focus a lot on procrastination and less on a severe and widely experienced social illness, of being controlled by others. How often are we ordered to

I think we focus a lot on procrastination and less on a severe and widely experienced social illness, of being controlled by others. How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey, how easy is it for any of us to choose to relocate to another community, how much of the value you can generate is taken from you. Living this way strips our agency and limits/devalues our individual capability for vision. Adapting to this and considering it normal is bound to lead to other issues that we end up blaming ourselves for, because it is possible to cope and do better within the framework so it feels that any lack of progress there is an individualized failure

muzani 4y ago
That is how society works. I do not rear chickens. I do not behead the chicken. Sometimes I buy the chicken, forget to eat it, and worms get to it. I look in disgust at my worm-filled trash, but it's some other guy that carries the trash and the worms to an incinerator. The trash guy goes home, turns on the tv, lies in bed complaining about how there's too many choices on his streaming service but nothing to watch. But somewhere out there's a guy like me who makes sure that the trash guy gets too many choices instead of going out at night to buy pirated DVDs. That's how we change the world. On Wednesday, we will start event storming sessions on a million dollar project to get the Japanese subs and dubs to say the same thing. Trash guy wishes he was valued higher for his labor. I wish I could watch trashy shows on weekends instead of looking at procrastination flowcharts. Somewhere out there there's a CEO making a 8 digit salary from controlling people, but he wakes up at 4 AM and considers it a good day if he logs off work at 7 PM.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  oh my bad, I forgot that’s how it works
  - csouza-f 4y ago
    Why be sarcastic like this? This don't add nothing to the conversation here.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      sorry, I can be as dismissive of reactionary nonsense while being more helpful - here’s a compelling realm of research that they’re evidently missing out on and not speaking to and choosing to treat something demonstrably avoidable as utterly inevitable/exclusively practical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
- pydry 4y ago
  There are probably "CEOs" of three person startups who work those hours, but a fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to. There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy aside from guilt perhaps.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    >fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to. I think the parent post was more a statement about the human condition than economic equality. There are a lot of successful workaholics that are unhappy. On paper they have the economic ability to change their situation, but reality has more barriers. Humans of all types are capable of depression, confusion, delusion, and disappointment.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    > There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy Really? What about sacrificing family time? For example: Elon Musk has 8 children. How much time do you think he spends with them, if any? Maybe being a father is simply not a priority to him, and that’s his choice. But it’s not his childrens choice, I can guarantee that, and those children will suffer for it.
    - BuckRogers 4y ago
      That’s interesting but I would say that being at the top of the capital hierarchy has no connection with loss of personal time. There’s plenty of people at the top of the capital hierarchy that don’t do anything at all. Or very little. I doubt Paris Hilton is up at 6 AM. Unless it’s to get hammered by some dude that she met at the bar. I think linking capital to work as a correlation is pretty dangerous. That conversation will only lead to people realizing that they’re not paid according to the value they produce. They’ll learn that they’re paid according to their ability to demand it. Soon after that, you have unrest. You have workers demanding unionization. Which is the correct answer.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
- uptime 4y ago
