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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
> 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").
> 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”.
"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]".
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Alain de Botton's School of life is... honestly weird. It's really confident and tries to give good advice; but so much of that advice is quite bad, and the channel might overall do more harm than good (for more people than fewer).
I'm a few minutes into Big Joel's takedown and ... it's pretty unimpressive. He's moreso complaining that psychology isn't a hard science, and that it's hard to make objectively proven statements about things like attachment theory as it relates early childhood development to later relationships.
Well, yes, and this is more or less where we're at with Psychology (as I understand it, I'm definitely a lay person): it's hard to make a concrete proof with something as complex as a human.
And Alain's ideas as expressed are certainly not purely his invention - this is pretty mainstream Psychology / Therapy, and borrows a lot from ancient philosophy (with even a dash of Buddhist psychology thrown in).
Specific to this issue: Alain is saying that many times underlying frustrations are not so much about the here and now, but can be related to one's early upbringing and point to frustrations - especially attachment frustrations - from that age. I find that an interesting idea, but it's certainly not ground truth. Nor does it mean that you can't be frustrated with a partner for valid reasons in the present moment. The kind of takedown that Joel makes ("reductive nonsense") is unsophisticated and frankly immature, and certainly not worthy of any more investment of my time.
> The kind of takedown that Joel makes ("reductive nonsense") is unsophisticated and frankly immature, and certainly not worthy of any more investment of my time.
This is what immediately struck me when I started watching the video.
It could be possible that everything Joel is saying is true, and yet, his presentation style comes from a place that feels like the opposite of good faith. His attitude is not one that seems to involve seeking truth/understanding, and he comes across as snarky, bitter, and with an undercurrent of some underlying agenda.
It's a style that I dislike generally, but it seems especially problematic given the subject matter - a topic that requires at least an inkling of intellectual curiosity to explore.
> It could be possible that everything Joel is saying is true, and yet, his presentation style comes from a place that feels like the opposite of good faith. His attitude is not one that seems to involve seeking truth/understanding, and he comes across as snarky, bitter, and with an undercurrent of some underlying agenda.
Yeah, just looking at the titles of his other videos it's pretty clear that's almost certainly what he's doing. It looks like he frequently makes stuff in the genre of "let's hate that otherside thing you hate, and together feel superior for hating it."
I used to watch Alain's videos for a while (back when marginalian was brain pickings).
I think his project is more or less the same Sam Harris' - to extract useful (for some definition) ideas out of traditional religious or other moral systems and to secularise them for modern consumption as part of a project to improve humanity. My background and experience with this kind of thing makes me think that it's a doomed project and slick videos on YouTube is a poor way of teaching these things.
I found the School Of Life’s videos to be compelling, thought-provoking, and insightful when I needed them the most.
I dropped in a few times at critical points in recent years. They helped me look at my current circumstances in a more objective and factual way.
I didn’t necessarily learn anything “new” from their bite-sized videos, but many of them helped me cut through the fog of stress/anxiety. I felt immense relief as they helped me recognise what was really going on behind-the-scenes in my current situation.
I’m thankful for the different perspectives they brought to me, especially when they were so easy to digest at a time when my mind was not able to think as clearly as I’d have liked.
Yes, they generally aren't great for learning new material in depth. But they are great for small refreshers, or just for some probing questions during complex times. They provoke thought and come in a short and to the point format. They aren't the end all be all of philosophy for sure, but they are a communicator of everyday concepts that you can use in your own life
Saw a bit of the first video. I really have no clue about the literature of the impact of childhood experiences in adult relationships, and for his complaint about the lack of references, he provides none either.
Then he moves to the friendship video. His complaint seems to be that the videos simplify and overstate their claims. Which is true. But he doesn't really refute the main point to the video, which is that friendships, by having lower expectations, suffer less (though definitely not always, we all know about toxic friendships) from the more complicated dynamics of romantic relationships. It sounds more like nitpicking. Then he changes from the descriptive presentation of relationships to a normative one (romantic relationships should be "nice"), which misses the point entirely. (Plus the ideia that relationships should be "fun" and "nice" and not also a space for emotional growth where shit comes to top tells me he probably didn't have really intimate relationships).
There is a lot of advice on there and it seems like Big Joel homed in on some of the more recent stuff which is more direct and preachy. For example, there is an interesting video on School of Life that goes into detail regarding the life and philosophy of Baruch Spinoza who among other things claimed it made no sense to pray to God for desirable life outcomes because life and prayer don't work that way. And now because prickly YouTube reviewers who like details more than the big picture are on the scene I should admit that understanding Baruch Spinoza claims prayer has no utility is weird and overconfident life advice that I should be suspicious of? Honestly I think you both missed the point of pondering ideas about life.
