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Comment by roody15 | Hacker News Reader

I am a bit older and have worked in IT now for almost 2 decades. (44 years old)

I honestly think the general premise here holds true and perhaps applies to many of us here in computed related occupations.

It seems many of us focused on STEM STEM STEM or COMPUTERS COMPUTERS COMPUTERS in education but perhaps are emotionally infantile to an extent.

How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets … for what? What is important ? Our job… buying gadgets… traveling..

I don’t have any answer but it’s worth pondering. How many of us work countless hours for companies whose missions we don’t perhaps even agree with… how many of us ponder what is important to us and why we act the way we do?

Just My two cent

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I used to worry about being "successful" until I had an epiphany triggered by my father's death. Do you want to know what success is? Visualise the day of your funeral. Who is there? Are they sad, devastated, in tears? Are they looking at their watch or relieved you're finally gone? What does it say on your headstone? "Here lies roody15. Beloved father, husband, son. Forever in our hearts" Or will it say, "Here lies roody15. He was a good employee". Will anyone from your work be talking about your 60-hour weeks and the weekends you put in when the business really needed it? Or will your kids be talking through tears about how they'll miss you reading them bedtime stories?

For me, I define personal success by the impact I have on other people's lives and the imprint I leave on their hearts. Everything else is filler. Undeniably useful - but filler.

Whoa, I thought

> Beloved father, husband, son. Forever in our hearts"

was brutally generic but then ...

> He was a good employee

Which is worse than "he was a decent man" [0]. Oof.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Stone_(character)

"He was a decent man" sounds like a worthy ambition. I'd be proud of "He wasn't a dick".

I'd rather be defined by my virtues than by the absence of flaws.

A hermit in a cave could similarly be described, but I think any life that makes a positive impact, however small or large, requires something more.

You'd like a Christmas Carol then.

That sounds a lot like a "immortality project", as described by Becker in The Denial of Death [1].

[1] https://ernestbecker.org/about-becker/beckers-synthesis/#:~:....

'Immortality project' or just, a traditional way of seeing oneself as being a part of a 'line' or stream of life.

I use variant of this - myself on the proverbial death bed, looking back through decades and seeing decisions if good or bad.

It changes the motivation slightly - great family bonds definitely yes if possible. But I won't care less if tons of other people would come and praise me, or not. I want to be proud of life lived, and I am good enough to judge that. Not harming others to be successful in personal life, happy, balanced person.

Why I don't care that much for opinion of others - ie if you live your life beyond what anybody expected from you, this will produce some envy even in closest peers. They see points where you chose different path to greater success than them, and successes compound over time, hard to avoid regrets there. What a lot of people do in such situation is stopping sharing any info about cool great things happening with practically anybody, in same manner when properly rich live maintain façade of relatively frugal life. Possible, but its caving to want-to-be-liked emotions.

Living life of adventures, exotic travel, extreme sports (in my case, this is what makes me tick and it makes me tick very well).

I am definitely the type that works to live... I mean wasting more life than necessary in the office inevitably leads to regrets later in life, regardless of the amount of wealth. Sometimes learning from others mistakes is enough, especially without save positions available.

This is true, but when I'm dead I won't be there, so what people say isn't that relevant.

However, if I don't put in the hours now, I might get to enjoy life less because I'll have less resources to do so. (Within reason of course, life really does come first. But work is still important).

People have odd ideas about their amazing historical impact. The way people will remember them, being "on the right side of history".

But 99.9% of people won't really be remembered at all beyond a generation or two, if that. And canned speeches at funerals last for like 10 minutes, certainly not living my life for that.

People who lived before you shaped you. While physically you won't be there, you'll pass the torch to the next generation in same way.

Those who won't be remembered after a couple generations still shape that next generation that will shape the next generation and so on.

That's closest to immortality you can get.