  I read this and say that it sounds fair, but I remind myself that it all hinges on compensation and freedom. I am not comfortable with the notion that they are all equally trapped in their burdens. CEO and The World Changing Content Delivery Guy can always apply to be the sanitation worker, every day until they land that job, in order to rid themselves of the nagging feeling that they could be consuming more content. Trash Guy might be able to pursue his dream, hanging off the outside of a truck at 4am, of becoming a World Changing Content Access Guy but only if he has the funds and time to do so. I fall into this trap myself, wondering if I should have just delivered packages for a living, but I forget that lower wages never decrease stress, and very rarely buys freedom.
  - BuckRogers 4y ago
    Good points except I’m not sure about lower wages not decreasing stress. Not in and of themselves. But typically I’ve been happier and lower paid jobs. I’m a highly responsible person, so project work stresses me more than it probably should. I preferred to do a job and just come home like most human beings do. Unless I am the boss collecting all the money, I don’t really see the advantage to project work with long projected schedules and all of the stress that comes with that if you’re a relatively low paid software developer. The best situation is to get a government job that’s well paid, what usually with a pension, good benefits and healthcare. Even if that is picking up trash. It’s pretty tough to beat. It may not be completely fulfilling but the grass is always greener on the other side and being under stress is healthier than being overstressed.
- throw827474737 4y ago
  There is so much ill and wrong in this.. true this is how it is in a lot of places, but accepting and sating > That is how society works is just resignation and ignorance (and sad to read) that it could, can and actually is different somewhere else ;p
  - vanjajaja1 4y ago
    like an inverse? where the trash guy controls people and has an 8 figure salary, but the ceo working 4am to 7pm gets paid peanuts?
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      yes in ways, there’s been findings on (post agriculture, much larger than dunbar number) societies in which such hierarchical roles were purely seasonal with roles useful practically or ritualistically becoming devalued off season and tyranny-level powers flipped somewhat in favor of the other side, or even ones which have police forces that are simultaneously clowns and thus kept from overstepping their status with their power (I can elaborate more on details on this one if I look up the citations again from Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything)
- mancerayder 4y ago
  The CEO only needs to do this for a year or two to have enough resources to become financially independent, that's the difference with the other characters in this story. Everyone else is working as part of lifestyle. And that's what's troubling so many people, the lifestyle around obligation blows.
- weakfish 4y ago
  Can we not try and better society? It hasn’t always been this way.
  - muzani 4y ago
    That's why UBI was proposed. Otherwise there's blocks of tribalism. Some workplaces are tribalistic - they actually do care for you like family once you get past the initiation rites. Most of it is replaced with faux tribalism though, to squeeze more out of some other party.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      the refreshing and recent research from graeber/wengrow showed in detail how we don’t need to collapse back down to small tribal groups to support a healthy society (healthier in terms of freedoms I mentioned) at scale. their work should expand our imagination for future society by looking at what we were able to already demonstrate under similar in useful ways conditions in our past (post agriculture, in large society above dunbar number bs)
zamfi 4y ago
This is a very western perspective on the role of the individual. Not to say that it is wrong or others are better or anything, but there are other ways to interpret the interrelatedness of actions by individuals within a collective, that maybe don’t result in a feeling of “being controlled by others” in healthy circumstances (of course, there are cases of toxic environments, workplaces, communities, etc., and this isn’t meant to minimize any of that). One way to perceive the impact of community desires and needs on the individual is “control” but alternate framings include support, belonging, mutual aid, etc. — again not saying any is “better”, but I do think the singular conceptualization of the individual as being solely responsible for his/her own decisions and ultimately outcomes might cause a lot of the friction as reality doesn’t quite support that notion. Dan pink’s “autonomy, mastery, purpose” trifecta is enlightening here, as it illustrates how “autonomy” doesn’t mean “free from control” but is ultimately about the respect an individual feels, regarding their decisions, from others. Just some food for thought.