Comment by binarymax
2 months ago
Not to judge or sound condescending, but it seems like you’re lacking empathy and a community.
I know exactly what I’d do in your situation: help others. I live in a small city, and it has some problems and some opportunities. Even lacking funds I still do what I can to help the community around me. Spend some time with people who aren’t all in tech or on the beach and go find some reality. People like elon preaching doge are too far removed. Work on the ground. It’s hard and it’s real.
Best of luck!
Thank you for saying what I didn't have the patience to say. Although I sincerely worry that empathizing with people like this is a trap. I hate that I have to think this way, but nothing is worse than feeling like a sucker. I only hope I'm elevated above all of this in the afterlife.
> Although I sincerely worry that empathizing with people like this is a trap.
I have a similar sense. However, I’m not sure empathizing with them is itself the trap. You don’t want your empathy to make you overly credulous. For example, while you might empathize with him feeling directionless at the acquiring company, I don’t think you should therefore conclude that he is right about the new coworkers being “NPCs.”
Empathy is about understanding people from their perspective. I would think that highly empathic people would be harder to scam, as they would recognise the con artists for what they are.
The trouble is, if you think in abstract terms at all you'll start seeing the patterns in the reasons many people are suffering, and the patterns in your relationship to them.
Then you'll have to ratchet up boundaries to address the relational patterns with people who are having a hard time, so that you're not a participant in their suffering.
And you'll have to start working on the patterns underneath the problems, which when you get into it starts to look more and more like the kind of megalomaniacal moonshot ("give computers arms and legs" / "fix the government now!") that the author ran out of gas on.
I think where you end up if you think about this is just recognizing that a) you probably should try to do some ambitious, high-leverage project to make the world better and b) reflecting about the world and about life in a thorough way is emotionally difficult for most people, so you also have to deal with those emotions.
The author's original somewhat manic intentions were probably right, and maybe he needed a bit more of a rest but was plowing forward out of fear that he'd lose his nerve. Now he's getting some rest and will probably figure out something big, important, and hard to work on in the next few years.
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Many people con others into giving their emotional currency. Rich people are the worst about this, because it's the only value from the world they've failed to actually extract. So they want it from everyone.
Rich people have problems. This dude is clearly focused on himself. He doesn't need the emotional currency of others unless he's willing to give a lot more his (love and empathy).
> Although I sincerely worry that empathizing with people like this is a trap
What exactly is "people like this"? I thought this was a very genuine account from a regular person who worked hard, made a ton of money from it, and now finds that the money didn't give him the satisfaction he expected. It's honest and, frankly, extremely unsurprising and straightforward.
Well, for one, categorizing the people he'd have to work with at Atlassian as "NPC Coworkers"
Absolutely. Humans need real connection with other humans. Ending your one good relationship to join forces with a bunch of autistic internet trolls who think they’re smarter than everyone else is not a recipe for happiness.
Please don't use the word "autistic" as a slur.
Ok. I can’t edit the comment now, but I will avoid it in the future.
I was echoing the use in TFA, but that doesn’t really make it any better.
what colanderman said…
to reference/recommend this book, I swiped a blurb from a ddg search:
Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion is a 2016 book written by psychologist Paul Bloom. The book draws on the distinctions between empathy, compassion, and moral decision making. Bloom argues that empathy is not the solution to problems that divide people and is a poor guide for decision making.
This person is in a completely different class than 99% of HN readers. It is impossible for him to ever relate to others who are not like him because he is not like them, and not like us, the non-millionaire non-entrepeneurs. Unfortunately, this goes both ways, and is probably why I am not rich. Learning to bridge that human gap is far harder than becoming a multi-millionaire or climbing mountains in the Himalayas or working for DOGE for 4 weeks.
This guy perfectly represents Silicon Valley as a whole. I have no doubt that 70%+ of techies here would follow a similar path (call coworkers NPCs, break up with GF, live out Elon fantasy, pretend to do important/smart things but give up and move on to the next every few weeks) if given unlimited money.
If you have limited contact with coworkers outside of work, aren't they NPCs? For all intents and purposes they might be. You might still like them, but they don't really affect your life aside from giving you quests.
Referring to anyone as an NPC is really insulting. People are not algorithms in a video game. They are real and they have lives and dreams and hopes and problems. Show some respect.
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Calling people NPCs is a self-own and speaks to a persons inability to consider that everyone around them has some inner life, after work interests, etc. You don't need contact with coworkers outside of work to realize this. You just need to be a functioning decent human being able to make small talk.
While what you are saying is true, it’s a very unhealthy and inhuman way to view other people. I generally find this outlook is a sign of depression. It was for me at least
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You are not the main character in some narrative. We are all individuals interacting with each other, and if you lose sight of that it’s very easy to make selfish and immoral choices.
No, they are people, because they are people.
I'm sorry, but quite frankly, what in the world are you talking about?
From his bio:
i invest in companies and am willing to offer help to founders i vibe with for free and for no allocation
that doesn't have much to do with either empathy or community
it reflects more something like "I will share my pearls of wisdom with those I deem worthy" (ego trip)
Where exactly do you see the ego tripping? He's literally saying he'll offer his advice to people who may want it, with nothing expected in return.
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