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Fuck Individualism
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2016-01-10 at 1:23 PM UTCCan someone explain to me what is it and how it's supposed to work?
I think I've been practicing it for some years now, keeping clear of groups, never joining or forming one, moving from one place to another, keeping my head low, and focusing on my own objectives. Sure, I went from 12k/year cashier to 75k/year junior developer with close to 0 capital investment, except time, which I had plenty cause, hurr durr, I killed my social life first.
After that, however, I hit a wall. There's only so much you can do on your own. It's extremely frustrating to get stuck in this place and have to rebuild your relationships brick by brick.
Whatever you're trying to do, whether it's find good work, learning infosec, learning programming, traveling, you'll hit walls everywhere. These walls are usually built by groups of people hostile to your efforts. Whether it's moronic people in HR, asshole bureaucrats in foreign countries, or resource hogs anywhere, it's enough to seriously block any of your plans.
Unless you build yourself up via ties with groups. Since you're dealing with entrenched groups in your economic sphere, the only thing you can really do is to form or join a group that's stronger than whatever is blocking you.
Sure, individualism sounds nice on theory, but in reality you'll hit and break against groups of the stupidest people ever and you'll falter for words - how can something so dumb completely get in my way?
Whatre your experiences here? Ever belonged to a coop? Guild? Union? Ever tried to make it yourself in life? How's it workin out for ya?
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2016-01-10 at 6:11 PM UTCThe realization that concepts like "free will" and "the self" are illusory, and being able to recognize that we really are all part of a greater whole, are some of the first steps away from an egocentric view of life and towards a greater commitment to well being and the improvement of life for all of us here on earth.
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2016-01-11 at 3:27 AM UTC
Can someone explain to me what is it and how it's supposed to work?
I think I've been practicing it for some years now, keeping clear of groups, never joining or forming one, moving from one place to another, keeping my head low, and focusing on my own objectives. Sure, I went from 12k/year cashier to 75k/year junior developer with close to 0 capital investment, except time, which I had plenty cause, hurr durr, I killed my social life first.
After that, however, I hit a wall. There's only so much you can do on your own. It's extremely frustrating to get stuck in this place and have to rebuild your relationships brick by brick.
Whatever you're trying to do, whether it's find good work, learning infosec, learning programming, traveling, you'll hit walls everywhere. These walls are usually built by groups of people hostile to your efforts. Whether it's moronic people in HR, asshole bureaucrats in foreign countries, or resource hogs anywhere, it's enough to seriously block any of your plans.
Unless you build yourself up via ties with groups. Since you're dealing with entrenched groups in your economic sphere, the only thing you can really do is to form or join a group that's stronger than whatever is blocking you.
Sure, individualism sounds nice on theory, but in reality you'll hit and break against groups of the stupidest people ever and you'll falter for words - how can something so dumb completely get in my way?
Whatre your experiences here? Ever belonged to a coop? Guild? Union? Ever tried to make it yourself in life? How's it workin out for ya?
You sound like a buddy of mine.
But getting back on topic... Individualism will only get you so far. Some is good, but too much can and will alienate the fuck out of you, if you go too far with the whole "having a mind of your own" thing.
But all in all, it fuckin sucks, because if its going great in one area, its going shitty in another, and vice versa. -
2016-01-11 at 8:20 AM UTC
The realization that concepts like "free will" and "the self" are illusory, and being able to recognize that we really are all part of a greater whole, are some of the first steps away from an egocentric view of life and towards a greater commitment to well being and the improvement of life for all of us here on earth.
Are you obbe? You sound like Bucky Fuller. I don't agree with the first half of your statement, but I agree with the second part - even speaking in purely economical terms, cooperation/business creates value greater than the sum of its parts.You sound like a buddy of mine.
But getting back on topic… Individualism will only get you so far. Some is good, but too much can and will alienate the fuck out of you, if you go too far with the whole "having a mind of your own" thing.
But all in all, it fuckin sucks, because if its going great in one area, its going shitty in another, and vice versa.
Did your buddy ever turn back from that path? I'm working on that, gonna hit up a few local meetups n shit.
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2016-01-11 at 1:17 PM UTCI've been isolating myself from everyone I know more and more gradually over the past couple years. It looks like this road leads to a dark place.
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2016-01-11 at 8:27 PM UTCWhat exactly is your next goal, and how are these 'walls' preventing you from getting there, SPECIFICALLY?
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2016-01-12 at 4:18 AM UTC
I've been isolating myself from everyone I know more and more gradually over the past couple years. It looks like this road leads to a dark place.