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  the thing is we've had societies, at large scale (beyond dunbar number nonsense), post discovery of agriculture, where those freedoms I listed were much greater than today. current conditions aren't inevitable or the only realistic option. these usually involved cooperative society (a focus on collective, without severely limiting these freedoms in the name of so-called necessary bureaucracy and hierarchy), I'm not talking about a libertarian utopia. I'm talking mostly about modern research on indigenous societies (before europeans arrived or other cases)
  - alexalx666 4y ago
    "without severely limiting these freedoms" - I think that they will be devalued automatically by collective, which will lead to the stagnation and demise of that society.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      well, I submitted a new article on the research that elaborates if you're interested to learn https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127961
YZF 4y ago
This hits close to home. I've moved to a different country. I've left various communities. Switched jobs. All partly because I wanted to feel like I have more agency. We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around. I would almost call this the militarization of our societies. Starts at school perhaps? Going to school is usually not optional. You have to do your homework. You have to be at class at a certain time. So in many communities and organizations the way to get agency is to be the person that tells others what to do. Not all, but most. Servant leadership exists here and there but is rare. All that said I guess it's not clear what society looks like if everyone is "truely" free. Perhaps like some tribes in the Amazon. And does that mean the nearby group that compels people into the military just enslaves all of you.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around “Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused.”
  - dboreham 4y ago
    True Scotswoman.
- k1m 4y ago
  I enjoyed Jeff Schmidt's book on this topic. Disciplined Minds: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplined_Minds https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplined_Minds
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    thanks for sharing. looks like a good companion to graeber’s bullshit jobs
musha68k 4y ago
> How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey Psychologist Christopher Ryan touches on this topic through his research and books on pre / post agriculture. Basically it boils down to loss of freedom through territorialism and resulting patriarchy of modern civilizations. I can recommend both "Sex at Dawn"[1] and "Civilized to Death"[2]. Cheer up, at least we've got donuts and dentists today. [1] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn [2] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Hmm, I recommend you acquaint yourself with more modern readings and findings of anthro/archaeological evidence on this topic that has some radically different fundamentals than what you’ve shared - I shared an article that elaborates here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
Personally, much of my procrastination is on stuff that I’ve decided that I want to do and nobody else cares if I do it. A lot of the time there’s some outcome that I want, but one or more of the steps to get there that is scary or involves some kind of toil that I don’t want to experience. There’s a conflict between my long-term desires and my short-term comfort. The dissonance when short-term comfort wins is the uncomfortable procrastination feeling.
- hirvi74 4y ago
  I forgot where I read this, but I read somewhere that procrastination is sometimes a semi-subconscious protection method in order to protect one's self from exerting effort for a task in which one's effort will not be adequately rewarded. In other words, one might be procrastinating because the juice ain't worth the squeeze. I believe there might be something to this too -- maybe what we are struggling to do might not be worth doing in the first place? Obviously, I would not attribute this to all or a majority of instances of procrastination, in my experience. But sometimes? Absolutely. Perhaps in times of resource scarcity, this could be beneficial to certain creatures? I have no idea, but that is my wanna-be hypothesis.

