4 ms·

https://archive.vn/BvAtC https://archive.vn/BvAtC Life just got so complicated. I tried to fight back, to have less stuff to think about, but it's an endless o

by nicbou 3y ago

https://archive.vn/BvAtC https://archive.vn/BvAtC Life just got so complicated. I tried to fight back, to have less stuff to think about, but it's an endless onslaught of abstract microtasks. No wonder that white collars dream of a homestead These systems try to force humans to disregard their unpredictable lives, and produce with the predictability of machines. It's not right. I'm at my happiest when I wake up without an alarm, and work on what feels right until I feel done for the day. I let the most important stuff float to the top, instead of shaming myself into satisfying my past ambitions. Aside: This title pattern rubs me the wrong way. The rise of this, the death of that. Half the time, it's either something happening in California, or in a very small twitter circle. The other half, it has not risen, or not fallen. Its a the "it was a dark and stormy night" of headlines.

samsquire 3y ago
I don't understand why there is a glorification of death or celebration of death. I prefer to focus on the good and the light and birth and growth, not glee in dark expressions. If you can make an economy where everyone has freedom to do what they want when they want, maybe the best and brightest could work on how to achieve this and utopia (I'm serious)
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  >If you can make an economy where everyone has freedom to do what they want when they want, maybe the best and brightest could work on how to achieve this and utopia (I'm serious) Who is going to scrub the toilets and change adult diapers in the meantime?
  - sublinear 3y ago
    The best and brightest don't scrub toilets or change diapers for a living.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      I am questioning the possibility of the premise, which was that everyone can do whatever they want to do.
      - jonsen 3y ago
        Education, in the broadest sense, is what makes people think they want what they want.
        sublinear 3y ago
        The public has been swindled out of a decent education in exchange for some magic beans swimming in aspersive gravy.
    - candiddevmike 3y ago
      Capability and things like motivation or access/privilege are often not correlated
      - sublinear 3y ago
        I know what I'm about to say is against the grain, but access/privilege can be obtained by the best and brightest regardless of the circumstances. That's really the only sure way to find them. The common person doesn't see all the opportunities and stays right where they came from and that's not really who we should be elevating in my opinion. Of course someone born with privilege would naively feel guilty that others weren't born with it, but that completely misunderstands what privilege is. If someone born into privilege feels guilty, it's probably because they don't deserve it, and I'm speaking as someone who wasn't born with much. I think I'm just barely above average enough to get away from the crap I came from. There I said it.
        kjs3 3y ago
        I know what I'm about to say will surprise you, but believing "if your life sucks it's because you're inferior to me and you deserve it" isn't insightful or true.
  - ansc 3y ago
    I clean my own toilet now, I’ll clean my own toilet then.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Do you ever use a toilet that you do not own? Do you plan on always being physically capable of cleaning your own toilet? Point being, lots of life is messy and rote, and presuming a fantasy world where the messy and rote parts do not exist or are taken care of by robots is a waste of time (in the near future).
  - jcynix 3y ago
    > Who is going to scrub the toilets and change adult diapers in the meantime? Read B. F. Skinner's "Walden Two" for some ideas how to handle this. For example, a society could dynamically / periodically adjust revenues for jobs less preferred and lower revenues for jobs most liked. That is, if you get enough "perks" for one day oft scrubbing toilets and then four days off, someone might prefer this over five days of toiling in a bank? ;-0
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Sounds like paying money in exchange for products/services in an economy with universal basic incomes with exponential taxation of wealth to prevent income/wealth gap from becoming so wide such that no one can permanently launch themselves or their kind from ever doing that kind of work.
    - prometheus76 3y ago
      Isn't that what we already have? Wages are just another form of price. An auction between a buyer and a seller...
    - ekanes 3y ago
      I think we saw a version of this unfold during COVID, when many people didn't want to do some forms of labor any more. The (somewhat) successful resonse was to raise wages.
