Labor transitions, capital investment, and the societal meaning we all crave

[MachineGhost]

PS - All true, but having more time gives us more choice.  We can certainly make bad choices and waste time, and there are perhaps innate tendencies in humans that lead to sub-optimal behavior.

I think it was Richard Dawkins who said that humans are "wired" to like sugar and sex.  But that Nature did not anticipate saccharine and masturbation.

That's not quite right.  Masturbation is a naturalistic activity practiced by countless of mammals, but saccharine certainly isn't natural.

I agree with PS that the finger needs to be pointed at the system.  It is the nurturing environment that either abuses or disabuses our meatbag hardwiring.  But disabusing seems rather anathema to our rugged individualist, anti-authority philosophy.  Face it, we may all just wind up in a bleak Philip K. Dick future.  The trick, I think, is not to worry about the Great Unwashed who just aren't going to make it past being an addicted sugar-eating, masturbating VR fiend, but focus on keeping yourself as a detached NeoLuddite who "lives on the land" in the "outside".  Unless you really get off on the futility of trying to save others from themselves...

In some ways The Bern represents a protoype movement against everything we currently dislike about the system.  It wouldn't surprise me that the only people that actually do like the current system are the transnational elites that absurdly profit from it.

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=MachineGhost]I agree with PS that the finger needs to be pointed at the system.  It is the nurturing environment that either abuses or disabuses our meatbag hardwiring. [/quote]

Except that "detached neoluddites" living off the land generally have to have internal combustion engines, solar panels, and other trappings of industrial civilization.  Even an axe head represents a tremendous technological achievement.

If you read any of the 19th century lets-abandon-somebody-on-an-island novels (e.g. Robinson Crusoe, Mysterious Island, Swiss Family Robinson, or even the film Castaway), they always get "abandoned" with a crapload of stuff.

[quote=MachineGhost]That's not quite right.  Masturbation is a naturalistic activity practiced by countless of mammals, but saccharine certainly isn't natural.[/quote]

I think Dawkins was speaking from a natural selection standpoint.  Sugar = food (rare, desirable food in nature) and sex = reproduction.  There would be minimal selection pressure against masturbation since mammalian males typically produce an abundance of sperm.  And many mammals, in general, have a bunch of time to kill and are clever enough to figure out complex learned behavior.

The fundamental function of the reproductive apparatus (even in mammals) is to make babies.  The fact that much of that effort is "wasted" reproductively doesn't change the fundamental basis for its existence.  And of course there are countless aspects of reproductive behavior that transcend the reproductive basis.

Given the subject matter and for bonus points, why did Dorothy Parker call her canary "Onan"?

[l82start]

Given the subject matter and for bonus points, why did Dorothy Parker call her canary "Onan"?

  lol 

[Mountaineer]

Given the subject matter and for bonus points, why did Dorothy Parker call her canary "Onan"?

A dyslexic person might answer "Because Onan was one billionth of the canary population."

... M

[Gabe]

This is one of the most meaningful threads I've read on this forum.

When I have some time to reflect and write, I'd like to say more. But for now I'll leave this: http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/career-advice/.

If you don't know him, Moxie Marlinspike is a renowned InfoSec guy that's an anarchist, but also extremely successful professionally. I was at a tipping point a few months ago and that essay was instrumental in getting my head on the same page as my emotions, leading me to finally pull the trigger and quit my very chill and cushy job as a nigh unfireable software engineer.

[WiseOne]

I finally got around to going through this most excellent thread.  PS thank you for starting this one!

My take:  It is possible to design a high quality lifestyle, but it increasingly requires significant life-hacking abilities, resourcefulness, and innovation due to the inherent increased complexity of a service-based "productivity-enhanced" economy.  If you don't "life-hack" successfully, you end up with a set of default choices that add up to terrible, and that is the unfortunate result for most people.  Think about how easy it is to screw yourself in the investing world, for example, and how much initiative is required to implement even a simple balanced portfolio.

To some extent, the "maturing" of society and bloating of government is responsible, but there has also been that huge foreign outsourcing of jobs and industries that occupy the gap between burger-flipping at McDonald's and highly competitive professions/positions, and that are accessible to people who don't have the intelligence or creativity to start their own businesses or become lawyers.  A healthy society needs these positions, and it's disturbing to me that only two not-so-viable presidential candidates understand this.  GE's CEO can go f*** himself - Sanders is right!!

I read a sad local story the other day. The cops busted a guy for illegally running a home engine repair business. Evidently the noise was annoying the neighbors.
...
It all just seemed so sad.