muzani 4y ago

That is how society works. I do not rear chickens. I do not behead the chicken. Sometimes I buy the chicken, forget to eat it, and worms get to it. I look in disgust at my worm-filled trash, but it's some other guy that carries the trash and the worms to an incinerator. The trash guy goes home, turns on the tv, lies in bed complaining about how there's too many choices on his streaming service but nothing to watch. But somewhere out there's a guy like me who makes sure that the trash guy gets too many choices instead of going out at night to buy pirated DVDs. That's how we change the world. On Wednesday, we will start event storming sessions on a million dollar project to get the Japanese subs and dubs to say the same thing. Trash guy wishes he was valued higher for his labor. I wish I could watch trashy shows on weekends instead of looking at procrastination flowcharts. Somewhere out there there's a CEO making a 8 digit salary from controlling people, but he wakes up at 4 AM and considers it a good day if he logs off work at 7 PM.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
oh my bad, I forgot that’s how it works
- csouza-f 4y ago
  Why be sarcastic like this? This don't add nothing to the conversation here.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    sorry, I can be as dismissive of reactionary nonsense while being more helpful - here’s a compelling realm of research that they’re evidently missing out on and not speaking to and choosing to treat something demonstrably avoidable as utterly inevitable/exclusively practical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771
pydry 4y ago
There are probably "CEOs" of three person startups who work those hours, but a fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to. There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy aside from guilt perhaps.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  >fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to. I think the parent post was more a statement about the human condition than economic equality. There are a lot of successful workaholics that are unhappy. On paper they have the economic ability to change their situation, but reality has more barriers. Humans of all types are capable of depression, confusion, delusion, and disappointment.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy Really? What about sacrificing family time? For example: Elon Musk has 8 children. How much time do you think he spends with them, if any? Maybe being a father is simply not a priority to him, and that’s his choice. But it’s not his childrens choice, I can guarantee that, and those children will suffer for it.
  - BuckRogers 4y ago
    That’s interesting but I would say that being at the top of the capital hierarchy has no connection with loss of personal time. There’s plenty of people at the top of the capital hierarchy that don’t do anything at all. Or very little. I doubt Paris Hilton is up at 6 AM. Unless it’s to get hammered by some dude that she met at the bar. I think linking capital to work as a correlation is pretty dangerous. That conversation will only lead to people realizing that they’re not paid according to the value they produce. They’ll learn that they’re paid according to their ability to demand it. Soon after that, you have unrest. You have workers demanding unionization. Which is the correct answer.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
uptime 4y ago
I read this and say that it sounds fair, but I remind myself that it all hinges on compensation and freedom. I am not comfortable with the notion that they are all equally trapped in their burdens. CEO and The World Changing Content Delivery Guy can always apply to be the sanitation worker, every day until they land that job, in order to rid themselves of the nagging feeling that they could be consuming more content. Trash Guy might be able to pursue his dream, hanging off the outside of a truck at 4am, of becoming a World Changing Content Access Guy but only if he has the funds and time to do so. I fall into this trap myself, wondering if I should have just delivered packages for a living, but I forget that lower wages never decrease stress, and very rarely buys freedom.
- BuckRogers 4y ago
  Good points except I’m not sure about lower wages not decreasing stress. Not in and of themselves. But typically I’ve been happier and lower paid jobs. I’m a highly responsible person, so project work stresses me more than it probably should. I preferred to do a job and just come home like most human beings do. Unless I am the boss collecting all the money, I don’t really see the advantage to project work with long projected schedules and all of the stress that comes with that if you’re a relatively low paid software developer. The best situation is to get a government job that’s well paid, what usually with a pension, good benefits and healthcare. Even if that is picking up trash. It’s pretty tough to beat. It may not be completely fulfilling but the grass is always greener on the other side and being under stress is healthier than being overstressed.
throw827474737 4y ago
There is so much ill and wrong in this.. true this is how it is in a lot of places, but accepting and sating > That is how society works is just resignation and ignorance (and sad to read) that it could, can and actually is different somewhere else ;p
- vanjajaja1 4y ago
  like an inverse? where the trash guy controls people and has an 8 figure salary, but the ceo working 4am to 7pm gets paid peanuts?
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    yes in ways, there’s been findings on (post agriculture, much larger than dunbar number) societies in which such hierarchical roles were purely seasonal with roles useful practically or ritualistically becoming devalued off season and tyranny-level powers flipped somewhat in favor of the other side, or even ones which have police forces that are simultaneously clowns and thus kept from overstepping their status with their power (I can elaborate more on details on this one if I look up the citations again from Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything)
mancerayder 4y ago
The CEO only needs to do this for a year or two to have enough resources to become financially independent, that's the difference with the other characters in this story. Everyone else is working as part of lifestyle. And that's what's troubling so many people, the lifestyle around obligation blows.
weakfish 4y ago
Can we not try and better society? It hasn’t always been this way.
- muzani 4y ago
  That's why UBI was proposed. Otherwise there's blocks of tribalism. Some workplaces are tribalistic - they actually do care for you like family once you get past the initiation rites. Most of it is replaced with faux tribalism though, to squeeze more out of some other party.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    the refreshing and recent research from graeber/wengrow showed in detail how we don’t need to collapse back down to small tribal groups to support a healthy society (healthier in terms of freedoms I mentioned) at scale. their work should expand our imagination for future society by looking at what we were able to already demonstrate under similar in useful ways conditions in our past (post agriculture, in large society above dunbar number bs)

