What about the cool experiences that money can buy? This may not cost a lot, depending on what you want to do, but it does have a price tag. Not that I'm advocating the job treadmill as a lifestyle, but making a lot of money (say, by building a startup) has its benefits. When commercial space travel becomes a reality, I want to be able to buy a ticket to check out the earth from space.
(I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment of the post, but it seems to set up a false dichotomy)
Living in interesting places costs money. I'd rather live in an expensive city and have to work 40 hours a week and be able to engage in interesting communities of people than live out in the boonies with fuck-all to do and no one to interact with just so I'll feel better about myself for not "being someone else's slave."
This bugs me, because it's the cynical negativity that I often feel, but it's one-sided and extreme.
Except for hermits, all of us want services from others. Serving is, therefore, part of the social contract. We work, we pay taxes, and we do lots of work for others' benefit. Nothing wrong with that. To rip from Game of Thrones, valar dohaeris.
In fact, most people rot in a life where they don't get opportunities to help out (i.e. serve) others and become deeply unhappy. They feel unfulfilled.
It's the alienating and creepy institutional experience, the entrenched ingrate upper class, the perverse social demands, and the dehumanizing, corrupt, and capricious evaluation process-- and, in addition to all this, the fact that it has nothing to do with productivity (people could be just as productive, if not moreso, in better environments)-- that make institutional Work so horrible.
People like to do things for other people. That's not a waste of life. That's a major part of being human. Being forced to do things-- often boring, degrading things-- in some subordinate context is what makes people miserable at work.
Let's frame it in the "Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose" happiness rubric.
If you're smart, you level up to Mastery fairly quickly.
Once you're no longer an absolute novice, it's frustrating to spend your days without meaning or purpose. The novice finds meaning and purpose internally when learning. Once learning has plateaued, meaning and purpose come from integrating with society.
This is where the shackles of jobs start to erode your self: the masters at bad workplaces dole out meaning and purpose based on die rolls. They don't understand the connection between what people are good at, what they want to do, and how they should do it. You get told what to do. You have little leeway. When your choices are removed, the friction eats you alive.
Modern hippy startups try to get around the last part by letting people do whatever they want. Those companies can be pretty much counted on one hand though.
In short: companies exploit the Mastery of smart people while forcing you to look at Purpose through double slits and removing Autonomy resulting in your knobs of happiness being broken without you even realizing it.
It's the supreme luxury to be able to reject society. It's a luxury that's only available to those who are either born to wealth or put a lot of effort into obtaining it.
There are also the "I just don't use money, man" people who are actually just living off the charity of friends.
Completely rejecting society is one of the most self-centered and egotistical things you can do. Only two classes of people obtain it: the very wealthy (basically, FU money) and vow-of-sileince monks (basically, "I'm never going to interact with humanity again").
There is a third way, of being present in the world for your worldly obligations, and being able to pursue your personal/inner growth and experience as well.
I agree that choosing poverty as a lifestyle can be egotistical, but monastic silence does not mean never interacting with humanity again. It's more to do with not speaking unnecessarily.
You can always reject one aspect of society while embracing another.
I understand how the author here feels. The whole market economy/consumption cycle is dehumanizing and serves those already in possession of excess riches at the expense of the common folk.
It sounds as if he just wants to try living for himself a bit more by being mindful of his purchases. He's more awake than most of the people I know so good on him, regardless of his sentiments towards society.
It's much easier to be homeless in a lot of developing nations like Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam. In the US you get thrown in jail/shelter for being homeless, in those countries though many people simply live off the land or work for barter their entire lives. It takes less effort than it sounds, but enormous fortitude to become an expat.
San Francisco does welcome the homeless with open arms, though. Did you hear the city was talking about paying the homeless a stipend, for being homeless?
What do you mean? While there are places that may look down on homeless people more than San Francisco, I don't think there is any place in the US were being homeless is a crime. That would be unconstitutional.
Maybe you are saying that homeless people are more likely to be criminals, which may or may not be true. But I can't imagine a place in the US where just the act of being homeless is a crime. Do you have a source or a reference to backup that claim?