He does a lot of media analysis, especially of other YouTube channels. His views are definitely not unbiased, but in this case he provides a counterpoint that people interested in The School of Life might benefit from hearing.
If you're not interested in The School of Life, then it's not worth an hour of your time.
Your mileage may vary, it’s a bit too “contrarian to generate views” for my taste, but check out his video history and see if it might be the kind of thing you’re into.
- All parties are terrible and you're a terrible person if you like parties
- Women date abusive men because they were traumatized as a child, and they avoid nice guys, so be an asshole to women
- You can't be a good person unless you had a shitty time growing up, and people only start families to deal with their own shitty family trauma, so, good luck
- You are doomed to an unhappy marriage. Don't look for someone you like, look for someone you can endure
- People with bad taste were traumatized as children. All Russians and Saudi Arabians have bad taste
- People give self help books a lot of shit, but you should read self help books (Alain sells self help books)
- For dinner you should order children's fish sticks, cranberry juice, and the most expensive dessert, the last two because you feel awkward about ordering the first one, and this will help you on a date
You're getting downvoted, but this is barely a caricature.
Here's the man himself holding forth on interior design. Apparently people who like minimalism are compensating for their inner emotional chaos, and people who like rustic country stylings want a break from being overwhelmed by technology. People who have ornate gold everywhere are terrified of being poor.
It's silly pseudo-psychological nonsense - all opinion, with no empirical basis.
Worse, it ignores the existence of competitive status display and class identification.
Worse than that, he's clearly writing about himself and generalising to other people.
There's an entire book of this. If you want to learn nothing about taste or architecture - but more than you want to know about Alain de Botton - you can read it.
One thing about Alain de Botton that mystifies me is that he was born into a family with 9-digit wealth, and he apparently likes piling up comparatively small sums by monetizing his philosophy habit. Successful authors of multiple books typically write some as an outlet for their genius and some because they need or cannot pass up the money. What motivates him? How much of his writing is outsourced?
According to de Botton he makes money from his work and doesn't have access to the family trust fund.
The UK has a few people - like poverty-cook Jack Monroe - who have faced real financial and emotional challenges and come through them to become inspirational people.
But without becoming Professionally Inspirational™ about it.
de Botton seems like a spoilt dilettante in comparison - an entertainer for the aspirational classes.
IMO someone who has never faced extreme poverty or unusual emotional stress has no business telling others how to live their lives.
I read one of his early books and my takeaway was that the author has lived a very privileged and sheltered life, compared to almost anyone, and so his observations and advice should be taken with a grain of salt.
Alluded in the article: his stuff is categorized as “self-help”. As a social phenomenon, “self-help” is believers-only. Since de Botton’s academically inclined, it’s probably the best of a horrid torrid bunch?
It's certainly not the worst, but I take issue with how overconfident de Botton is, and consequently, how convincing his work can seem to many viewers who take it at face-value without more critical thinking. He's academically inclined but largely self-taught, and his hypotheses are not always as well thought-out as one might expect from an "academic".
> Alluded in the article: his stuff is categorized as “self-help”. As a social phenomenon, “self-help” is believers-only.
From the article:
> De Botton is careful to acknowledge that this line of inquiry might trigger the modern intellectual allergy to the genre of learning dismissively labeled self-help. And yet he reminds us that the quest for self-refinement has always accompanied the human experience and animated each civilization’s most respected intellects — it is there at the heart of the Stoics, and in the essays of Montaigne, and at the center of Zen Buddhism, and in the literary artistry of Proust (whom De Botton has especially embraced as a fount of existential consolation). He aims a spear of simple logic to the irrational and rather hubristic disdain for self-help:
> > To dismiss the idea that underpins self-help — that one might at points stand in urgent need of solace and emotional education — seems an austerely perverse prejudice.
> “The emotionally intelligent person knows that they will only ever be mentally healthy in a few areas and at certain moments, but is committed to fathoming their inadequacies and warning others of them in good time, with apology and charm.”
Is that "wise"? Who reads this and nods?
Self-help is rarely written by successful people. Napoleon Hill (a fraud) was no exception.
It focuses on superficial behavioral and cognitive changes, based on "wisdom" that half the audience will cringe at (see Twitter gurus). The more intellectual kinds of self-help (like De Botton, as opposed to Tony Robbins) essentially help people domesticate themselves, by becoming low energy, excessively self-reflective (which is what the word "neurotic" means) and permanently stuck in their head, as opposed to taking action in the real world.
