Reasons not to become famous (2020)
tim.blog
tim.blog
The irony is that he doesn't discuss that he could stop all of this, within a relatively instant moment. Just stop being famous. Stop posting on social media, bring down your podcast and blog and just go live a normal life doing a regular job. Some celebrities can't just quit but at Tims level he surely can.
But he won't, he won't even discuss that possibility here because clearly all of these drawbacks are nothing compared to the two things fame does bring which is dopamine and money. It's also interesting he doesn't openly mention that he's also rich as hell now, and notwithstanding all the supposedly charitable work he's doing benefits greatly from his money. Like dude are you dedicating your life to help others or just to get another dopamine hit from it while still spending obscene amounts on yourself?
I was thinking of taking a vacation and couldn't bring myself to book a ticket to Europe because it felt wasteful to spend so much money and carbon just for sight seeing. I question if people like Tim ever think that. I'm more interested in an introspection about that, instead of another conveniently timed piece on being famous just days after a charade by the kings of such charlatanism Harry.
Reread your post and go take a good look in the mirror, you need it.
It's not like you can delete all the references to your name and past actions from the web.
As long as people know your name, and the fact that you're rich, most of the threats on his list remain.
Even if he stops posting today, and deletes everything he has control over, he'd still be all over the net. Easy target for truly malicious people.
As for you my friend, go book that vacation for yourself, life is rather short.
Best regards.
Is that a trend? Why is that?
So now they have all decided to move to Austin to do the same there.
We used to say 'keep austin weird', but last I was there (and this was back in 2018 or so) I was working on the new high-rises downtown.
Prices at local hotspots were insane, scooters running pedestrians off the sidewalks, 6th street on weekends was just a different kind of crowd (techbros). Rent was through the roof (the high rise we worked on had a rooftop pool, rooftop parking, etc) but place was already booked full.
Back then the number of California plates was huge and growing daily, as did the number of homeless and displaced. I knew a crew who moved to San Antonio and surrounding areas, hours away, because with increased commute and gas prices it was still cheaper than renting anywhere in Austin.
It literally is starting to look like San Francisco, where you have all these luxury condos/apts downtown and they are surrounded by homeless people everywhere.
Millions of people listen to Tim Ferriss’ podcast because they enjoy it, or think they can learn from it. At that scale you necessarily attract some crazy people, just like pop stars and politicians do. Your suggestion that he could just abandon his life’s work is bad and judgmental.
Reasonable by what standard? How is it not outrageously selfish to add extra carbon to the atmosphere which absolutely does “contribute to the destruction of the planet”.
Do you honestly think there are zero consequences to burning further fossil fuels?
Posting on HN generates extra carbon, eating out generates extra carbon, everything generates extra, unnecessary, carbon.
While you worried about this guy going on a vacation, Germany approved dismantling a wind turbine farm to make space for a new coal mine :)
Only 11% of the world's population travelled by air in 2018, with at most 4% taking international flights, and 1% of the world's population accounting for more than half of total emissions.[2]
Passenger air travel is projected to grow by about 44% by 2050,[3] and will probably take up an even more substantial slice of overall emissions by then because technologies to decarbonize air travel (other than direct carbon capture) do not yet exist.
The argument you are making is probably least compelling when applied to air travel compared to any other form of consumerism, and HN's readership (generally speaking) is uniquely culpable here.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-aviation
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802...
[3] https://www.eurocontrol.int/article/aviation-outlook-2050-ai...
I assume the answer is going to come in the form of reducing emissions from a typical flight and extracting CO2 from the air.
If you believe the total carbon emissions pose a problem, then you have to believe your personal contribution is a problem as well if you you are intellectually honest. The sum of the parts add up to the whole.
You can make an argument that maybe it's not the highest priority for public action if you were to stack rank issues, fine. However, to to claim an individual contribution is exactly zero is incorrect.
So I'm not surprised to find that just last week you wrote:
> So ever since lockdown I've pretty much spend like 18 hours a day on my bed: I sleep there and I do most of my work from there, including meetings, debugging and mild coding. [1]
You judge others for traveling, but you don't leave your bed for 18 hours each day? I'm just at a loss for words.
You're free to live how you like, but if a friend of mine decided to live your lifestyle I would stage an intervention. Not out of condescension, but out of concern. Mental health issues, when left unattended, can spiral out of control. When your brain is sick everything gets warped and twisted and you might wake up a decade later not knowing what happened or where all the time went.
Travel?
Regarding the carbon, thank you. I cannot fathom why so many people still act as if there are no costs beyond the dollar value and consequently don’t feel any guilt whatsoever about the externalities stemming from unnecessary flights.
No matter how much you’re willing to sacrifice personally, most others won’t and even if they did, the problem still exists.
I travel by plane and I don’t feel the least bit guilty.
Should I forgo my modern living entirely because of my carbon footprint? Where do you draw the line?
I haven’t found that it causes me to forgo modern living. As another commenter pointed out, international flight is reserved for a very small portion of the population. I’ve installed solar panels, electrified my home to avoid natural gas, I generally don’t eat meat or other animal products (perhaps the largest single act of low carbon lifestyle), and drive fewer than 7k km per year. I don’t feel deprived at all.