I think you've missed my point. It's not about what they say. What they say is a reflection of the impact you've had on their lives. It isn't about leaving behind a legacy of "historical impact". The exercise is meant to cause you to reflect on what behaviours, what actions are likely to leave such positive impacts on others that they feel that way. Focusing solely on material success is unlikely to result in that kind of positive impact. If there's any legacy at all, its in that people may wish to emulate your best behaviours as a result of your impact.

I believe I appreciate your point.

But, you appear to be making the assumption that the impacts one leaves are the defining features of ones life. It's certainly a valid point of view, but not sure I fully subscribe to it.

Additionally, I doubt my ability to recognize, in sum if an impact is ultimately for good or ill.

> Do you want to know what success is?

You’re not describing what success “is”. You are just describing something then calling it “success”.

The whole setup is like bad Platonic philosophy.

Socrates: what is success?

Useful idiot: Money!

Socrates: Ah, but will your money miss you after you die?

Useful idiot: Wow! Deep!

The exercise is not about whether you'll be missed afterwards. Its to elicit the reflection on "What behaviour in my life would result in that effect?" It's about reflecting on what it takes to be a good person - and then living accordingly. You may be entirely alone in this world, parents dead, no siblings, no partner, no children and not even friends - but you can still perform this thought exercise and live accordingly.

> It's about reflecting on what it takes to be a good person

I don’t think invoking the usually incoherently used word “good” is very helpful.

If "good" is too hard to define, maybe "asshole" is less so? In which case, be the opposite of an asshole.

> In which case, be the opposite of an asshole.

Why?

Being an asshole is something you can only be as a result of interaction with others in some way. A perfect hermit can’t be an asshole. Therefore, assuming being an asshole means your interactions with others are negatively felt, you’re therefore imposing your will on others at the expense of others. It’s fundamentally anti/democratic and anti-social. The reason that’s important is because we live in a society and well functioning society requires its members to play nice. Otherwise it begins to fall apart. In other words, I’m saying you should logically choose to not be an asshole. Assuming of course you gain some benefit from being part of a functioning society.

But don’t I benefit most by covertly defecting (crypto-assholing) in a well functioning society? Then I get the standard benefits of the society and some stolen ones.

Maybe, maybe not. Are there victimless crimes? A lot of people may think insurance fraud is such a thing but clearly that's a narrow view of "victimless". I do think you're right at some level or else being an asshole wouldn't have any survival advantage and would perhaps not have survived as a trait (assuming some heritable basis for being an asshole). But then how do you explain people who seemingly derive joy from pure trolling? No personal benefit other than lulz. Sounds a little sociopathic no? Then again, maybe these people are nature's chaos monkyes. Sowing the seeds of destructive change. Who knows.

I just know that I personally choose to try and not be an asshole.

What is the downside to you for being an asshole? Especially if no one is aware of it besides you?

It reminds me of something David Brooks said, that we all have both "resume virtues" and "eulogy virtues".

> How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets … for what? What is important ? Our job… buying gadgets… traveling..

This would loosely describe the general form of most middle class peoples' jobs, technical or not. You work a lot so as not to slip down to a lower class (and build up a buffer that will last into your twilight years), and try to massage more meaning into the small amount of remaining time using gadgets, fashion, and travel. Security in the future would leave your brain free to do more meaningful things, but few have such luxury.

> How many of us work countless hours for companies whose missions we don’t perhaps even agree with… how many of us ponder what is important to us and why we act the way we do?

Once again, this is generally the domain of the affluent. Most great philosophers were affluent.

If you read OP’s post carefully, you might notice that they are not being dismissive of working for money, but it seems to me your response to the post treats it as though it is (a strawman).

To me, the OP’s post is an inquiry into “why” we do what we do. It is a useful inquiry that may be followed up with personal introspection, which might lead to a better understanding of ourselves if done with integrity.

