7 ms·

I pity someone who is 'passionate' about those things.

r12s 12y ago
Yeah, me too. While I'm at it, really loved the post, made me smile (a lot). So you're "fourth time lucky" ;-)
tedks 12y ago
Such an arrogant attitude. As if you'd be working on what you're working on if it didn't get you money or power. One is the other, really. No human alive doesn't want power. That's the basic evolutionary fuel of our entire species. There's no other desire humans even have -- anything else is just a means to that end. The truly powerful people in the world -- the ones whose names you don't know, because they don't particularly care for your knowing them -- they never lie to themselves, and they probably know exactly where their passions are. The less powerful people, the Jeff Bezos's and the Larry Ellisons, they probably learned over time. The people who think they do what they do for any other reason are deluding themselves about the game that they're playing. There's only one game.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  > No human alive doesn't want power. That's the basic evolutionary fuel of our entire species. There's no other desire humans even have -- anything else is just a means to that end. If you're going to be that reductionist, then you're still wrong. The basic evolutionary drive behind our species, and all others, is to reproduce and spread your genes. Everything else stems, however circuitously, from redirected or misdirected reproductive drive. But either way, you're being silly. For example, I want to make enough money to support myself and afford a few luxuries now and then, and have as much free time as possible to spend with friends, books, and games. It's not technically incorrect to say that I want power (over my life and environment), but to say that my motivations are identical to those of a senator or a billionaire is ridiculous. > The people who think they do what they do for any other reason are deluding themselves about the game that they're playing. There's only one game. See, here's your problem, speaking of delusion. You've let the people playing the game of power trick you into thinking that their game is the only one in town.
  - tedks 12y ago
    >The basic evolutionary drive behind our species, and all others, is to reproduce and spread your genes. Everything else stems, however circuitously, from redirected or misdirected reproductive drive. Actually, it's you who's misdirected. Increasing inclusive fitness is the end, not the means, of an evolutionary adaptation. In humans, and in other social species like great apes, the evolutionary adaptation that exists in the species is the desire for power over the environment. A species is an adaptation-executor, not a fitness-maximizer. >but to say that my motivations are identical to those of a senator or a billionaire is ridiculous. It's a matter of ambition, and degree, isn't it? Plenty of people who are otherwise powerless take power through drugs. It's the same game. Some people win more objectively than others.
    - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
      > It's a matter of ambition, and degree, isn't it? Plenty of people who are otherwise powerless take power through drugs. It's the same game. Some people win more objectively than others. By the rules of your game, a driven executive who makes hundreds of millions of dollars but can't find real satisfaction is more "objectively winning" than a guy who's straddling the poverty line but has everything he needs and is very happy with his life. You don't even realize that the second guy isn't playing the same game. You're playing Monopoly, leaning over to the guy playing checkers across the way, and screeching that he's a loser because he doesn't have any hotels.
      - tedks 12y ago
        >By the rules of your game, a driven executive who makes hundreds of millions of dollars but can't find real satisfaction is more "objectively winning" than a guy who's straddling the poverty line but has everything he needs and is very happy with his life. I'd say that by any standards the executive is winning. He's improving, growing, and becoming a stronger and better person, able to command more and more resources. The happy bum is still a bum. You can take drugs if you want to be happy. They'll keep you happy right up until you overdose. But people never want to take drugs. They want to be happy for real reasons. They want to have actual power, not the impression of it.
- ryancarson 12y ago
  The reason I pity people who are passionate about power or money is because I have experienced much greater happiness in loving and being loved, unconditionally. The strongest of those loves are from my wife, my kids, my sisters and my mom and dad. None of those folks love me because of power or money. I've had a couple things that would demonstrate me having money like a super expensive watch, a brand new Audi, a big house, etc. They were great for getting fleeting "Wow, he's got money!" glances from folks. Then I realized their like for me was related to stuff, not me. It just all seemed very vacuous.
  - blueprint 12y ago
    Almost everyone in today's world confuses love and attachment. They misunderstand love as attachment, and attachment as love. However, the term love contains a very important meaning. We can't say that we really live properly as humans without understanding what love is. That's why I'd like to ask you something. I hope you don't mind my question. When you say "love", what do you mean by that term? What do you indicate?
  - tedks 12y ago
    It's beyond me to pick apart another person's relationships, but at the end of the day, there are very few things humans like and seek out in relationships that are not related to power. We find attractive the things that convey status and economic security; we love our parents (and our children) because they provide for us. There's a reason why beautiful people have straight teeth and clean features rather than looking disheveled. Even in subcultures predicated on being so ~nonconformist~ and iconoclastic, people brush their teeth. I'm sure your family and your relationships are very different and that all the love in your life is totally unconditional and moreover, totally uncorrelated with your ability to command resources. I hope you never fall upon hard times but if you did, I'm sure every relationship you have would survive it. Best of luck with your startup, it looks like a great idea and you're obviously good at executing. More resources look to be on your horizons.
    - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
      I'm glad not everyone lives in your world.
- wpietri 12y ago
  > No human alive doesn't want power. That's the basic evolutionary fuel of our entire species. There's no other desire humans even have -- anything else is just a means to that end. Demonstrably wrong. Desire for power is certainly common among primates, but there are a number of basic drives. Drives people have it in different amounts. Further, there's no particular reason to think it was a huge evolutionary driver for us. If you're really looking for the evolutionary driver that made us what we are, it might be a taste for cooked food. [1] You could also make a case for tool usage, or an arms race in language capability, a peacock's tail that happened to let us do far more than woo mates. And even if power were a major drive, it doesn't really tell us much about what we should do. People are naturally violent, but we mostly set that aside. What's natural tells us nothing about what's right. Of course you won't believe me, because you write like a fundamentalist. You can't tell a Freudian that it isn't about sex or a Baptist that it isn't all about God. Fundamentalism always makes me a little sad because it's so stunting. It'd as if somebody put on a pair of blue-tinted glasses and ran around insisting that since they only see blue things, blue is the only real color and everybody else is just fooling themselves. They can't quite get that "everything they see" isn't only about everything; its also about how they see. Could you be pulling our legs? When you call him arrogant and then explain how only you understand the deep, hidden truths of the world, it's kooky enough that I wonder if you're just trolling. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/1469298708 http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/14...
  - tedks 12y ago
    >Further, there's no particular reason to think it was a huge evolutionary driver for us. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bV9yeFV6_ckC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=machiavellian+intelligence+hypothesis&ots=lFX6cl-qT7&sig=70PQGbx0zu5HyIO9l-mzqjdQU1M#v=onepage&q=machiavellian%20intelligence%20hypothesis&f=false http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bV9yeFV6_ckC&oi=f... >People are naturally violent, but we mostly set that aside This is the most demonstrably wrong thing. Try killing a man and say that you are naturally violent. Humans are social animals and to commit violence against one another is very difficult for us. The people who do not have this trait we call sociopaths. The people who harm others for a living do so at the cost of massive psychological trauma, probably unhealable, and the best and most effective killers have to be taught how to kill for years and years by people who have made it their job to teach how to kill, based on years of research and development of new ways to break people down and build them into war machines. The most common response to seeing death is to vomit, and you say people are naturally violent? What do you know of violence? >Could you be pulling our legs? When you call him arrogant and then explain how only you understand the deep, hidden truths of the world, it's kooky enough that I wonder if you're just trolling. I think it's condescending and ironically, a status-grab to say something like "I pity people who directly pursue the thing I acquire by doing other things. I am better than they are, because I pursue these other, distinct things, that wholly coincidentally lead to the thing these other people pursue. How pitiful they are."
CyberDildonics 12y ago
I think it's simplistic to say that someone attacking a problem because they think it will be profitable is intrinsically shallow. There could be many problems that a person sees they could solve, and they could choose one most likely to be profitable first a stepping stone to make the others easier. Also some things are said to be difficult, and that alone gives certain types of people motivation to solve them, since they feel a certain type of disconnect with their intuition of what is possible and what other people around them are telling them.
no_future 12y ago
There is a miasma of fakery and posturing in the startup world about making money, everyone pretends as if they are so passionate about what they are doing and not interested in money at all, even though they are almost certainly interested in money to some degree. I guess they feel that being at all motivated by monetary gain cheapens their image. Reminds me of an article I recently read about attitudes surrounding money in French culture, pretty interesting: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/12/12/no-exit-3 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/12/12/no-exit-3 You can be passionate about what you are doing and interested in making money as well, it isn't either or. Personally I have no shame admitting I would be delighted to make an obscene amount of money in a short period of time, because to me money means freedom. I could spend time with people I love and do things I find interesting and enjoyable, rather than living for the next paycheck and having money end up owning me and my life as is the case with so many people who pursue high stress, high paying long term careers to "provide for their family" and end up miserable and distant. Another reason is that, call me entitled and selfish, but I don't enjoy the idea of working for someone else, likely doing something I'm only marginally passionate about, and having them take majority of the value of my efforts while giving me a fixed salary, though for many people I'm sure the stability of this is perfectly acceptable. However, I do agree probably nothing good will come of you if you are motivated purely by profit with 0 interest or passion in what you are doing. I select projects that I am personally interested in simply because I find it extremely difficult to work on things that I don't get excited about.