It does: https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/3u999j/toward_a_neurology_of_loneliness_the_neurological/
Get off it as soon as you can. Don't convince yourself otherwise, try to find or believe there's an alternative. I went down this path farther than nearly anyone, there isn't. As flawed as people are, the world/society is, it can't be worse than how this ended up being. Find good people in your life that you can trust, relate to, be open with; that give you everything you really want, ideally, or as close as you can get. They're out there, and you may have to improve yourself, analyze yourself, engage in introspection, see yourself completely honestly, and change, to be able to find and attract them, be good enough for them, to be in their lives and keep them (We all have limited time, this is just the way things are. It hurts that you have to compete and people can't just accept everyone, you, far what they are, but this is just the way things are, we're all bound and limited by physical/biological reality.) -
2016-01-12 at 8:19 AM UTC
What exactly is your next goal, and how are these 'walls' preventing you from getting there, SPECIFICALLY?
To be specific, I'm trying to set up myself as a freelancer, but I'm slamming against an entrenched cancer that has grown and fed on the unmanageable bureaucracy. This would have been easier if I was part of a group of fellow expats, even an online group of freelancers. Then there's the issue of actually getting clients. This would've been easy if I hadn't cut ties with everyone. Then there's the random big market predator ie. insurance company, that's forcing me to waste time, in order to save some money. I'm going the freelance route specifically because most tech companies here either want a) master's degrees for writing html/css b) want to pay you peanuts c) have extremely retarded contract clauses ie. "You must ask for permission if you want to do any work on the side. Also, all your code, even if you write it at home, at night, belongs to us, hurr durr". Fucking fucks. -
2016-01-13 at 9:20 AM UTC
I'm going the freelance route specifically because most tech companies here either want a) master's degrees for writing html/css b) want to pay you peanuts c) have extremely retarded contract clauses ie. "You must ask for permission if you want to do any work on the side. Also, all your code, even if you write it at home, at night, belongs to us, hurr durr". Fucking fucks.
That hasn't really been my experience, but of course things are different by locale. All the NDA's I've seen block you from working in the same field as your employer and case law has been fairly favorable to programmers on that in recent years (in terms of what's considered the "same field").
Kinda ironically the megacorp (or startup, whatever, just a long term gig) route is better suited to the asocial I think. To freelance or work for yourself you need to interact with a lot of people and have a strong professional network. All you really need to do at big software company X is do reasonably good work with some bare minimum of politics and you'll move up (varies from place to place of course but I think it will be consistently less than what's necessary to drum up freelance work) or jump ship every few years.
It sounds like you do web dev? I do some work on the side for this small company, there's a lot of work but there are only two quarter time engineers working on it right now. The CEO has asked me a couple of times if I knew any other developers he could hire, I told him I'm not a hiring manager so he should find someone else, not about to go around asking my gainfully employed friends if they want to moonlight with me (also probably in violation of my day job contract in some way but w/e). Anyway, if you're interested I could throw your name in, not sure on timeframe, work would probably pick up in a month or so, also not sure about number of hours weekly but I think the going rate is ~$60/h and can be done remote if you can make meetings in PST evenings. -
2016-01-13 at 6:17 PM UTCYou never offered me a job, Lanny. I fucking hate you.
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2016-01-13 at 9:27 PM UTC
That hasn't really been my experience, but of course things are different by locale. All the NDA's I've seen block you from working in the same field as your employer and case law has been fairly favorable to programmers on that in recent years (in terms of what's considered the "same field").
Kinda ironically the megacorp (or startup, whatever, just a long term gig) route is better suited to the asocial I think. To freelance or work for yourself you need to interact with a lot of people and have a strong professional network. All you really need to do at big software company X is do reasonably good work with some bare minimum of politics and you'll move up (varies from place to place of course but I think it will be consistently less than what's necessary to drum up freelance work) or jump ship every few years.
It sounds like you do web dev? I do some work on the side for this small company, there's a lot of work but there are only two quarter time engineers working on it right now. The CEO has asked me a couple of times if I knew any other developers he could hire, I told him I'm not a hiring manager so he should find someone else, not about to go around asking my gainfully employed friends if they want to moonlight with me (also probably in violation of my day job contract in some way but w/e). Anyway, if you're interested I could throw your name in, not sure on timeframe, work would probably pick up in a month or so, also not sure about number of hours weekly but I think the going rate is ~$60/h and can be done remote if you can make meetings in PST evenings.
Lol, Lanny just offered someone a job. Also 60 dorrah an hour is pretty good moolah. -
2016-01-14 at 6:36 AM UTC
You never offered me a job, Lanny. I fucking hate you.
Woulda offered you a job too if you were a web dev.Lol, Lanny just offered someone a job. Also 60 dorrah an hour is pretty good moolah.
Yeah mang, devs are a valuable commodity in the bubble economy. Even being able to drop the name of someone half competent and with non-zero experience who hasn't been fully alienated from their labor is worth something round these parts. -
2016-01-14 at 10:17 AM UTC
You never offered me a job, Lanny. I fucking hate you.