For example - we work to earn money. Why do we earn money? So we can live comfortably (your answer might vary). Why do we want to live comfortably? And so on…

The line of reasoning you seem to have chosen ends at “to earn money” and then pivots to philosophers being affluent while seemingly (to me) proceeding to dismiss all the learnings procured by affluent people as though that makes them inherently different to the learnings procured by others (a conclusion that seems to have no solid basis).

The "why" we do what we do is mostly governed by circumstance. And in modern times (the past 5000 or so years), circumstance is almost completely governed by money and politics. The meritocratic ideal is what keeps our minds enslaved.

When you have enough security that you have no worries for the medium term, you gain the luxury of time and brain energy to contemplate these things rather than having to focus your thoughts on such base things as eating, shelter, health, and maintaining your position.

The majority of us focus on our jobs, buy gadgets and take vacations because we don't have the luxuries of time and peace of mind (since our focus is by necessity on the near term), but we'd like to have them. And even a short-term feeling of luxury is better than none.

> The majority of us focus on our jobs, buy gadgets and take vacations because we don't have the luxuries of time and peace of mind (since our focus is by necessity on the near term), but we'd like to have them. And even a short-term feeling of luxury is better than none.

Apparently you’ve never been truly poor.

You've caught me out! I've never come home exhausted from deracking frozen coho salmon for 12 hours. I've never gone without food for days to ensure that I could make rent at the end of the month. I've never agonized over 20 cents. I've never taken 3 hour bus rides to work.

Oh no, wait. The opposite.

The poor live in a completely different world from the middle class, who live in a completely different world from the rich. And the philosophers generally live in the world of the rich, to preach to the world of the middle class. For the poor, there's only religion.

An old man once told me that an educated person can suffer shortages but will never be poor. He meant educated in the broadest sense of the word, including what de Botton is talking about. I don't mean to take your suffering away from you, but just to point out that focusing on material things even in the near term is a choice. It doesn't cost anything to build relationships and invest in your mental health. It doesn't even take much time. It just requires conscious effort.

And here's an old man telling you that you absolutely CAN be poor. Poverty is a trap that's very difficult to escape because it saps all of your mental energy [1]. The mental exhaustion just from dealing with the day-to-day on the edge completely stunts your mental and emotional growth and severely limits your ability to respond to opportunities, which makes it even harder to escape. While the rich are learning how to trade in real estate and money markets, and the middle class are learning tricks to make the most of their 401k, the poor are looking for ways to save a few cents on carrots and bread.

Top that all off with the constant victim blaming (I know you don't mean to, but that's basically what you're doing) and complete lack of empathy, and you have a vicious cycle that only the very lucky escape.

I know that HN is big on the fable of the meritocracy, but that's mainly because a not-insignificant chunk of HNers are in the ruling class, and most of the rest are hopeful to enter someday, somehow.

[1] https://phys.org/news/2012-11-poverty-people-focus-short-ter...

I hope you some day will be free of needing to win arguments with strangers on the internet. Peace.

I hope that some day people are actually able to understand the perspective of others instead of just viewing it as a battle to be won or lost

I'm not saying it's nice to be poor, I'm saying it's a matter of perspective. I've met plenty of "poor" people, especially in developing countries who have been way happier (self reported and viewed through my white privilege perspective obviously) than most of my middle class friends. It's not a matter of blaming anybody, but rather an honest attempt to help. Bitterness feeds on itself.

Also, the article is interesting because the underlying assumption here is that long term planning is a good thing. Meanwhile everybody who isn't poor is constantly talking about being more present and living in the "now". Again, I'm not defending this system or proposing any other system, but I'm trying to give another perspective on the issue.

>It seems many of us focused on STEM STEM STEM or COMPUTERS COMPUTERS COMPUTERS in education but perhaps are emotionally infantile to an extent. ... How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets … for what? What is important ? Our job… buying gadgets… traveling..

Steve Jobs always wanted to hire people who had a liberal arts education. He knew there was more to making tech objects than stem.

Unfortunately it's a losing game, by now, the future Steve Jobs-es will have to dig even harder in order to find people with liberal arts education who might also be valuable in some STEM field.