zamfi 4y ago

This is a very western perspective on the role of the individual. Not to say that it is wrong or others are better or anything, but there are other ways to interpret the interrelatedness of actions by individuals within a collective, that maybe don’t result in a feeling of “being controlled by others” in healthy circumstances (of course, there are cases of toxic environments, workplaces, communities, etc., and this isn’t meant to minimize any of that). One way to perceive the impact of community desires and needs on the individual is “control” but alternate framings include support, belonging, mutual aid, etc. — again not saying any is “better”, but I do think the singular conceptualization of the individual as being solely responsible for his/her own decisions and ultimately outcomes might cause a lot of the friction as reality doesn’t quite support that notion. Dan pink’s “autonomy, mastery, purpose” trifecta is enlightening here, as it illustrates how “autonomy” doesn’t mean “free from control” but is ultimately about the respect an individual feels, regarding their decisions, from others. Just some food for thought.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
the thing is we've had societies, at large scale (beyond dunbar number nonsense), post discovery of agriculture, where those freedoms I listed were much greater than today. current conditions aren't inevitable or the only realistic option. these usually involved cooperative society (a focus on collective, without severely limiting these freedoms in the name of so-called necessary bureaucracy and hierarchy), I'm not talking about a libertarian utopia. I'm talking mostly about modern research on indigenous societies (before europeans arrived or other cases)
- alexalx666 4y ago
  "without severely limiting these freedoms" - I think that they will be devalued automatically by collective, which will lead to the stagnation and demise of that society.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    well, I submitted a new article on the research that elaborates if you're interested to learn https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127961

YZF 4y ago

This hits close to home. I've moved to a different country. I've left various communities. Switched jobs. All partly because I wanted to feel like I have more agency. We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around. I would almost call this the militarization of our societies. Starts at school perhaps? Going to school is usually not optional. You have to do your homework. You have to be at class at a certain time. So in many communities and organizations the way to get agency is to be the person that tells others what to do. Not all, but most. Servant leadership exists here and there but is rare. All that said I guess it's not clear what society looks like if everyone is "truely" free. Perhaps like some tribes in the Amazon. And does that mean the nearby group that compels people into the military just enslaves all of you.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> We seem to have a lot of people that like ordering other people around and we seem to have a lot of people that like/want to be ordered around “Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused.”
- dboreham 4y ago
  True Scotswoman.
k1m 4y ago
I enjoyed Jeff Schmidt's book on this topic. Disciplined Minds: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplined_Minds https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/558867.Disciplined_Minds
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  thanks for sharing. looks like a good companion to graeber’s bullshit jobs

musha68k 4y ago

> How often are we ordered to do something by another person in our communities that we can't readily disobey Psychologist Christopher Ryan touches on this topic through his research and books on pre / post agriculture. Basically it boils down to loss of freedom through territorialism and resulting patriarchy of modern civilizations. I can recommend both "Sex at Dawn"[1] and "Civilized to Death"[2]. Cheer up, at least we've got donuts and dentists today. [1] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24521078M/Sex_at_dawn [2] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27911904M/Civilized_to_Death

wahnfrieden 4y ago
Hmm, I recommend you acquaint yourself with more modern readings and findings of anthro/archaeological evidence on this topic that has some radically different fundamentals than what you’ve shared - I shared an article that elaborates here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32126771

fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago

Personally, much of my procrastination is on stuff that I’ve decided that I want to do and nobody else cares if I do it. A lot of the time there’s some outcome that I want, but one or more of the steps to get there that is scary or involves some kind of toil that I don’t want to experience. There’s a conflict between my long-term desires and my short-term comfort. The dissonance when short-term comfort wins is the uncomfortable procrastination feeling.

hirvi74 4y ago
I forgot where I read this, but I read somewhere that procrastination is sometimes a semi-subconscious protection method in order to protect one's self from exerting effort for a task in which one's effort will not be adequately rewarded. In other words, one might be procrastinating because the juice ain't worth the squeeze. I believe there might be something to this too -- maybe what we are struggling to do might not be worth doing in the first place? Obviously, I would not attribute this to all or a majority of instances of procrastination, in my experience. But sometimes? Absolutely. Perhaps in times of resource scarcity, this could be beneficial to certain creatures? I have no idea, but that is my wanna-be hypothesis.