> The National Coalition for the Homeless reports that there is a growing trend in the United States towards criminalizing the state of being homeless.[6] Proponents of this approach believe that punitive measures will deter people from choosing to be homeless. To this end, cities across the country increasingly outlaw activities such as sleeping, eating, sitting, and begging in public spaces, and selectively enforce more neutral laws—such as those prohibiting open containers or loitering—against homeless populations.[6] Violators of such laws typically incur criminal penalties, which result in fines and/or incarceration.
> In April, 2006 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that "making it a crime to be homeless by charging them with a crime is in violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments."[7]
But, while criminalizing homelessness may be unconstitutional, criminalizing all side effects of being homeless is not.
You're just name calling. The parent made some claim extolling the nobility of homelessness and making some claims about being homeless in third world countries that I thought were little more than naked assertions and I called them as such. You're just parroting anti-Americanism. :(
I'm just getting to the point that I can probably work just half or so and sustain myself just fine. This is awesome, but I realize I'm overflowing with privilege. For most, this isn't an option.
Fuck this perspective. I don't mean this in an offensive way. I just mean that it is very detrimental for me to think in this way. For years I have been reading articles online, trying to become smarter, trying to learn from others' mistakes. Really, I was trying to never MAKE a mistake and trying to be smarter than I was. A large part of this was that I thought I could be destined for something "greater". Well, I'm not. I have used the sentiment from posts like this to justify my laziness and overblown entitlement, and do you know where it's gotten me? Nowhere. I'm not better than everyone else. I can't actually accomplish anything special. In fact, ever since I read that it's better to NOT write code than to write too much code, I've tried to do as close to nothing at all as possible. And that's pretty much the problem.
I guess that didn't make so much sense. But, just because the universe seems unfair re: who has resources doesn't mean that it's not advantageous to buy into the system of working for someone else. It provides an income, for one.
A year and a half ago I gave up, quit, sold my car, got rid of my apartment, and lowered my living expenses. I'm quite free of overlords at the moment, but stressfully unsuccessful and technically homeless (without being entirely poor).
Tomorrow I turn 30. This was not in my life plan. Need to daft punk it up very soon.
So you are sitting in your economical abode eating your economical food with a pleased non-servant grin. And there you sit. And sit.
The urge to build or do will come. Building is better with others. And soon you are back to having to make trade offs to build something you want or people want.
To me, I'm always going to build. So yeah, all I can do is either pick the best masters available to me, figure out how to spread out the masters (client vs customer) or decide that in the name of freedom, I'm not doing anything and try to declare stagnation a virtue.
More like there you toil in the hot sun so that the crop on which your future survival depends doesn't become choked by weeds, devoured by pests, or withered from heat. People forget that agriculture was a back breaking affair and an often unreliable source of sustenance before mechanization and large factory farms came around. It remains back-breaking and unreliable for those in poorer nations not fortunate enough to have found a more high-paying "servitude."
I am good at making software products, but not so much at repairing my car, so I'd rather spend some extra time making software products for others so I can get someone to fix my car for me.
So much for the pseudo-philosophical rhetoric about the 'deadness we feel inside'. I'd feel dead inside if I had to spend hours on the bottom of my car or out in the fields, instead of doing what I enjoy and am at good at.
I've always been partial to Voltaire's thought on the matter: "Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need."
Even if I had more time during the day to to whatever I pleased, I doubt I'd have the money to do anything interesting. I'd probably end up programming or working on something, which I might as well get paid to do.
I'd certainly rather program than maintain a garden. But I can understand why that's not true for everyone.
Exactly. I find programming relaxing (when working on projects I want), so If I wasn't working I would be doing that because I couldn't afford to really do anything else.
I also couldn't afford to do anything, probably couldn't afford internet at home either so I would be stuck.
Best of luck not working and instead doing whatever you like.
Work does not mean that you have to make others rich, however.
You could work only to be saved from those evil and still get something in exchange, that isn't making the other party "get much more than you do".
For that we would probably need the biggest revolution we've ever known (thats not happening)
Who's a servant? I'm exchanging my free time for money in an exchange that I feel is very worthwhile, and the 'servitude' I engage in is intellectually stimulating. If you feel like you're a servant, you picked the wrong career (or you didn't pick a career...)
It's nice that we can choose who we do or do not work for. Slavery and serfdom were pretty terrible.
I like my job; I don't think my work would be possible without cooperation and a shared environment. I don't mind serving others, if they are serving me too.
Why do some live their lives as masters? Why delegate interesting work to others rather than do it themselves? Why give up that money?