What’s shocking to me is that with the forest fires and smoke filled air, more people aren’t doing the same thing, but I guess that’s the tragedy of the commons.
Other than clicking on the link and reading the header, I’m still not sure who he is other than what appears to be a popular podcast host.
Celebrity is so relative especially in todays society.
In the early 90’s, there were literally three international celebrities.
- Sports: Michael Jordan
- Music: Michael Jackson
- Movies: Arnold Swarzenegger…maybe?
This Tim Ferriss has a following and is popular with some but he’s definitely not famous enough to warrant the post.
Yet he's famous enough to warrant a death threat once a month, which is the point.
I'm not even sure what you mean by "warrant the post". Nobody has to justify writing a blog post.
That is true of a huge number jobs and social roles. Are your job or boss or management sometimes really unpleasant? Quit. Having second thoughts about poopy diapers and sleepless nights? Lots of places have no-fault ways to give your baby up for adoption. Etc., etc., etc.
More generally, your seeming resentment of Jim, his fame, and his lifestyle feel pretty orthogonal to the serious Health & Safety topic of his post.
An oxymoron. The above is probably what kicks people out of politics into an oblivion.
Both Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears come to my mind as having become enormously popular (and rich on paper) very quickly but lacking the power and support to distance themselves from people that were bad for them.
I remember the story where Amy Winehouse served tea and cake to the Paparazzi waiting outside in the cold for her. This could have been a brilliant joke if she was above all this, but we know she wasn't. She was feeding the predators that were after her and that despite having enough money to pay for protection.
Maybe this is not as good a life as all of us nobodies can have but I'm convinced it's a million times better than that of B-list celebrities who can neither have a social life in the real world nor afford to build their own world.
- Bill Murray
I wonder why?
Based on his blog post 'revealing' that he had being depressed and suicidal, it sure doesn't sound like it.
That post describes a one-year period (possibly less), in 1999, that he overcame on his own by taking some time off from work. He then writes that this 'time off' was when he went to Japan and supposedly became a sumo wrestling champion.
A therapist? Medication? A call to a help line? Depression that was debilitating or that lasted longer than a few months? Not for Tim Ferris(TM).
When I was younger, Tim Ferris was an inspiration. Now, I take everything he says with the most enormous grain of salt imaginable.
Tim Ferris is a charlatan. And he is very good at it.
There may be an argument that being famous is like being advertised to the widest possible group and that your matches should improve.
But the argument I'd make having seen how fame attracts people is that those who manage to get near you appear on the surface to be high quality matches but beneath the surface are low quality matches.
Also, stalkers. Do not underestimate these, and remember Shakespeare that what seems foul is fair and what seems fair is foul.
There are good reasons famous people date famous people, a kind of mutual safety.
Or maybe you're sitting on some fool-proof research you have yet to share, that proves this theory of yours?
There's a hierarchy of needs, and met needs are not that important any more. i.e. "money is only important if you don't have any" applies to most things, not just money.
Of course also, the "need for fame" is not universal. When taken to extremes, it may even be a pathological outlier. As is the need for lots of attention from large numbers of potential sexual partners. As is the need for the second billion dollars.
Give me a mediocre urban anonymous existence with a handful of real friends and family, software to hack on, occasional nights out.
Fake friends, wondering if your partner chose you for the money, suspicion about peoples motives, narcissistic self obsession, worry about losing the things you got, people judging you.
Urgh no thanks.
Being a deeply average anonymous nobody is the ideal life in the 21st century.
I agree, but I’d say an early retired average nobody is even better.
I don't think he understands, still. See the Mexican fisherman [0].
[0] https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherma...
1. Be poor and not know where your next meal will be. 2. Be a minority in a place with almost no rights for minorities. 3. Stripped of your freedoms and have things done to you with no recourse. 4. Born in a conflict torn region and stuck in a refugee camp. 5. Have disease with insurmountable chronic pain and no medical care.
I can go on but hopefully made the point.
Yes you did.
This was unnecessary pedantry.
Fame can get you 1) and 3), but it's not going to make you happy of fulfilled by itself. It brings a lot of downsides with it though.
But it does bring "monetisation opportunities" such as e.g. giving paid talks to conference audiences, podcast guest, "write" a book, reality TV contest show participant, or appearing is commercials for gimmicky kitchen goods. You'd still have to decide if you're OK with doing that and then follow through; several of those options give me the ick. For a low B-list celebrity, they will still have to hustle shamelessly for money. Just to keep up with the lifestyle that is expected of you.
Money might get you 2, 3, and 4 though. You are honestly more likely to have #3 if you already have some money to work with.
"Tim", first name basis.
Like when they talk about Gates and they say "Bill".
When you speak of someone without a title- if not formal, you just use the name. Johnny Depp isn't Mr Depp unless it's super formal.
In fact to me it seems far more abnormal calling Bill Gates just 'Gates'.
Maybe it's a cultural thing?
I suspect the reason people say "Bill" and "Tim" is because these companies have 100K+ employees for whom using their first name is the norm and expected (for example would be weird to watch management use anything else with each other at all hands meetings), and they do it in public too, so other people on the tech internet do it too.