Indeed.  This person made a crucial mistake though.  In my neighborhood growing up, there was a guy who ran a similarly illegal car repair business out of his home, and periodically new families would move in and complain to the town.  He's still fixing cars to this day, and it's for the simple reason that he's far and away the best mechanic in town and he has always serviced the cars of the mayor, council members, police and fire chiefs.

Sometimes a little corruption is a good thing :-)

[MachineGhost]

GE's CEO can go f*** himself - Sanders is right!!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

[Pointedstick]

My take:  It is possible to design a high quality lifestyle, but it increasingly requires significant life-hacking abilities, resourcefulness, and innovation due to the inherent increased complexity of a service-based "productivity-enhanced" economy.  If you don't "life-hack" successfully, you end up with a set of default choices that add up to terrible, and that is the unfortunate result for most people.  Think about how easy it is to screw yourself in the investing world, for example, and how much initiative is required to implement even a simple balanced portfolio.

Exactly.

I think it can be hard for people like us sometimes to realize how hard this is for many to most. "Lifehacking" comes easily to people with reasonably logical minds who use their brains for a living. This is really the major problem: the default choices for society are terrible, and funnel the unwary into overconsumption, poverty, debt slavery, unhealthy food, dependence on motor vehicles, and vapid, brain-rotting entertainment. We sometimes marvel at people who fall into these traps, wondering how they let it happen, but it's so much more common that I think we imagine.

Another problem is that even if you lifehack like there's no tomorrow, it may keep you from falling into those traps, but it still won't really bring you meaning. You could have an 80% savings rate, net worth of a million dollars, and hours and hours of free time every day, but if you don't have any friends and family nearby or a job that you feel is important for your community and society, you're still going to be fundamentally unhappy. Without anyone living and working in it, even the most magnificent castle is revealed for what it really is: a gloomy and depressing stone prison.

[MWKXJ]

Sometimes a little corruption is a good thing :-)

And perhaps a little inefficiency as well.

As a thought, contrast the Venice of Italy with the Venice of California: http://allday.com/post/4478-the-hidden- ... alifornia/.  Whether the paved-over or the gondola-ed Venice is thought of as superior would likely depend on the extent to which one conflates "efficient" with "good".  As an example of someone prone to "paving over", witness those who obsess over sports statistics to the point that the game itself is reduced to a mere exercise in quantification.  As an example of someone preferring the "gondolas", look to those fastidious and voluntary participants in the seemingly endless Japanese tea ceremony.  The former would seem to do things for the sake of something else, while the latter treats the act as its own end.  Hell, take my mandolin.  I got out of it what I put into it.  Hand the instrument to my tangible-goal-oriented little brother, on the other hand, and it would likely end up in a pawn shop or a dumpster within the month.

Perhaps little rituals, harmless superstitions, thesisless stories, etc., are not only the inefficient things that thicken novels and quicken lives, but also act as a counterbalance to the march toward extreme efficiency.

[Pointedstick]

Perhaps little rituals, harmless superstitions, thesisless stories, etc., are not only the inefficient things that thicken novels and quicken lives, but also act as a counterbalance to the march toward extreme efficiency.

In other words… culture.

This is especially hard for us Americans because our unique cultural history is shallow to nonexistent. From the very beginning, American culture began as a melange of northern European culture, adding on bits from West Africa, the Iberian peninsula, etc. So we have no long and great cultural history for our traditionalists to fall back on. A Japanese traditionalist can wear a kimono, do tea ceremonies, live in a timber frame house with a beautiful tile roof, etc. What does an American traditionalist have to look back on? What characteristically American rituals and practices are there to reminisce about and proclaim that we should return to? Frontiersmanship, maybe? Hunting? To a certain extent, we Americans are making up our culture as we go along, and this lack of a long historical anchoring makes it inherently difficult for us to feel proud of genuine Americanness.

[Pointedstick]

Yes, I think there's something to that. It's definitely always been a part of what makes America America. However I think it's important for us to distinguish efficiency from speed. We have a tendency to confuse them; things that are faster aren't necessarily more efficient. In fact it's sometimes the opposite, if their speed comes with a host of unwelcome side effects that have to be dealt with.

[MachineGhost]

Perhaps little rituals, harmless superstitions, thesisless stories, etc., are not only the inefficient things that thicken novels and quicken lives, but also act as a counterbalance to the march toward extreme efficiency.

In other words… culture.