- q845712 3y ago
  Just sharing my own experience, but the more time I've spent contemplating death the easier time I've had with it: Every beginning implies an end. Every birth and growth implies a decline and death. All coming-together results in eventual separation. Etc. IMO there's nothing wrong with finding the beginnings more fun and enjoying the fun parts, but part of what prevents us from moving towards utopia is a blindness to the whole cycle, an unwillingness to engage in the difficulties of endings and change. This isn't to say we need to celebrate "the end" either, but just that in some sense, contentment _is_ utopia, and contentment requires making peace with both beginnings and ends.
  - candiddevmike 3y ago
    This is a big part of stoicism. If you're interested in learning more about this, checkout the book Meditations.
    - q845712 3y ago
      :) it is also a big part of buddhism. IMO the intersections between several systems are very interesting as they tend to be the most fruitful even if pursued without the context of the rest of the system (ie if you think you can cherry-pick the good parts out of a religion or philosophical system, start by looking at where many of them agree)
      - koliber 3y ago
        I’m partway through reading the book: Hero with 1000 Faces. I don’t know what to think about the book, but it certainly goes a long way to pick out the things on which many religions agree. Interesting read but not an easy read.
        mosiuerbarso 3y ago
        I listened to it on audiobook and found it a bit hard to understand at times. I'm a great admirer of Joseph Campbell and I love cumulative mythology. I found this podcast series of his old lectures much more fun and entertaining. He was a great lecturer with good sense of humor: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pathways-with-joseph-campbell/id1553326065 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pathways-with-joseph-c... The audio quality is very good to say how old the lectures are.
- namaria 3y ago
  This just sounds like toxic positivity to me. "Nothing but good vibes" is at best denial, at worst oppressive.
  - samsquire 3y ago
    I don't understand why anyone would prefer darkness over light, or bad over good. You call it toxic, but bad is by definition toxic. You can choose to embrace darkness, but you shall reap badness from it. Good is true. Judge a tree by its fruit... The truth is good, it sounds like you think the truth is bad which is not true.
    - namaria 3y ago
      You're playing on a false dichotomy... Manichean philosophy has been naive for over four millennia. Life is complicated. Pretending you can be "good" and prevail over the "bad" is wrong and harmful.
mpalmer 3y ago
To your aside: it's titles in general, too. So many prequels (or movies that want to promise some future franchise) are the "rise" of something.
- namaria 3y ago
  Then you have the other side of the coin: all the cutesy, overtly cryptic titles that really say nothing useful.
cjohnson318 3y ago
It's not exactly Gibbons' The Rise And Fall Of Ancient Rome, is it.
- rags2riches 3y ago
  Though Gibbons' famous work comes in six volumes and covers more than a millenium of history, the rise of the Roman Empire was outside its scope. It was titled The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
  - cjohnson318 3y ago
    Thanks for the correction! I just dimly recall the title from my grandfather's old books.
- nicbou 3y ago
  It's the rise and fall of people who like todo lists, and they haven't really fallen.
namaria 3y ago
I agree with you on all counts, and would like to elaborate a bit: I think obsession with todo lists mistake the product for the process. The goal of producing todo lists is to survey our responsibilities, rank them and break down goals and projects into chewable bits. Not to curate an ever growing list of ambitions. Tangentially, I like to break down projects and tasks by cognitive load, not by expected duration. This, in my opinion, is also a fundamental misunderstanding in Agile project management. Wrangling about story points and deadlines is a way to press people to fall in line, it is designed and operated as a stressor. It's malicious in nature and consequences. What should be done, I think, is breaking down things into bits that can be comfortably held in people's minds as a whole. Then people can attack it ergonomically for as long as necessary to get it done. Now. this creates complications because we have to accommodate for different levels of skill, experience, capacity etc. But a well composed team should have a nice combination of leadership and experience to tackle this. The problem arises from trying to push down on labor costs and pressing software enthusiasts into becoming hired hands in a production line.

