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But no one wins as long as Global Human Attention isn't given purpose. The problem is that "people working in Attention Capture fields" are the exact people wh

But no one wins as long as Global Human Attention isn't given purpose. The problem is that "people working in Attention Capture fields" are the exact people who are winning, at least by the most common scoring mechanism of 'wealth'.

chongli 2y ago
They're enriching their bank accounts just as they're impoverishing their spirits. On their deathbeds, no one ever says "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office." The same could be said for any other wealth-motivated exercise. If I have learned one thing in life it is this: money is, at best, a necessary evil. A means to an end. Pursuing it as an end in itself is an indication that we have strayed from the path and forgotten what we were doing.
- onion2k 2y ago
  On their deathbeds, no one ever says "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office." I bet a lot of people have died regretting they didn't earn more.
- Nevermark 2y ago
  Money has made it far easier to barter work into what people need to survive, obtain stability & enjoy life, than its absence. It’s easy to be jaded by those that obviously value it more than others’ well being. But the mismatch of priorities is what is wrong, that doesn’t negate money’s positive practical value & impact. Most people have a more multifaceted relationship with money than as a dehumanizing god or drug.
- CalRobert 2y ago
  Sure, but they’re also outbidding me for a house.
  - apwell23 2y ago
    Are you trying to get in a "good school district" ? Is that really that strongly correlated to kids outcome in life . kids grow up and fight for a house in good school district :). I feel like having kids is root of all evil. Ppl justify all sorts of things (like wars and bidding for houses) and say that they are doing those things for sake of their kids.
    - 10u152 2y ago
      >…having kids is the root of all evil. Quite a take there. Kids are also the source of all joy and happiness, depending on how you look at it.
      - apwell23 2y ago
        Yea I agree. I have kids too :) But they are also the source of global warming, wars. On a personal level they a source of anxiety, continuous striving, jealousy and fear.
    - ossobuco 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - apwell23 2y ago
        yes exactly!
        ossobuco 2y ago
        [flagged]
    - CalRobert 2y ago
      No, but I want to live somewhere my kids have the freedom to bike and walk around town safely. Anyway, I just took a job helping get more houses off gas and on heat pumps, which is aligned with my goal to be part of addressing climate change, but it is hard to get a house near work (in Amsterdam in this case) when not optimising for pay.
- strken 2y ago
  I swear I am going to, on my deathbed, say "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office," just to stop this quote going around. In the last five years I've had a few conversations about regret with elderly relatives who have now passed away. None of them regretted going to work. My grandparents met at work. One regretted that she'd been a draftswoman rather than an engineer, but that's almost the exact opposite. I don't understand why people think doing good work that inspires pride and then getting paid for it is going to be some kind of horrible deathbed regret. It has literally never been a deathbed regret for anyone whose deathbed I have attended.
  - amelius 2y ago
    They should have said: "gee, I wish I spent more time influencing people into buying things they do not need".
  - psychoslave 2y ago
    > I don't understand why people think doing good work that inspires pride and then getting paid for it is going to be some kind of horrible deathbed regret. Because there is nothing in the definition you give that remotely looks like the median job. Societies are not structured to maximize the number of jobs that fits this definition. If social structure happens to fit your Ikigai, congratulation you won the cosmic loto, enjoy. But maybe it’s not a relevant point to show surprise on this point. Consider how much people in the rest of humanity will have to go through major existential stressful abhorrent challenges, geopolitical struggles, being effectively reduced to dull task slaves by whoever happen to be their lord of the day. How then to be surprised that at the end of their life they can think "work moments were so shitty, I wish I had spend more enjoyable ones like those I experienced while taking time with people I deeply sincerely love". By the way, if you haven’t yet do that today, tell at least to at least three people around you how much you love them and care that they enjoy moment passed together. I promise you won’t regret it on your death bed. ;)
    - strken 2y ago
      I'm talking about a wide range of jobs -- draftswoman, ship's engineer and structural engineer, typist, teacher -- held by people who grew up during the major existential struggles that were the great depression and the second world war. Working as a typist in the 1940s and 1950s was not some kind of utopian magical job full of meaning, but my grandmother could still hit a higher WPM than I can and she was proud of what she'd done. Earning an income was a means of doing things that she would never have been able to do otherwise. She felt lucky to be able to do things like take a ship to Europe without a chaperone and using money she'd earned, given that her mother's generation of women would have found it much harder. My experience has been that older people often have a different outlook on life than what people my age, including me, would predict. Part of that is experience, part is coming from a different time where the baseline for quality of life was lower, and I suspect part of it is rose-tinted glasses.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
Yeah but there's negative attention, too. Negative attention will eventually have consequences. Either they grow deaf, run away, become enraged, etc. I think of the millions of ads, singers, bullies, salesmen who've vied for my attention, and you wear down. You get sick of saying "no", pretending not to notice, brushing aside dialogs, feeling bad because you can't help. https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Laurie-Anderson/Language-Is-a-Virus https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Laurie-Anderson/Language-I...