I feel this really hard, but at the same time, at least when single you can work towards solving problems, which sometimes is completely impossible with a relationship if it's the wrong relationship.
I would also argue most or all of the "single" problems are ones that can be solved with the right outlook and enough self work.
Yes, fame like everything else in life is not only positive, but gangster fame is not like Tom Hanks fame.
You don't think Tom Hanks gets death threats and other crazy stuff?
Think about Rebecca Schaeffer: "At the age of 21, she was shot and killed by Robert John Bardo, a 19-year-old obsessed fan who had been stalking her." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Schaeffer
Probably Tom Hanks gets a lot of crazy stuff. But, it is perhaps more common for a scammer to be killed by a fan or someone else than Tom Hanks type person to be killed.
> Think about Rebecca Schaeffer
How many Rebecca Schaeffer lookalike murders occur per year versus scammer murders per year?
I read the 4HWW when it came out and I liked it but I agree that it was a bit over the top and chest-puffing. I think Tim says that himself these days. I listen to some of his interviews every now and then and to me, he comes across as a humble and genuinely interested and curious man who means well.
This blog post doesn't state that he wishes he wasn't famous, it tells you some facts that you might not have considered if you have that same desire. I do not want to be famous myself but I still found it interesting.
I could equally twist this back around to you—ooo, you know who Ferriss is and read his books and watched his interviews, suddenly you're a lifehacker and can present pithy soundbites and "techniques for producing 15-minute female orgasms" if his 4-Hour Body book is anything to go by.
But there's no smugness or arrogance on your behalf either, right? So why assume it of others?
expertentipp: "Tim, I have no idea who you are and don't care about you. Hope it will makes you feel better." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36019501
wigster: "well i'm not sure if this would make him feel better or worse, but I have no idea who he is" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36019448
KrugerDunnings: "Who the fuck is Tim Farris?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36019338
Currently, there are 4 root-level comments that state the same in different words so no, not in particular.
I don't see how your not knowing about him or his old blog post proves in any way that fame is fleeting, though.
Person in question makes some sensationalist claims, sees some success in selling techniques to achieve those claims. Proceeds to rinse and repeat formula of what will get attention and continue riding the wave.
Doesn't look all that "famous", let alone anymore: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Tim%20Fe...
Currently at an interest score of 16 versus a peak of 100 in January 2017.
Whilst he may have briefly been a hot topic, if you weren't exposed to him/his brand/his ideas at the height of his relative fame, you're statistically less likely to have been since. People having not heard of him seems a given looking at the interest graph—nothing to be smug about.
For someone who is not being smug and knows nothing about the author, you make some pretty bold statements.
As per https://tim.blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how-i-gained-... : "You will learn: How to lose 20 pounds in 30 days (without exercise), how to triple your testosterone, techniques for producing 15-minute female orgasms, and more."
Please. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3091878
Following the 4-Hour Body book, he did a 4-Hour Workweek book. As per https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/4pat3x/the... : "The title is misunderstood a lot, it's an attention grabber. Edit: he actually admits in his podcast that it's purely market research about the catchiest title that lead to what it is."
Ferriss openly admits to doing x because it gains attention and was continuing to ride the wave, as evidenced by the Google Trends graph, even going so far as to name his next book another "4-Hour" thing for attention.
So no, I don't think my statements are bold, and I don't think I'm smug. Frankly, I don't give a fuck who Tim Ferriss is, but I have a problem with telling me I'm something I'm not when you don't know me nor how I feel.
Call the article posted to HN what it is: a puff piece for a known self-promoter.
You can't claim to be famous if Pauly Shore has you beat 100:1 in terms of being recognized in public.
Tim is just a good hustler and self promoter of what he is selling.
> I weighed 152 lbs. for four years of high school, and after training in tango in Buenos Aires in 2005, that had withered to 146 lbs. Upon returning to the US, I performed an exhaustive analysis of muscular hypertrophy (growth) research and exercise protocols, ignoring what was popular to examine the hard science. The end result? I gained 34 lbs. of muscle, while losing 3 lbs. of fat, in 28 days.
He's written a series of human optimization guides, including the 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman. Totally legit.
Ultimately we have no before/after DEXA scan confirming any muscle gain in any timeframe, and just Tim's word and some questionable before/after photos. And even with copious steroids, 34 lbs. of muscle in a month would be insane.
He at best looks to me like he gained 10lbs, at best.
Gaining 34 lbs of muscle in a month is impossible to do naturally. Gaining 34 lbs of muscle in a year would be incredibly unlikely to happen naturally. Gaining half of that in a month of blasting Tren would only happen to hyper-responders. He’s definitely lying about that, and probably juicing too if he did anything close to that over anything close to that period.
Hardly shocking though a guy who wrote the four hour work week is a bullshitter.
No, he's not a bulshitter. It's just his "hustle." Totally different. Or in the YC/PG sense, he's a bit "naughty": http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html
Right now, you're being mean (and I guess I am, as well), and we should be mindful of the fact that Mean People Fail: http://www.paulgraham.com/mean.html
Nice people like Tim succeed.