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Comment by tsunamifury | Hacker News Reader

This essay was my bible at Google. It openly matched internal hierarchy and our own secret GDNA testing results illustrated it directly showing VP and above scored highly on the need to dominate over discover truth etc.

The problem was to my existential horror: i couldn’t use this knowledge to get anywhere beyond clueless. Because super large western organizations either purposefully hide information or are full of stupidity so much that they can’t share it.

I never could climb to any kind of safety —- until I realized that was the point. There is no safety. You only climb if you recognize death is inevitable, leaving those who want safety behind.

So now that I’m further up: Peter Turchins elite over production is my new nightmare

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I resonate with your comment but completely reject the conclusion. Death is inevitable, who cares how high you climbed on a ladder you didn't define? Why is that meaningful?

Money is nice, dont get me wrong, but to value the climbing itself?

It’s interesting. That’s all. Boredom is death for me.

Doing hard things is tautologically good.

Hard war over easy peace, then?

It's more like, good things happen to be harder while bad things are more often easy. So being able and eager to do hard things lets you actually choose (and then hopefully you choose the good stuff).

> Doing hard things is tautologically good.

Bahaha yeah overwork is virtue, sure

I didn't say anything about "overwork." No need to make assumptions (or just make things up).

Bullshit. Many things are hard because they shouldn't be done and systems have evolved to make the thing hard for good reason.

I see you’ve probably never spent time in a large, ossified bureaucracy.

There are plenty of things in the world that are hard only because they’ve been made difficult by people who either don’t want them done, don’t understand, or greatly benefit from their not being done, but would be a fantastic idea to do.

Such as get a new coffee maker for our office, but it would take two years, multiple committees, and an electrical study in order to do so. No i am not kidding

They said "many things", not "everything".

How so?

The safety, if that’s what you wish to attain, lies in living as frugally as you can while vesting your RSUs for as long as you can bear, and GTFO of the rat race.

This is a lie for smooth brains who think they’ve figured out the “hack” to the system.

Usually resulting in living as if you worked a menial job not having a family and essentially working hard to not achieve anything. Then mostly living the rest of your life consuming your own smugness.

On the contrary, the frugal option is quite often the cooler, more fulfilling one:

- riding a bike instead of driving (makes you fitter, hotter, increases mating potential)

- cooking food (impressive to friends and potential mates, makes you and your family healthier)

- building furniture, tech stuff, whatever (your stuff is customized to your own tastes and situation)

- playing music in a band (get paid for a Saturday night out instead of paying for it)

- helping friends and asking friends for help in return (builds social ties)

"just build your furniture and suddenly you'll have millions in the bank"

Guy... come on, he was talking about smug money FIRE types not 'living a meaningful life'. in fact they are usually the types that have no friends because it's expensive.

FIRE types are exactly the people who do the things I said. And no, you won't suddenly have millions but you will eventually have millions.

> Peter Turchins elite over production is my new nightmare

The Lamborgini Urus is a sign of the apocalypse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6_Z0yGwtx0

Conveying information via 10min+ videos that people preusmably watch at 1.5x+ speed is also a sign of the apocalypse.

As the essay points out, we losers have only two paths out of loserdom. The first is to leverage sociopathic tendencies, to scheme and maneuver and accrue power (probably as a minion to an actual sociopath, I don’t think transformation happens except at the early stage of a career). The second is to check out and coast, tacitly improving our position without actually striking a new bargain or finding any safety.

My own losing trap, which I think is common, is to try to periodically make sense of the organization and map a logical path forward for myself. This never works. My career progress in the organization has actually come about through sheer accident and/or lucky association.

Same mostly, you can increase your luck a small bit by the strategy you outline, but then you reach the limit of Elite Overproduction where your competence will work against your lucky pretty fast (Elites start to hate the competent and dont want them around since they make them look bad)

Man does this hit home.

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