The latest example (and the one that also made me think along those same lines as your post) is this otherwise really interesting Economist article [1] about gender quotas among Finland's teacher corps (like I said, really interesting article). At some point the authors of the study the article is all about define as "more success" when it comes to the pupils involved in said study those kids that later turned out to study "STEM or medicine" (as it shows up in one of the charts, STEM as a "object of desire" is also explicitly mentioned in the article itself).

So, in a way, it looks like we have already conditioned ourselves (and probably our kids) to look at STEM as inherently more "valuable" than a liberal arts education, which will probably mean even less kids choosing that arts education way.

[1] https://archive.ph/IY9BQ

Most schools and universities aim their curriculum at getting jobs in industry. It's been a long time since we could rely on the university system to guide students toward genius or virtue and away from money making rabbit holes.

> It seems many of us focused on STEM STEM STEM or COMPUTERS COMPUTERS COMPUTERS in education but perhaps are emotionally infantile to an extent.

100%. Worse than that, I think we are even encouraged to be computer-like. We are told that AI can be conscious - that we are just a machine. As if emotions/intuition/spirituality are non-existent.

The core problem for me is that the principles that drive most us are not our own - they are installed in us by school, society, etc.

You can take the time to work out what they really should be. Eg is trying to be based in truth a valuable principle? What am I assuming and have not verified? Is the 'golden rule' a principle that I should follow (don't do unto other as I wouldn't have done to me)? What happens when I follow this?

The way I think about it is that when we die, we judge ourselves. You can bullshit your boss, neighbour, partner even - but you can't bullshit yourself. You know why you choose what you choose, and whether this accords with the principles you purport to hold. If you choose according to your heart, whether you believe in life after death or not, there is a value to it in the here and now.

No, money/jobs/[some other provided external goal] isn't everything; being yourself and living authentically according to your heart is.

I agree that intuition and spirituality is completely discounted in western/scientific culture.

It is entirely possible to be a secular spiritualist. Make it a habit to feel one with nature and the world around you, without any supernaturals entering into the picture.

And funnily enough, for all people dunk on experts and say they can rely on themselves instead, it is pretty much the definition of an expert to be a person that has so much experience with something that they have developed good intuition for it. That’s also why everybody is useless as an expert just coming out of school, they may know all the theory but none of the practicalities.

Anyway I just wanted to say that none of this is incompatible with the premise that we’re basically meat based automata that accidentally developed consciousness. I don’t think we’re anywhere near developing general AI but in principle I don’t see why it couldn’t be done.

You are not conscious, stop pretending.

Adrift in a world of my own

Who is adrift?

>spirituality are non-existent.

It is. It doesn't exist.

And yet here we are talking about it, again.

So do we with unicorns.

An extremely common association that forms in the mind when a mind is exposed to the idea of religion.

But regardless: do any conclusions derive from your observation?

My point was: it is an interesting phenomenon whereby people who claim that certain things do not exist seem to have a deep interest in discussing them.

Another interesting phenomenon: there are certain ideas that cause the unforced errors in cognition to spike, and religion and spirituality is one of the more potent ones - it can cause people who are otherwise exceptional at logic to suddenly lose access to those abilities. If you ask me, science should be studying this phenomenon with greater vigour due to its (plausible) causal importance.

> It is. [Spirituality] doesn't exist.

The majority of people on the planet claim to practice some religion / have some spiritual practice.

I think that means spirituality exists, as it's practiced to at least some extent by billions of people every day.

Do you mean the supernatural doesn't exist?

I'd readily grant that most (maybe all?) supernatural claims cannot be falsified, but that doesn't prove they're false.

I recommend a much more limited claim, perhaps reflecting your personal experience, such as "I have found no evidence that anything supernatural exists."

> I'd readily grant that most (maybe all?) supernatural claims cannot be falsified, but that doesn't prove they're false.

What is the meaning of a claim whose truth has no impact on my sense experience?