by nicbou 3y ago

samsquire 3y ago

I don't understand why there is a glorification of death or celebration of death. I prefer to focus on the good and the light and birth and growth, not glee in dark expressions. If you can make an economy where everyone has freedom to do what they want when they want, maybe the best and brightest could work on how to achieve this and utopia (I'm serious)

lotsofpulp 3y ago
>If you can make an economy where everyone has freedom to do what they want when they want, maybe the best and brightest could work on how to achieve this and utopia (I'm serious) Who is going to scrub the toilets and change adult diapers in the meantime?
- sublinear 3y ago
  The best and brightest don't scrub toilets or change diapers for a living.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I am questioning the possibility of the premise, which was that everyone can do whatever they want to do.
    - jonsen 3y ago
      Education, in the broadest sense, is what makes people think they want what they want.
      - sublinear 3y ago
        The public has been swindled out of a decent education in exchange for some magic beans swimming in aspersive gravy.
  - candiddevmike 3y ago
    Capability and things like motivation or access/privilege are often not correlated
    - sublinear 3y ago
      I know what I'm about to say is against the grain, but access/privilege can be obtained by the best and brightest regardless of the circumstances. That's really the only sure way to find them. The common person doesn't see all the opportunities and stays right where they came from and that's not really who we should be elevating in my opinion. Of course someone born with privilege would naively feel guilty that others weren't born with it, but that completely misunderstands what privilege is. If someone born into privilege feels guilty, it's probably because they don't deserve it, and I'm speaking as someone who wasn't born with much. I think I'm just barely above average enough to get away from the crap I came from. There I said it.
      - kjs3 3y ago
        I know what I'm about to say will surprise you, but believing "if your life sucks it's because you're inferior to me and you deserve it" isn't insightful or true.
- ansc 3y ago
  I clean my own toilet now, I’ll clean my own toilet then.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Do you ever use a toilet that you do not own? Do you plan on always being physically capable of cleaning your own toilet? Point being, lots of life is messy and rote, and presuming a fantasy world where the messy and rote parts do not exist or are taken care of by robots is a waste of time (in the near future).
- jcynix 3y ago
  > Who is going to scrub the toilets and change adult diapers in the meantime? Read B. F. Skinner's "Walden Two" for some ideas how to handle this. For example, a society could dynamically / periodically adjust revenues for jobs less preferred and lower revenues for jobs most liked. That is, if you get enough "perks" for one day oft scrubbing toilets and then four days off, someone might prefer this over five days of toiling in a bank? ;-0
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Sounds like paying money in exchange for products/services in an economy with universal basic incomes with exponential taxation of wealth to prevent income/wealth gap from becoming so wide such that no one can permanently launch themselves or their kind from ever doing that kind of work.
  - prometheus76 3y ago
    Isn't that what we already have? Wages are just another form of price. An auction between a buyer and a seller...
  - ekanes 3y ago
    I think we saw a version of this unfold during COVID, when many people didn't want to do some forms of labor any more. The (somewhat) successful resonse was to raise wages.
q845712 3y ago
Just sharing my own experience, but the more time I've spent contemplating death the easier time I've had with it: Every beginning implies an end. Every birth and growth implies a decline and death. All coming-together results in eventual separation. Etc. IMO there's nothing wrong with finding the beginnings more fun and enjoying the fun parts, but part of what prevents us from moving towards utopia is a blindness to the whole cycle, an unwillingness to engage in the difficulties of endings and change. This isn't to say we need to celebrate "the end" either, but just that in some sense, contentment _is_ utopia, and contentment requires making peace with both beginnings and ends.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  This is a big part of stoicism. If you're interested in learning more about this, checkout the book Meditations.
  - q845712 3y ago
    :) it is also a big part of buddhism. IMO the intersections between several systems are very interesting as they tend to be the most fruitful even if pursued without the context of the rest of the system (ie if you think you can cherry-pick the good parts out of a religion or philosophical system, start by looking at where many of them agree)
    - koliber 3y ago
      I’m partway through reading the book: Hero with 1000 Faces. I don’t know what to think about the book, but it certainly goes a long way to pick out the things on which many religions agree. Interesting read but not an easy read.
      - mosiuerbarso 3y ago
        I listened to it on audiobook and found it a bit hard to understand at times. I'm a great admirer of Joseph Campbell and I love cumulative mythology. I found this podcast series of his old lectures much more fun and entertaining. He was a great lecturer with good sense of humor: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pathways-with-joseph-campbell/id1553326065 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pathways-with-joseph-c... The audio quality is very good to say how old the lectures are.
namaria 3y ago
This just sounds like toxic positivity to me. "Nothing but good vibes" is at best denial, at worst oppressive.
- samsquire 3y ago
  I don't understand why anyone would prefer darkness over light, or bad over good. You call it toxic, but bad is by definition toxic. You can choose to embrace darkness, but you shall reap badness from it. Good is true. Judge a tree by its fruit... The truth is good, it sounds like you think the truth is bad which is not true.
  - namaria 3y ago
    You're playing on a false dichotomy... Manichean philosophy has been naive for over four millennia. Life is complicated. Pretending you can be "good" and prevail over the "bad" is wrong and harmful.

mpalmer 3y ago

To your aside: it's titles in general, too. So many prequels (or movies that want to promise some future franchise) are the "rise" of something.

namaria 3y ago
Then you have the other side of the coin: all the cutesy, overtly cryptic titles that really say nothing useful.

cjohnson318 3y ago

It's not exactly Gibbons' The Rise And Fall Of Ancient Rome, is it.

rags2riches 3y ago
Though Gibbons' famous work comes in six volumes and covers more than a millenium of history, the rise of the Roman Empire was outside its scope. It was titled The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
- cjohnson318 3y ago
  Thanks for the correction! I just dimly recall the title from my grandfather's old books.
nicbou 3y ago
It's the rise and fall of people who like todo lists, and they haven't really fallen.

namaria 3y ago

I agree with you on all counts, and would like to elaborate a bit: I think obsession with todo lists mistake the product for the process. The goal of producing todo lists is to survey our responsibilities, rank them and break down goals and projects into chewable bits. Not to curate an ever growing list of ambitions. Tangentially, I like to break down projects and tasks by cognitive load, not by expected duration. This, in my opinion, is also a fundamental misunderstanding in Agile project management. Wrangling about story points and deadlines is a way to press people to fall in line, it is designed and operated as a stressor. It's malicious in nature and consequences. What should be done, I think, is breaking down things into bits that can be comfortably held in people's minds as a whole. Then people can attack it ergonomically for as long as necessary to get it done. Now. this creates complications because we have to accommodate for different levels of skill, experience, capacity etc. But a well composed team should have a nice combination of leadership and experience to tackle this. The problem arises from trying to push down on labor costs and pressing software enthusiasts into becoming hired hands in a production line.