Lol, Lanny just offered someone a job. Also 60 dorrah an hour is pretty good moolah.
Lol, jealous fools. As Lanny says, there's a goldrush for development skills. This includes all the good and ugly side of a goldrush though.That hasn't really been my experience, but of course things are different by locale. All the NDA's I've seen block you from working in the same field as your employer and case law has been fairly favorable to programmers on that in recent years (in terms of what's considered the "same field").
Yeah, it's way better in the US despite of what a lot of people say. Thank god I'm here, in Germany, only on an adventure, and will be coming back stateside in a couple of months. Imagine a world where moonlighting is illegal unless you receive permission, in writing, from your employer first. Your employer can also retract this permission at any time. This seems to be a standard contract clause.Kinda ironically the megacorp (or startup, whatever, just a long term gig) route is better suited to the asocial I think. To freelance or work for yourself you need to interact with a lot of people and have a strong professional network. All you really need to do at big software company X is do reasonably good work with some bare minimum of politics and you'll move up (varies from place to place of course but I think it will be consistently less than what's necessary to drum up freelance work) or jump ship every few years.
This falls in perfectly with what I've seen so far. It's also one of the bigger reasons why I want to switch to freelancing. I wanna build up this personal network so that I can engage better with the community and be able to donate more money and time to open source projects.It sounds like you do web dev? I do some work on the side for this small company, there's a lot of work but there are only two quarter time engineers working on it right now. The CEO has asked me a couple of times if I knew any other developers he could hire, I told him I'm not a hiring manager so he should find someone else, not about to go around asking my gainfully employed friends if they want to moonlight with me (also probably in violation of my day job contract in some way but w/e). Anyway, if you're interested I could throw your name in, not sure on timeframe, work would probably pick up in a month or so, also not sure about number of hours weekly but I think the going rate is ~$60/h and can be done remote if you can make meetings in PST evenings.
Yep, mainly web-dev (python, ruby to a lesser degree) but I've picked up tons of sysadmin/devops stuff in my last job. What kinda work is it? Do you like the CEO? The 9 hour time difference is an obstacle but if those are ie. weekly meetings then slack/email could suffice for the day-to-day stuff. Thanks for letting me know.
Are we going a bit off topic?
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2016-01-14 at 12:43 PM UTCThank you, Lanny. That's really nice of you.
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2016-01-15 at 12:46 AM UTC
Yep, mainly web-dev (python, ruby to a lesser degree) but I've picked up tons of sysadmin/devops stuff in my last job. What kinda work is it?
Pretty much that actually. Full stack webdev, python, django, postgres. And a bunch of code in celery tasks. There's some shitty crufty ass code in there so be forewarned but the upside is there's a lot of autonomy no one flips out for cutting out or refactoring stuff. We do our own systems administration but we're not sysadmins either so it's intentionally kept as simple as we can make it (deployment is literally an SSH script, stuff like that)Do you like the CEO?
He's an affable guy, definitely has the gift of gab but he's not technical at all so sometimes it feels like talking to him is a perpetual sales pitch. But he manages in to pull in the investors and money to keep the doors open so it's not like he's dead weight, it's just a bit of culture shock for me since I spend the vast majority of my time with whatever the opposite of "business people" isAre we going a bit off topic?
Lol, yeah. To reply to your OP, I think like anything there's a balance (isn't that a lame response?). Like the idea that we succeed or fail on our personal merits is useful to believe, or a useful mindset to adopt at times, even if it's pretty obviously false. And then there's the obvious psychological risk in believing you're personally responsible for inevitable failures. -
2016-01-15 at 2:03 AM UTC
Did your buddy ever turn back from that path? I'm working on that, gonna hit up a few local meetups n shit.
He's pretty much a hermit right now. Since hes very lazy, and doesn't like to do anything, if it requires him to leave his place and walk. -
2016-01-15 at 9:29 AM UTC
Lol, yeah. To reply to your OP, I think like anything there's a balance (isn't that a lame response?). Like the idea that we succeed or fail on our personal merits is useful to believe, or a useful mindset to adopt at times, even if it's pretty obviously false. And then there's the obvious psychological risk in believing you're personally responsible for inevitable failures.
That couldve been a lame response, but I went through what you describe a lot, mainly the "inevitable failures" part. What helped me most here is helping out a friend going through something similar - I was able to see my own cracked psyche and, while I couldn't pull him out of it, I at least, I think, slowed down the process until he was able to dig himself out.
I didn't raise this point, but I think you're right in that even if we're hermits, we're still surrounded by culture and it continues to affect us. Some people are good hermits (http://www.gq.com/story/the-last-true-hermit) though.
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2016-01-15 at 11:59 AM UTCYeah, the way I figure individualism is...
Too much is bad, but too little is 1000x worse.
