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Keep your identity small. https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html (Not saying I agree or disagree with the essay but

Keep your identity small. https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html (Not saying I agree or disagree with the essay but it seemed topical)

Etheryte 2y ago
I think the central takeaway of this essay is dead wrong, you should aim for the exact opposite. The fewer labels or identities you have yourself, the more strongly you hold on to them and the more fragile your personality. If the only thing you identify yourself by is your job and that gets taken away from you in a downturn, never to return, what's left? A lot of people who are in that situation and don't have other selves to identify with struggle strongly. On the other hand, people who identify with more facets of what makes them them have a lot of options to fall back on. You're not only your job, but you're also a parent, a child, an athlete, a hobbyist, etc. Even if you stop being one of those things, you keep being all the rest, and that gives fortitude and resilience.
- throwanem 2y ago
  In this connection it seems fit to note that "I am someone who found ways to overcome the problems that I faced" is also a statement of identity.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  If your self-image includes the structure of the world around you, or the behavior of people other than yourself, you'll run into problems. I enjoy working with computers. I happen to work at a particular company doing computer things. Only one of those is an innate "what makes me, me" thing. Even if computers didn't exist, I'd still probably tend to gravitate towards things that are fun for the same sorts of reasons.
  - lll-o-lll 2y ago
    And if you hit a physical or health issue that takes that away, or dramatically reduces the amount of time you can spend on it? This isn’t hypothetical; I have worked with people who’ve had to quit this form of work for the following reasons: Carpal tunnel that prevented using keyboard and mouse, brain injury, neck injury that made it impossible to sit at a computer (or desk), long Covid and “brain fog”. I imagine that vision impairment might lead to the same. If any of these were to happen to me, would I still have my sense of self? Are we more than our love of technology?
    - malfist 2y ago
      This is way off in a tangent but that's kinda why I think a UBI won't lead to mass unemployment. So many people self identify with their work that it's almost always the first question when you're getting to know someone.
      - ghodith 2y ago
        For the first generation of UBI recipients, sure. I'm more concerned about the people that will grow up having never worked.
        amatecha 2y ago
        By the time I was old enough to work, I had recorded dozens of my own songs and made countless websites for fun. I made computer graphics and learned tons about computers and could fix them for all my friends and family. These were all forms of "work", valuable to others (to varying degrees), and I received zero payment for any of that. People like to do things, particularly things that benefit those they care about. Not everyone is like that, but we don't actually really need everyone to be like that, IMO.
        ghodith 2y ago
        Aside from the strong selection bias, you've also been raised in a culture that both works and values work. Now imagine you're a third generation UBI recipient. Your parents never worked, and you're surrounded by people who don't even "work" in the way which you describe it. At that point, I have very little hope, even for people predisposed to it like you.
- burningChrome 2y ago
  >> The fewer labels or identities you have yourself, the more strongly you hold on to them and the more fragile your personality. Conversely, being beholden and holding onto identities that have no bearing on your success or direction in life which you believe does in fact determine those things seems equally dangerous, no?
- deleted 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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- ryandv 2y ago