You are not a servant when there is a fair exchange of money for services.
You become a "servant", or rather a modern "serf", when you lose control over such matters. It may seem subtle but it is an important distinction. If you are so indebted financially, living paycheque to paycheque, you are a servant to that debt and the interest it accumulates, you are a serf.
Without such bonds you can view your employer as a peer, a colleague, a contemporary, and not as your master.
Yeah but jeez, those guys at that company, what a bunch of servants they are. I bet they work at the company to buy "shiny things" ... we shouldn't support them. :)
If self-employment is merely a "new boss," then why isn't self-sufficiency? Instead of relying upon the highly-developed apparatuses that society has created that enable one to achieve homeostasis and proceed through life, he is going to "indenture" himself to his bodily needs, creating far more work than in necessary. Is it better to be a "servant" to another than to be a "servant" to oneself? His point is incoherent.
Secondly, he presents this notion of a foundationally-flawed and perverse system, and asserts that he is going to leave it, without presenting an alternative. Suppose that one does reject society and become entirely self-sufficient. Then what? He appears to have no ultimate objective nor any motive other than disillusionment with the system. What occurs after he quits his job and builds a cabin in the woods? I'd rather be a servant to society where I know that I at least have nominal objectives and a context in which to live my life, than abandon everything and hope that a life of solitude (or whatever he intends to pursue, he was pretty ambiguous) is preferable to society.
His plan doesn't seem well-devised, and his explanation offers essentially nothing. Just because social arrangements in society are sub-optimal does not mean that abandoning everything is preferable, or even tenable.
Speak for yourself (duh...that's what the author is doing). I work for others to make good money to support my addiction to hobbies. I, for one LOVE quadcopters, reef tanks, micro-controllers, LASERs, PC's, my electric guitar, and everything in between. The amount of time I get to spend with my hobbies is MUCH greater than the actual 40hr work week. Fair trade.
Eh. If I had the means and the time to not be a servant, I'd go for it. However, I don't even have a business idea that I'm capable of executing on. So meh.
That's his point. He is not advocating you stop being a servant to a boss and starting you're own great company ... He's saying a startup is just another boss and really you should become some sort of acetic monk and live off the land, grow your beats and yams or whatever. You shouldn't even want any "stuff" what's wrong with you??!! It's just crap.
90 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 164 ms ] thread(I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment of the post, but it seems to set up a false dichotomy)
Except for hermits, all of us want services from others. Serving is, therefore, part of the social contract. We work, we pay taxes, and we do lots of work for others' benefit. Nothing wrong with that. To rip from Game of Thrones, valar dohaeris.
In fact, most people rot in a life where they don't get opportunities to help out (i.e. serve) others and become deeply unhappy. They feel unfulfilled.
It's the alienating and creepy institutional experience, the entrenched ingrate upper class, the perverse social demands, and the dehumanizing, corrupt, and capricious evaluation process-- and, in addition to all this, the fact that it has nothing to do with productivity (people could be just as productive, if not moreso, in better environments)-- that make institutional Work so horrible.
People like to do things for other people. That's not a waste of life. That's a major part of being human. Being forced to do things-- often boring, degrading things-- in some subordinate context is what makes people miserable at work.
If you're smart, you level up to Mastery fairly quickly.
Once you're no longer an absolute novice, it's frustrating to spend your days without meaning or purpose. The novice finds meaning and purpose internally when learning. Once learning has plateaued, meaning and purpose come from integrating with society.
This is where the shackles of jobs start to erode your self: the masters at bad workplaces dole out meaning and purpose based on die rolls. They don't understand the connection between what people are good at, what they want to do, and how they should do it. You get told what to do. You have little leeway. When your choices are removed, the friction eats you alive.
Modern hippy startups try to get around the last part by letting people do whatever they want. Those companies can be pretty much counted on one hand though.
In short: companies exploit the Mastery of smart people while forcing you to look at Purpose through double slits and removing Autonomy resulting in your knobs of happiness being broken without you even realizing it.
There are also the "I just don't use money, man" people who are actually just living off the charity of friends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastic_silence#Practice_of_s...
I understand how the author here feels. The whole market economy/consumption cycle is dehumanizing and serves those already in possession of excess riches at the expense of the common folk.