chongli 2y ago

They're enriching their bank accounts just as they're impoverishing their spirits. On their deathbeds, no one ever says "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office." The same could be said for any other wealth-motivated exercise. If I have learned one thing in life it is this: money is, at best, a necessary evil. A means to an end. Pursuing it as an end in itself is an indication that we have strayed from the path and forgotten what we were doing.

onion2k 2y ago
On their deathbeds, no one ever says "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office." I bet a lot of people have died regretting they didn't earn more.
Nevermark 2y ago
Money has made it far easier to barter work into what people need to survive, obtain stability & enjoy life, than its absence. It’s easy to be jaded by those that obviously value it more than others’ well being. But the mismatch of priorities is what is wrong, that doesn’t negate money’s positive practical value & impact. Most people have a more multifaceted relationship with money than as a dehumanizing god or drug.
CalRobert 2y ago
Sure, but they’re also outbidding me for a house.
- apwell23 2y ago
  Are you trying to get in a "good school district" ? Is that really that strongly correlated to kids outcome in life . kids grow up and fight for a house in good school district :). I feel like having kids is root of all evil. Ppl justify all sorts of things (like wars and bidding for houses) and say that they are doing those things for sake of their kids.
  - 10u152 2y ago
    >…having kids is the root of all evil. Quite a take there. Kids are also the source of all joy and happiness, depending on how you look at it.
    - apwell23 2y ago
      Yea I agree. I have kids too :) But they are also the source of global warming, wars. On a personal level they a source of anxiety, continuous striving, jealousy and fear.
  - ossobuco 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - apwell23 2y ago
      yes exactly!
      - ossobuco 2y ago
        [flagged]
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    No, but I want to live somewhere my kids have the freedom to bike and walk around town safely. Anyway, I just took a job helping get more houses off gas and on heat pumps, which is aligned with my goal to be part of addressing climate change, but it is hard to get a house near work (in Amsterdam in this case) when not optimising for pay.
strken 2y ago
I swear I am going to, on my deathbed, say "gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office," just to stop this quote going around. In the last five years I've had a few conversations about regret with elderly relatives who have now passed away. None of them regretted going to work. My grandparents met at work. One regretted that she'd been a draftswoman rather than an engineer, but that's almost the exact opposite. I don't understand why people think doing good work that inspires pride and then getting paid for it is going to be some kind of horrible deathbed regret. It has literally never been a deathbed regret for anyone whose deathbed I have attended.
- amelius 2y ago
  They should have said: "gee, I wish I spent more time influencing people into buying things they do not need".
- psychoslave 2y ago
  > I don't understand why people think doing good work that inspires pride and then getting paid for it is going to be some kind of horrible deathbed regret. Because there is nothing in the definition you give that remotely looks like the median job. Societies are not structured to maximize the number of jobs that fits this definition. If social structure happens to fit your Ikigai, congratulation you won the cosmic loto, enjoy. But maybe it’s not a relevant point to show surprise on this point. Consider how much people in the rest of humanity will have to go through major existential stressful abhorrent challenges, geopolitical struggles, being effectively reduced to dull task slaves by whoever happen to be their lord of the day. How then to be surprised that at the end of their life they can think "work moments were so shitty, I wish I had spend more enjoyable ones like those I experienced while taking time with people I deeply sincerely love". By the way, if you haven’t yet do that today, tell at least to at least three people around you how much you love them and care that they enjoy moment passed together. I promise you won’t regret it on your death bed. ;)
  - strken 2y ago
    I'm talking about a wide range of jobs -- draftswoman, ship's engineer and structural engineer, typist, teacher -- held by people who grew up during the major existential struggles that were the great depression and the second world war. Working as a typist in the 1940s and 1950s was not some kind of utopian magical job full of meaning, but my grandmother could still hit a higher WPM than I can and she was proud of what she'd done. Earning an income was a means of doing things that she would never have been able to do otherwise. She felt lucky to be able to do things like take a ship to Europe without a chaperone and using money she'd earned, given that her mother's generation of women would have found it much harder. My experience has been that older people often have a different outlook on life than what people my age, including me, would predict. Part of that is experience, part is coming from a different time where the baseline for quality of life was lower, and I suspect part of it is rose-tinted glasses.

AStonesThrow 2y ago

Yeah but there's negative attention, too. Negative attention will eventually have consequences. Either they grow deaf, run away, become enraged, etc. I think of the millions of ads, singers, bullies, salesmen who've vied for my attention, and you wear down. You get sick of saying "no", pretending not to notice, brushing aside dialogs, feeling bad because you can't help. https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Laurie-Anderson/Language-Is-a-Virus https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Laurie-Anderson/Language-I...