For many, many people, their sense experience has included some interactions with what they perceive to be the supernatural.

If yours hasn't, then obviously that isn't pertinent for you personally, but it seems wise to me to admit that others have their own experience and their own interpretation of those experiences (often not easily falsified).

A good example is Philip K. Dick's experience of apparently hallucinating a pink beam of light telling him his son needed medical care. He took the kid to the hospital, and found his child had a hernia, IIRC.

could that be coincidence, or his drug-addled subconscious picking up on some subtle behavioral cues from his kid? Yep.

Could it have been something beyond human ken? Also possible.

Can we confirm or falsify either of those possibilities? I don't see how.

> For many, many people, their sense experience has included some interactions with what they perceive to be the supernatural.

How can you perceive the supernatural? If you perceive it, then it’s sense data. So photons and sound waves.

> A good example is Philip K. Dick's experience of apparently hallucinating a pink beam of light telling him his son needed medical care. He took the kid to the hospital, and found his child had a hernia, IIRC.

Not having a good explanation for how you know something does not imply fairies did it.

> If you perceive it, then it’s sense data. So photons and sound waves.

This presumes materialism, which many believers in the supernatural do not grant.

Even in a materialist framing, where the brain is the source of all perception and experience, these things could originate as strictly internal phenomena, not triggered by senses.

It's also conceivable a supernatural being / Simulator could tweak things directly in your brain to communicate, which stays fairly materialist but still allows for non-sense-driven communication.

Are these plausible? Perhaps not. They are conceivable, though.

Your perspective is perfectly valid and rational, but holding yours out as the correct answer won't help you understand perspectives other than yours.

> Not having a good explanation for how you know something does not imply fairies did it.

Since I didn't bring fairies up, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

If you have no good explanation for something, that's not great grounds for saying "I'm sure the true explanation lines up with the way I see the world."

And yes, that cuts both ways, and a little more humility would hurt neither side.

> How can you perceive the supernatural? If you perceive it, then it’s sense data. So photons and sound waves.

You can perceive something, but what you perceive is not necessarily a comprehensive and accurate representation of what may be there.

> Not having a good explanation for how you know something does not imply fairies did it.

True, and the fact that this is true has little bearing on whether the underlying proposition is objectively true (but perhaps beyond humanity's current ability to "know").

inb4 solipsism.

> You can perceive something, but what you perceive is not necessarily a comprehensive and accurate representation of what may be there.

I don’t understand what point you are making here. Please clarify.

> True, and the fact that this is true has little bearing on whether the underlying proposition is objectively true

Agreed. But if you offer the explanation “magical pink laser did it”, then I say, “going to set up some lenses and sinks and mirrors to study this phenomena”, then you say, “nope, it’s magical, your dorky science equipment can never contain it”.

Then what?

Consider two examples:

"Water is wet." - it is true that water is wet, but is that all that water "is"? (Non-comprehensive)

"January 6 was a coup attempt." - it is certainly believed by many to be that, and it was an insurrection (according to the technical definition), but whether it was actually a coup attempt in "base reality" is a function of (among other things) the number of people who genuinely intended to commit a coup. (non-accurate)

> Agreed. But if you offer the explanation “magical pink laser did it”, then I say, “going to set up some lenses and sinks and mirrors to study this phenomena”, then you say, “nope, it’s magical, your dorky science equipment can never contain it”. Then what?

Then I would suggest you ask me to present any supporting evidence for my claim because I have a burden of proof, as I am doing to you here for your claim (with implicit claims made explicit - feel free to criticize my translation):

>> "How can you perceive the supernatural? If you perceive it, then it’s [only] sense data. So photons and sound waves [only and necessarily, nothing else is going on]".

Yes, beside bringing in some money, having spent your life as a programmer will not make you a better person than if you had spent your career solving crossword puzzles.

I guess it depends what you mean by better person. How would being a plumber or electrician make you a better person?