This is especially hard for us Americans because our unique cultural history is shallow to nonexistent. From the very beginning, American culture began as a melange of northern European culture, adding on bits from West Africa, the Iberian peninsula, etc. So we have no long and great cultural history for our traditionalists to fall back on. A Japanese traditionalist can wear a kimono, do tea ceremonies, live in a timber frame house with a beautiful tile roof, etc. What does an American traditionalist have to look back on? What characteristically American rituals and practices are there to reminisce about and proclaim that we should return to? Frontiersmanship, maybe? Hunting? To a certain extent, we Americans are making up our culture as we go along, and this lack of a long historical anchoring makes it inherently difficult for us to feel proud of genuine Americanness.

Well, there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

I think maybe you're overprojecting the suburban shopping mall zombie mono-culture that seems to have overtaken everything since the 1970's.  Perhaps that too is just a phase.

[Mountaineer]

Wow!  I'm having trouble deciding if you guys are just venting or if your worldview generates hopelessness and despair. 

...M

[Pointedstick]

Materially and positionally, the lifehackers like many of us are indeed living good lives. However, Mountaineer hit on something significant: our worldviews are indeed often pretty bleak. I'm probably not alone when I say that I'm pursuing ERE because it seems meaningful and challenging--something my job too often is not. There is a certain amount of despair and hopelessness that creeps in from time to time.

[jafs]

Hopelessness and despair are in the eye of the beholder.

The way I see it, all the cubicle slaves, compulsive consumers and traitorous politicians who would sell their soul for GDP are the engine that drive my investments up. They immolate their lives so I can live on passive income. Major silver lining there.

My own life is pretty great, especially this year. So far my 2016 has consisted of lifting weights, playing tabletop RPG games, watching anime, and of course making money on Permanent Portfolio. I stand by what I said, it absolutely sucks to be other people - but I'm pretty well enjoying being me at this point.

Have you given up on being a doctor?  I thought you were in medical school.

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=Pointedstick]I think it can be hard for people like us sometimes to realize how hard this is for many to most. "Lifehacking" comes easily to people with reasonably logical minds who use their brains for a living. This is really the major problem: the default choices for society are terrible, and funnel the unwary into overconsumption, poverty, debt slavery, unhealthy food, dependence on motor vehicles, and vapid, brain-rotting entertainment.[/quote]

I don't think there are default choices, just choices.  Perhaps more choices now, and perhaps more bad ones.

In the past, one felt more directly the consequences of one's "bad" choices, but modern society has largely removed or minimized the consequences of many sub-optimal choices.  Many of the choices you list (e.g. poverty, debt slavery, etc.) are ameliorated by modern society, compared to times past.  Ok, maybe not brain-rotting entertainment, although bull and bear baiting might qualify.

And I had to look up "lifehacking".  We used to call that being clever.

[I Shrugged]

I recently came across Distributism, something I'd never heard of, probably thanks to the quality of my state college economics courses.  Although since the spell checker choked on Distributism, perhaps it is a really obscure avenue of economics.

Basically it seems to be pro-private property, with the means of production distributed to individuals/families/small groups.  Ideally production would be done at the lowest level of organization possible (i.e. individual, family, small business, etc.).

This approach obviously requires the ability and willingness to assume risk, which doesn't seem to conform to today's "culture and conditioning".

The standard of living in that scheme would drop like crazy.  Specialization and division of labor is what made us all prosperous.

[I Shrugged]

I'd never buy an expensive too-large house in the suburbs if I couldn't afford it.

The housing market is to some extent driven by consumer preferences - if a lot of people wanted smaller less expensive houses and weren't willing to buy large more expensive ones, the market would certainly reflect that.  In fact, that seems to be happening to some degree already.

Consumer Reports does an excellent job of testing and reporting on good cars, including what good used cars are available.

If you don't want to live in a car-dependent area, you can choose to live somewhere you don't need one, or need one as much, can't you?

I share your sympathy/compassion for folks at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum who have trouble making ends meet, but I'm not sure the folks living in big expensive houses in the suburbs are the same folks at all.

You're making a classic mistake, assuming that people can be expected to do what is logical.  I'm not joking.  A good book on this is The Dilbert Principle.  Again not joking. 

Most people do things that are NOT logical.  That's why it is so easy to make money off of them!

[Pointedstick]

I think it can be hard for people like us sometimes to realize how hard this is for many to most. "Lifehacking" comes easily to people with reasonably logical minds who use their brains for a living. This is really the major problem: the default choices for society are terrible, and funnel the unwary into overconsumption, poverty, debt slavery, unhealthy food, dependence on motor vehicles, and vapid, brain-rotting entertainment.

I don't think there are default choices, just choices.  Perhaps more choices now, and perhaps more bad ones.