The more you believe you are afflicted by various subjective, non-clinical, non-diagnosed emotional issues, the more they will consume you. You will be raising waves where there is no wind.
The most effective self-help is either the Lindy kind (reading the Bible; joining a Buddhist monastery), or just aligning your behavior with what you want out of life, without caring for the "childhood reasons" for your behavior. "Self-awareness" is a lie; you are just projecting meaning and patterns where none exists. The ultimate embodiment of this navel-gazing is Lacanian psychoanalysis, which has enormous suicide rates. Just reflect on whether your behavior is aligned with your goals, and choose to change your behavior accordingly, without imagining that you need to change an entire machinery within your mind beforehand.
I find it really hard to say anything at all about Alain's work. It's such a nothing burger.
In the work of his I've encountered, he regularly quotes old philosophers without adding anything new, and trying to apply the knowledge of old in new ways. Reading old philosophers and engaging with their work directly, produces the effect of transforming it into your own understanding, you don't need a middleman to re-apply it for you.
His work feels like someone writing as it were a performance, rather than an act of discovery.
I really enjoy Alain's work, but your comment made me think it might be because I'm really unfamiliar with old philosophers. Would you mind pointing me to the ones you're referring to and whose work is approachable for a newcomer?
All you need to know about Alain de Botton is that he's a self-help guru. What I like about his writings is that they elucidate a position which you realize is either completely obvious or probably nonsense, and there you have a jumping off point to figure things out for yourself.
Alain’s School of Life has been excellent for me. Mostly introducing me to well known philosophers, psychologists and summary of their ideas. It fascinated me that challenges analysed by thinkers a century or more ago apply to me today. There I discovered stuff like - 19th century idea how modern man would not need religion and would find meaning in education, art, chosen profession - and here we are none the wiser; Emile Durkheim’s 19th century analysis of people heading for life of opportunity in the cities… and getting more depressed; How differences between Catholic and Protestant Europe could be shaping our approach to work today...
Shame my introduction to philosophy happens through a YouTube channel and was not part of my education, but I guess needs some life experience to appreciate it.
If this makes you feel better, I studied philosophy in high school (rather common in Italy), and it was 100% history of philosophy. We spent inane amounts of time on presocratic debates on whether water, air, or apeiron was the fundamental element of nature, then another year on the middle ages, and when things got relevant for modern life (Freud, Nietzsche) we stopped, and never got to the existentialists, Popper and contemporaries.
I find it amusing that the author of the School of Life is meant to be an example of existential maturity - their videos are very, very opinionated at best.
> Our energies are overwhelmingly directed toward material, scientific, and technical subjects and away from psychological and emotional ones.
So little was established without a doubt about psychological and emotional stuff that there's absolutely no wonder people focus their efforts on other more material fields.
People just choose to learn the domains where there's a lot to learn not just a lot to ponder.
As someone who has taken a conscious expressed interest in becoming intimately familiar with the world of social interaction and emotion, critically examining this mindset is the first step toward realizing that growth. The "measurable equals real" assumption while a fine heuristic, is just that, a generalization useful for making quick judgements, but leaves a lot on the table - empathy, emotion, personal interaction among them.
Maybe you haven't had the experience of feeling perpetually unable to connect with people in an emotional capacity and the ennui of an over quantified and systematized mode of being. Like many others, I have. The difference is striking. Dropping an absolute reliance on Cartesian rationality opened the door for real human connection. What I gained by balance, I'd never willingly give up.
The models of the world that we construct are very, very rough approximations. Don't hold on to them too tightly. They may be useful, but they are wrong in many important ways. There is always more to learn about the world and its vast complexity.
Emotions are as important as analytical thought. They are another form of information processing -- they aren't arbitrary. Thought doesn't occur without emotion. You need both. This can be a scary and difficult lesson to learn if one has difficult emotions that have been suppressed. It took me years to work through suppressed emotions, and I'm not fully done yet. A good therapist can help, but they can be hard to find.
Don't take yourself too seriously :) Be gentle and compassionate whenever possible. Especially to yourself. We treat our friends with kindness and love, but ourselves with bitterness and hate -- try to treat yourself like your own best friend.
Ask yourself -- and continue asking as the years go by -- what is a good life? Try to live like that.
Humans aren't meant to be alone. We evolved as a social species. Seek out others to spend quality time with. Forming connections can be difficult in the modern world, but one good social bond can change your life.