  Respectfully, I disagree. Every label or identity is yet another pigeonhole to be stuffed into and a thought-terminating cliche that reduces the complexity of one's life into an overly simplistic symbol which fails to represent the totality of one's being. Better to dispense with such coarse-grained oversimplifications and reject the notion of labelling selves entirely. > You're not only your job, but you're also a parent, a child, an athlete, a hobbyist, etc. You're actually none of those things. In the words of Alan Watts, [0] The principal disadvantage of symbols is that we confuse them with reality, just as we confuse money with actual wealth, and our names about ourselves, our ideas of ourselves, with ourselves. You are neither a job, nor a parent, nor a child nor athlete nor any of these things. That which can be named and labelled is not reality; it enters into the sphere of representation and takes us a layer of abstraction away from the base reality of what you are, of which we cannot really speak and must treat in silence (see the Tao, or the Tetragrammaton). We exchange these names of ourselves, ideas of ourselves, language describing ourselves, with others, hoping that the full reality of ourselves will be communicated, in whole and not in part, to others, who will actually see past the symbols and recognize the selves to which they point. In actuality they conflate the symbol and the self, the representation for the reality, falling victim to the deception of Baudrillard's simulacrum, of images that "mask and denature a profound reality." Hence the injunction of the philosopher Kwaw to the daimios of Japan in Aleister Crowley's parable Konx Om Pax [1] to call themselves "the Synagogue of Satan, so as to keep themselves from the friendship of the fools who mistake names for things," while advocating not a "Satanist" way of life, but rather a Taoist one seeking the equilibration of opposites to achieve first inner personal harmony and then outer societal harmony. A postmodernist would see the label "Satanist" and immediately conjure up images and notions of evil and "the adversary," confusing the name with the actual thing, the deeds and the philosophy of the synagogue, never bothering to inquire beyond the label and the name into the nature of the thing itself, letting their priors and biases make uninformed snap judgments for them. A modern instantiation of Kwaw's tactic can be found in The Satanic Temple, who advocates not for "evil" (whatever this word means) but for the advancement of rationality and reproductive rights. Yet this phenomenon extends far beyond The Satanic Temple and religion and extends to all of life more broadly, and this simplistic reduction of the world into one-word labels and mental filing cabinets is what lends to the exact same tribalism pg notes in his essay. Ascribing labels to one's self limits your degrees of freedom by circumscribing your capabilities and characteristics within the bounds of the label. For if I am P, then I am not (not P) and immediately I have entered into a dualistic discourse of "me" and "not me" or of "self" and "other." Now you are beholden to a past, a history, and limited by that which you have identified with, rejecting what you are not yet but could at one point be. The very clinging to what scraps of "identity" one has accumulated around one's self is precisely what leads to this fragility of personality once those identities are forcibly taken away. Ironically postmodern ideologies admit of "non-binary" sexualities that reject simplistic dichotomies and labels, but fail to extend this mode of thinking to other domains of life that would benefit from the same treatment; instead they insist on fractionating all of society into discretized identity groups and factions instead of recognizing the unique individuality of each human being, failing to acknowledge that continua instead of hard dichotomies exist and reality is not so cleanly divided. These ideologies purport to have moved beyond stereotypes and assuming everyone had the same lived experiences growing up, and yet continues to do exactly that with simplistic filing away of people into labelled cabinets of "identity." All abstractions are leaky, including abstractions of self. Postmodern (Facebook onwards) social media has enabled a new era of idolatry; where once we erected statues and idols in a vain attempt to capture the ineffability of gods, now we publish online profiles and reels in a vain, narcissistic attempt to capture the ineffability of the self. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJYp-mWqB1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJYp-mWqB1w [1] http://www.astrumargenteum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Konx-Om-Pax-by-Aleister-Crowley.pdf http://www.astrumargenteum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Ko...
saagarjha 2y ago
Says the guy who gets into culture war arguments online all the time