It sounds as if he just wants to try living for himself a bit more by being mindful of his purchases. He's more awake than most of the people I know so good on him, regardless of his sentiments towards society.
Maybe you are saying that homeless people are more likely to be criminals, which may or may not be true. But I can't imagine a place in the US where just the act of being homeless is a crime. Do you have a source or a reference to backup that claim?
> The National Coalition for the Homeless reports that there is a growing trend in the United States towards criminalizing the state of being homeless.[6] Proponents of this approach believe that punitive measures will deter people from choosing to be homeless. To this end, cities across the country increasingly outlaw activities such as sleeping, eating, sitting, and begging in public spaces, and selectively enforce more neutral laws—such as those prohibiting open containers or loitering—against homeless populations.[6] Violators of such laws typically incur criminal penalties, which result in fines and/or incarceration.
> In April, 2006 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that "making it a crime to be homeless by charging them with a crime is in violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments."[7]
But, while criminalizing homelessness may be unconstitutional, criminalizing all side effects of being homeless is not.
I'm just getting to the point that I can probably work just half or so and sustain myself just fine. This is awesome, but I realize I'm overflowing with privilege. For most, this isn't an option.
I guess that didn't make so much sense. But, just because the universe seems unfair re: who has resources doesn't mean that it's not advantageous to buy into the system of working for someone else. It provides an income, for one.
A year and a half ago I gave up, quit, sold my car, got rid of my apartment, and lowered my living expenses. I'm quite free of overlords at the moment, but stressfully unsuccessful and technically homeless (without being entirely poor).
Tomorrow I turn 30. This was not in my life plan. Need to daft punk it up very soon.
So you are sitting in your economical abode eating your economical food with a pleased non-servant grin. And there you sit. And sit.
The urge to build or do will come. Building is better with others. And soon you are back to having to make trade offs to build something you want or people want.
To me, I'm always going to build. So yeah, all I can do is either pick the best masters available to me, figure out how to spread out the masters (client vs customer) or decide that in the name of freedom, I'm not doing anything and try to declare stagnation a virtue.
;)
I am good at making software products, but not so much at repairing my car, so I'd rather spend some extra time making software products for others so I can get someone to fix my car for me.
So much for the pseudo-philosophical rhetoric about the 'deadness we feel inside'. I'd feel dead inside if I had to spend hours on the bottom of my car or out in the fields, instead of doing what I enjoy and am at good at.
Even if I had more time during the day to to whatever I pleased, I doubt I'd have the money to do anything interesting. I'd probably end up programming or working on something, which I might as well get paid to do.
I'd certainly rather program than maintain a garden. But I can understand why that's not true for everyone.
I also couldn't afford to do anything, probably couldn't afford internet at home either so I would be stuck.
Best of luck not working and instead doing whatever you like.
For that we would probably need the biggest revolution we've ever known (thats not happening)
Not everyone wants to run their own business.
I like my job; I don't think my work would be possible without cooperation and a shared environment. I don't mind serving others, if they are serving me too.
You are not a servant when there is a fair exchange of money for services.
You become a "servant", or rather a modern "serf", when you lose control over such matters. It may seem subtle but it is an important distinction. If you are so indebted financially, living paycheque to paycheque, you are a servant to that debt and the interest it accumulates, you are a serf.
Without such bonds you can view your employer as a peer, a colleague, a contemporary, and not as your master.
$10 Canadian to heat versus the typical $500 using a small "hair dryer" to heat the home in -20C weather.
Sure, there are people like this. But a great number of people do this as a sacrifice to make their family's lives better.
I find this post boring, arrogant, and narrow-minded. These aren't new problems, and you haven't arrived at some sort of new solution.
Secondly, he presents this notion of a foundationally-flawed and perverse system, and asserts that he is going to leave it, without presenting an alternative. Suppose that one does reject society and become entirely self-sufficient. Then what? He appears to have no ultimate objective nor any motive other than disillusionment with the system. What occurs after he quits his job and builds a cabin in the woods? I'd rather be a servant to society where I know that I at least have nominal objectives and a context in which to live my life, than abandon everything and hope that a life of solitude (or whatever he intends to pursue, he was pretty ambiguous) is preferable to society.
His plan doesn't seem well-devised, and his explanation offers essentially nothing. Just because social arrangements in society are sub-optimal does not mean that abandoning everything is preferable, or even tenable.