---
The above was a very quick brain dump. Hopefully it is helpful in some way :)
I can, but they are so specific to my circumstances, that it would not help. Sorry. I truly do wish you find your own path and would be thrilled to hear how you achieve it. :)
> The difference is striking. Dropping an absolute reliance on Cartesian rationality opened the door for real human connection.
I'm sorry. I'm not abandoning method and the process specifically designed for avoiding lying to yourself. Because, you know, I might lie to myself. More than I do now.
Science and rationality are the best tools of constructing accurate models of reality, both internal and external.
But it says nothing of purpose. However if you combine it with nihilism or absurdism you get a pretty robust framework for comfortably and efficiently tackling challenges of human condition.
I'm specifically getting at the application of Cartesian rationality[1] to interpersonal relationships as a misstep. Apply it to other domains without hesitation.
1. Don't mistakenly overgeneralize this to all rationality. I specified for a reason.
Our family is outside the norm in practicing millennia old religious traditions that include daily practice of gratitude and forgiveness. I have found it to be amazingly useful for passing down ‘emotional intelligence’ and existential maturity to the next generation (and also keeping everything in life in perspective).
This essay seems to suggest that the secular world lacks these practices for passing down EI, because many of the premises were foreign to my lived experience.
For example, nightly family prayer where everyone is given the opportunity to contemplate/share what they are grateful for that day. Also a time set aside to practice saying sorry/reconciliation. Contemplating the beatitudes, etc.
Amazingly fruitful practice that only takes 15 min or so. By the time the kids graduate from the home, they are quite mentally/emotionally prepared for the world from the practice :)
My own impression with Alain’s approach to self-taught mental well-being through intellectual pursuit:
It isn’t very actionable. I’d rather have a method that works for non-intellectuals too, because it lets me not think. One that says “have a glass of lemon water in the morning.” and not tell you that it has some physical health benefits, but that building morning routine is crucial to starting off right... that way I can detach my intellect and my ego.
The School of Life is really interesting, and I've read some of Alain De Botton's previous work. I still have to wrap my mind about whether I should really dive deep into his stuff, or not.
Any of you knows his work extensively, and can provide an opinion?
> exponential progress in the material and technological fields
combined with perplexing stasis in the psychological one.
That's not an accident. Nor a failing in the many timeless tools of
emotional education - literature, drama and other arts. It's
deliberate and systematic. Ever since Edward Bernays the power of Wall
Street has been directed at stripping our emotional centres of
everything but blind selfish desire. Late capitalism depends on
arrested emotional development. Indeed, I think it was Adam Phillips
who said "Capitalism is for children". The object of a consumer
culture is psychoanalysis in reverse, to make the conscious
unconscious and to celebrate and harness the irrational impulses of
fear, shame, greed and so on. That's what sells stuff.
I'm not sure the marketing people are deliberately selling
despair. That would be spectacular foot marksmanship. As Bill Hicks
said (of AC/DC or Spooky Tooth) - "what rock band wants their fans to
actually kill themselves?"
Despair may be a late onset symptom, but on the whole it's joyous
self-invention, instant gratification, ephemeral experience, and other
kinds of microwavable self-stroking that's being pushed. Nice as they
are, convenient, zero-effort mind candies give a quick rush but no
lasting sustenance. Hence Adam Phillips's comment, I guess.
I think that implies a belief in a total dominance power hierarchy (with absolute power at the apex of one or many). God, USA#1, world conspiracies, lizard men, etcetera. Personally, I haven’t seen any evidence that exists. If complete power domination exists why would it be hidden, and isn’t most everyone powerless to fight against omnipotence? To fix capitalism in this case would require becoming part of the apex, which seems unlikely.
Another belief could be that the actions of the reptile brainstems of 8 billion people create outcomes that result in emergent system behaviours that are bizarre and unpredictable (from the perspective of a simple human). If capitalism is a systematic outcome of billions, then to fix it requires systematic changes to how humans act. Education? Fascism? Enlightenment? As a starting point, we can try to understand how emergent systems occur, regardless of how complex that task is, however the cyclomatic nature of human systems is that the systems change and become more complex as we discover anything about them!
Emergent systems are cool to understand and all, but don't forget: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” - Adam Smith
Actually, it's sort of a proven conspiracy. Edward Bernays (Freud's nephew and student) went to America and basically invented modern advertisement. His system of propaganda found its way back to the likes of Goebbels and other unsavory types.
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons… who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."
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