Keep your identity small. https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html (Not saying I agree or disagree with the essay but it seemed topical)

Etheryte 2y ago

I think the central takeaway of this essay is dead wrong, you should aim for the exact opposite. The fewer labels or identities you have yourself, the more strongly you hold on to them and the more fragile your personality. If the only thing you identify yourself by is your job and that gets taken away from you in a downturn, never to return, what's left? A lot of people who are in that situation and don't have other selves to identify with struggle strongly. On the other hand, people who identify with more facets of what makes them them have a lot of options to fall back on. You're not only your job, but you're also a parent, a child, an athlete, a hobbyist, etc. Even if you stop being one of those things, you keep being all the rest, and that gives fortitude and resilience.

throwanem 2y ago
In this connection it seems fit to note that "I am someone who found ways to overcome the problems that I faced" is also a statement of identity.
tbrownaw 2y ago
If your self-image includes the structure of the world around you, or the behavior of people other than yourself, you'll run into problems. I enjoy working with computers. I happen to work at a particular company doing computer things. Only one of those is an innate "what makes me, me" thing. Even if computers didn't exist, I'd still probably tend to gravitate towards things that are fun for the same sorts of reasons.
- lll-o-lll 2y ago
  And if you hit a physical or health issue that takes that away, or dramatically reduces the amount of time you can spend on it? This isn’t hypothetical; I have worked with people who’ve had to quit this form of work for the following reasons: Carpal tunnel that prevented using keyboard and mouse, brain injury, neck injury that made it impossible to sit at a computer (or desk), long Covid and “brain fog”. I imagine that vision impairment might lead to the same. If any of these were to happen to me, would I still have my sense of self? Are we more than our love of technology?
  - malfist 2y ago
    This is way off in a tangent but that's kinda why I think a UBI won't lead to mass unemployment. So many people self identify with their work that it's almost always the first question when you're getting to know someone.
    - ghodith 2y ago
      For the first generation of UBI recipients, sure. I'm more concerned about the people that will grow up having never worked.
      - amatecha 2y ago
        By the time I was old enough to work, I had recorded dozens of my own songs and made countless websites for fun. I made computer graphics and learned tons about computers and could fix them for all my friends and family. These were all forms of "work", valuable to others (to varying degrees), and I received zero payment for any of that. People like to do things, particularly things that benefit those they care about. Not everyone is like that, but we don't actually really need everyone to be like that, IMO.
        ghodith 2y ago
        Aside from the strong selection bias, you've also been raised in a culture that both works and values work. Now imagine you're a third generation UBI recipient. Your parents never worked, and you're surrounded by people who don't even "work" in the way which you describe it. At that point, I have very little hope, even for people predisposed to it like you.
burningChrome 2y ago
>> The fewer labels or identities you have yourself, the more strongly you hold on to them and the more fragile your personality. Conversely, being beholden and holding onto identities that have no bearing on your success or direction in life which you believe does in fact determine those things seems equally dangerous, no?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ryandv 2y ago
Respectfully, I disagree. Every label or identity is yet another pigeonhole to be stuffed into and a thought-terminating cliche that reduces the complexity of one's life into an overly simplistic symbol which fails to represent the totality of one's being. Better to dispense with such coarse-grained oversimplifications and reject the notion of labelling selves entirely. > You're not only your job, but you're also a parent, a child, an athlete, a hobbyist, etc. You're actually none of those things. In the words of Alan Watts, [0] The principal disadvantage of symbols is that we confuse them with reality, just as we confuse money with actual wealth, and our names about ourselves, our ideas of ourselves, with ourselves. You are neither a job, nor a parent, nor a child nor athlete nor any of these things. That which can be named and labelled is not reality; it enters into the sphere of representation and takes us a layer of abstraction away from the base reality of what you are, of which we cannot really speak and must treat in silence (see the Tao, or the Tetragrammaton). We exchange these names of ourselves, ideas of ourselves, language describing ourselves, with others, hoping that the full reality of ourselves will be communicated, in whole and not in part, to others, who will actually see past the symbols and recognize the selves to which they point. In actuality they conflate the symbol and the self, the representation for the reality, falling victim to the deception of Baudrillard's simulacrum, of images that "mask and denature a profound reality." Hence the injunction of the philosopher Kwaw to the daimios of Japan in Aleister Crowley's parable Konx Om Pax [1] to call themselves "the Synagogue of Satan, so as to keep themselves from the friendship of the fools who mistake names for things," while advocating not a "Satanist" way of life, but rather a Taoist one seeking the equilibration of opposites to achieve first inner personal harmony and then outer societal harmony. A postmodernist would see the label "Satanist" and immediately conjure up images and notions of evil and "the adversary," confusing the name with the actual thing, the deeds and the philosophy of the synagogue, never bothering to inquire beyond the label and the name into the nature of the thing itself, letting their priors and biases make uninformed snap judgments for them. A modern instantiation of Kwaw's tactic can be found in The Satanic Temple, who advocates not for "evil" (whatever this word means) but for the advancement of rationality and reproductive rights. Yet this phenomenon extends far beyond The Satanic Temple and religion and extends to all of life more broadly, and this simplistic reduction of the world into one-word labels and mental filing cabinets is what lends to the exact same tribalism pg notes in his essay. Ascribing labels to one's self limits your degrees of freedom by circumscribing your capabilities and characteristics within the bounds of the label. For if I am P, then I am not (not P) and immediately I have entered into a dualistic discourse of "me" and "not me" or of "self" and "other." Now you are beholden to a past, a history, and limited by that which you have identified with, rejecting what you are not yet but could at one point be. The very clinging to what scraps of "identity" one has accumulated around one's self is precisely what leads to this fragility of personality once those identities are forcibly taken away. Ironically postmodern ideologies admit of "non-binary" sexualities that reject simplistic dichotomies and labels, but fail to extend this mode of thinking to other domains of life that would benefit from the same treatment; instead they insist on fractionating all of society into discretized identity groups and factions instead of recognizing the unique individuality of each human being, failing to acknowledge that continua instead of hard dichotomies exist and reality is not so cleanly divided. These ideologies purport to have moved beyond stereotypes and assuming everyone had the same lived experiences growing up, and yet continues to do exactly that with simplistic filing away of people into labelled cabinets of "identity." All abstractions are leaky, including abstractions of self. Postmodern (Facebook onwards) social media has enabled a new era of idolatry; where once we erected statues and idols in a vain attempt to capture the ineffability of gods, now we publish online profiles and reels in a vain, narcissistic attempt to capture the ineffability of the self. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJYp-mWqB1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJYp-mWqB1w [1] http://www.astrumargenteum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Konx-Om-Pax-by-Aleister-Crowley.pdf http://www.astrumargenteum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Ko...

saagarjha 2y ago

Says the guy who gets into culture war arguments online all the time