Picture someone who grows up in a town with a textile mill. His dad worked in the mill and made decent money. He has a good upbringing and makes a lot of friends who all stay in town and work in the mill. All of his older siblings go to work in the mill as soon as they're able to  and the mill is spoken of with great pride in his social circle.

How likely is this person to go off to college out of state and give up his life in his hometown instead of working in the mill?

Now picture the child of two college professors. They put him in good schools and push him academically even in subjects he's no good in. All his friends are likewise the children of professors who will go off to various colleges all over the country after they graduate from high school.

What is the likelihood that this person stays in his hometown and works in the textile mill instead of going off to college?

Those are the default choices: what you get if you don't take the initiative to make a choice, if you instead just glide through life doing that seems to be expected of you.

There is a parallel in software interface design: you want the program's default behavior to be on average what most of the users want and need from it. Sure, they could change the behavior in some menu or settings box, but most don't. Most live with the software's default behavior, even if it's stupid or actually hinders them. It's just the way things are. You can acknowledge it, or you can write bad software.

[MachineGhost]

Materially and positionally, the lifehackers like many of us are indeed living good lives. However, Mountaineer hit on something significant: our worldviews are indeed often pretty bleak. I'm probably not alone when I say that I'm pursuing ERE because it seems meaningful and challenging--something my job too often is not. There is a certain amount of despair and hopelessness that creeps in from time to time.

Yes, but that is more of a curse from being an intellectual than anything else.  I don't quite think people with diminished mental capacities quite feel "hopelessness and despair" as we can.  You're almost 30, so its around time for you to hit your "intellectual mid-life crisis".  Its perfectly normal, I assure you!

Still, the fact is if you ignore your spiritual and emotional development for the sake of the superficial consumerist body, you will feel like there's nothing else to strive for.  This is a worldview fully under your control.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that everything we do as naked apes is all about the dopamine hits.  The only difference between that and what you're harping on in terms of small towns, being around people, etc. is the oxytocin hit.  So, its all just evolutionary relics of meatbag biology.  Truly transcending biology is like what Sanders says: "How can you refom the system when are you taking money from the millionaires and billionaires that prop it up?" (i.e. referring Slick Hilly).

[Pointedstick]

Yes, but that is more of a curse from being an intellectual than anything else.  I don't quite think people with diminished mental capacities quite feel "hopelessness and despair" as we can.  You're almost 30, so its around time for you to hit your "intellectual mid-life crisis".  Its perfectly normal, I assure you!

Still, the fact is if you ignore your spiritual and emotional development for the sake of the superficial consumerist body, you will feel like there's nothing else to strive for.  This is a worldview fully under your control.

What's your approach or suggestion? I'm genuinely interested, since it's exactly as you've described.

I can feel myself yearning for spiritual depth, but none of the theological traditions I've studied have really resonated.

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=I Shrugged]The standard of living in that scheme would drop like crazy.  Specialization and division of labor is what made us all prosperous.[/quote]

To a point I agree.  A 787 is not likely to be forged by a family company.  But there are elements of the economy that could be handled by smaller levels of organization than is currently the case.

I was in Seoul a few years ago and was amazed by the number of what I assumed to be small machine shops (blocks and blocks of them).

[MachineGhost]

What's your approach or suggestion? I'm genuinely interested, since it's exactly as you've described.

I can feel myself yearning for spiritual depth, but none of the theological traditions I've studied have really resonated.

I'd say you need to find a spiritual or religious framework that works with your intellect and reality rather than against it.  You won't believe otherwise.  Have you seen the movie Contact?  It powerfully touches the emotional divide between science and faith.

I'm currently watching a short mini-series about a widely-known something that has a much deeper occult meaning than most anyone is willing to admit, especially the orthodoxy.  If it holds up by the time I'm done, I'll mention it.

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=Pointedstick]How likely is this person to go off to college out of state and give up his life in his hometown instead of working in the mill?[/quote]

Many do.  And the mill might be a good choice or a bad choice, depending on circumstances largely out of the individual's control.

[Pointedstick]

How likely is this person to go off to college out of state and give up his life in his hometown instead of working in the mill?

Many do.  And the mill might be a good choice or a bad choice, depending on circumstances largely out of the individual's control.

For sure. But I was talking about likelihood, difficulty, and what you get if you don't make a decision at all, not mere possibility. That's what separates an ordinary choice (Which of these two books should I read next?) from a default choice (Should I reject my upbringing and societal norms?). For sure, some people reject their upbringing and societal norms. But the fact that 95+% don't, and the ones who do are very strong-willed people, should tell you something about which thing will get chosen by default absent a very conscious application of will.