Given jobs in a "healthy" economic system, I don't think anyone should do anything if their only goal is to show they improved society through their work. What do we know about the nuns that would have filled mother Teresa roles if she had not displaced them?

When you are done working for income, if you have more useful skills than a crossword puzzle player they can be used in a ~volunteer role that might not otherwise be filled.

> I guess it depends what you mean by better person. How would being a plumber or electrician make you a better person?

I don't know about those professions. But the job of manager or marketing/salesperson at least gives you interpersonal skills.

Can we please stop usin Mother Theresa as an example of a good person?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa?wpr...

> How many of us write programs, support infrastructure, design gadgets … for what? What is important ? Our job… buying gadgets… traveling..

This isn't limited to STEM and computers.

It goes for almost everybody.

True but STEM still usually lends itself to less social interaction than many other jobs such as education, nursing, arts, etc.

Education and nursing are the outliers, most jobs don't do much in terms of interaction and with wfh becoming the norm for office jobs this is dropping rapidly. The arts are not really a profession, they are a calling more than a means to sustain yourself.

That depends on how you classify arts. I meant it as a catch all for the entire entertainment industry. Related to that are other “creatives” such as advertising. Then a good chunk of people are either politicians, political operatives or lawyers, those are all heavily people oriented jobs.

Edit: Forgot sports and the entire industry around that.

Ah good point. To me arts = artists, not entertainers, but you are totally right they should probably be included. When I think art I think paintings, statues, not movies or books but that's a shortcoming on my end.

Totally understandable, it was poorly worded on my part.

>> How many of us work countless hours for companies whose missions we don’t perhaps even agree with

I did that for many years both as a factory worker and as a software developer. I don't need to spend much time pondering why I act the way I do.

Either nihilism or absurdism has very nice answers for your conundrum.

”Dammit, Jack, we got another one.”

”Another awakening?”

”Yeah.”

”Just do what we always do, make their argument look nihilist or absurdist. Remember to avoid mentioning capitalism and neoconservatism!”

Is this a part of a bigger story or a made-up dialogue created specifically for this post?

The latter, but I’m now seriously considering a career in writing. ;)

> How many of us work countless hours for companies whose missions we don’t perhaps even agree with…

And there you have Marxist Alienation in a nutshell, and a new thematic thread to read though, if you're interested.

It’s been really interesting to watch Hacker News grow up. We spent a long time in adolescent Randianism and have slowly been moving towards a more nuanced understanding of life.

It’s been a over a decade since I read any Marx but I thought alienation of labor was about the worker being alienated from the value of their labor (e.g. I get paid $10/hr to produce widgets that the employers sells for 10x the input costs and I receive none of that value) - I don’t think it was about the emotional connection the laborer had to the (non-economic) value of what was produced.

My understanding is that (amongst other things) Marxist alienation meant that the fruits of your labour are used against you / your interest / your class (as appropriate.) So the company you work for having a mission you oppose is exactly that. A capitalist who greatly marks up your product to resell would obliquely perhaps also meet that description, because paying you little keeps you dependent and stuck on a low wage (and class), while the capitalist maintains themselves in their class advantage. And with the profit from your labour can pay the gendarmes to beat you if you object in a not-well-organised way to that working relationship.

The greater point is alienation from other people - i.e. that such production destroys communal life, seperating us and preventing previously normal social relations (harking back to nomad days.) Now, this interpretation presumes no massive distinction between "early Marx" and "late Marx," but academics now reject a brief French-birthed academic fad decades ago that imagined two Marx's, early and late, with different views.

Whether it's easy to get back to that communal (community/communist) life of the very old days "after the revolution" is a whole 'nother question, of course. The history of self-identified communist societies suggests that it's no cakewalk.

So yes, exploitation is a huge part of the problem, but ending that is a means to an end, to community and a more human life. Marx seemed to want to restrict production (to prevent "overproduction" (recessions) not to keep going towards more and more material wealth.

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