r12s 12y ago

Yeah, me too. While I'm at it, really loved the post, made me smile (a lot). So you're "fourth time lucky" ;-)

tedks 12y ago

Such an arrogant attitude. As if you'd be working on what you're working on if it didn't get you money or power. One is the other, really. No human alive doesn't want power. That's the basic evolutionary fuel of our entire species. There's no other desire humans even have -- anything else is just a means to that end. The truly powerful people in the world -- the ones whose names you don't know, because they don't particularly care for your knowing them -- they never lie to themselves, and they probably know exactly where their passions are. The less powerful people, the Jeff Bezos's and the Larry Ellisons, they probably learned over time. The people who think they do what they do for any other reason are deluding themselves about the game that they're playing. There's only one game.

PhasmaFelis 12y ago
> No human alive doesn't want power. That's the basic evolutionary fuel of our entire species. There's no other desire humans even have -- anything else is just a means to that end. If you're going to be that reductionist, then you're still wrong. The basic evolutionary drive behind our species, and all others, is to reproduce and spread your genes. Everything else stems, however circuitously, from redirected or misdirected reproductive drive. But either way, you're being silly. For example, I want to make enough money to support myself and afford a few luxuries now and then, and have as much free time as possible to spend with friends, books, and games. It's not technically incorrect to say that I want power (over my life and environment), but to say that my motivations are identical to those of a senator or a billionaire is ridiculous. > The people who think they do what they do for any other reason are deluding themselves about the game that they're playing. There's only one game. See, here's your problem, speaking of delusion. You've let the people playing the game of power trick you into thinking that their game is the only one in town.
- tedks 12y ago
  >The basic evolutionary drive behind our species, and all others, is to reproduce and spread your genes. Everything else stems, however circuitously, from redirected or misdirected reproductive drive. Actually, it's you who's misdirected. Increasing inclusive fitness is the end, not the means, of an evolutionary adaptation. In humans, and in other social species like great apes, the evolutionary adaptation that exists in the species is the desire for power over the environment. A species is an adaptation-executor, not a fitness-maximizer. >but to say that my motivations are identical to those of a senator or a billionaire is ridiculous. It's a matter of ambition, and degree, isn't it? Plenty of people who are otherwise powerless take power through drugs. It's the same game. Some people win more objectively than others.
  - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
    > It's a matter of ambition, and degree, isn't it? Plenty of people who are otherwise powerless take power through drugs. It's the same game. Some people win more objectively than others. By the rules of your game, a driven executive who makes hundreds of millions of dollars but can't find real satisfaction is more "objectively winning" than a guy who's straddling the poverty line but has everything he needs and is very happy with his life. You don't even realize that the second guy isn't playing the same game. You're playing Monopoly, leaning over to the guy playing checkers across the way, and screeching that he's a loser because he doesn't have any hotels.
    - tedks 12y ago
      >By the rules of your game, a driven executive who makes hundreds of millions of dollars but can't find real satisfaction is more "objectively winning" than a guy who's straddling the poverty line but has everything he needs and is very happy with his life. I'd say that by any standards the executive is winning. He's improving, growing, and becoming a stronger and better person, able to command more and more resources. The happy bum is still a bum. You can take drugs if you want to be happy. They'll keep you happy right up until you overdose. But people never want to take drugs. They want to be happy for real reasons. They want to have actual power, not the impression of it.
ryancarson 12y ago
The reason I pity people who are passionate about power or money is because I have experienced much greater happiness in loving and being loved, unconditionally. The strongest of those loves are from my wife, my kids, my sisters and my mom and dad. None of those folks love me because of power or money. I've had a couple things that would demonstrate me having money like a super expensive watch, a brand new Audi, a big house, etc. They were great for getting fleeting "Wow, he's got money!" glances from folks. Then I realized their like for me was related to stuff, not me. It just all seemed very vacuous.
- blueprint 12y ago
  Almost everyone in today's world confuses love and attachment. They misunderstand love as attachment, and attachment as love. However, the term love contains a very important meaning. We can't say that we really live properly as humans without understanding what love is. That's why I'd like to ask you something. I hope you don't mind my question. When you say "love", what do you mean by that term? What do you indicate?
- tedks 12y ago
  It's beyond me to pick apart another person's relationships, but at the end of the day, there are very few things humans like and seek out in relationships that are not related to power. We find attractive the things that convey status and economic security; we love our parents (and our children) because they provide for us. There's a reason why beautiful people have straight teeth and clean features rather than looking disheveled. Even in subcultures predicated on being so ~nonconformist~ and iconoclastic, people brush their teeth. I'm sure your family and your relationships are very different and that all the love in your life is totally unconditional and moreover, totally uncorrelated with your ability to command resources. I hope you never fall upon hard times but if you did, I'm sure every relationship you have would survive it. Best of luck with your startup, it looks like a great idea and you're obviously good at executing. More resources look to be on your horizons.
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    I'm glad not everyone lives in your world.
wpietri 12y ago
> No human alive doesn't want power. That's the basic evolutionary fuel of our entire species. There's no other desire humans even have -- anything else is just a means to that end. Demonstrably wrong. Desire for power is certainly common among primates, but there are a number of basic drives. Drives people have it in different amounts. Further, there's no particular reason to think it was a huge evolutionary driver for us. If you're really looking for the evolutionary driver that made us what we are, it might be a taste for cooked food. [1] You could also make a case for tool usage, or an arms race in language capability, a peacock's tail that happened to let us do far more than woo mates. And even if power were a major drive, it doesn't really tell us much about what we should do. People are naturally violent, but we mostly set that aside. What's natural tells us nothing about what's right. Of course you won't believe me, because you write like a fundamentalist. You can't tell a Freudian that it isn't about sex or a Baptist that it isn't all about God. Fundamentalism always makes me a little sad because it's so stunting. It'd as if somebody put on a pair of blue-tinted glasses and ran around insisting that since they only see blue things, blue is the only real color and everybody else is just fooling themselves. They can't quite get that "everything they see" isn't only about everything; its also about how they see. Could you be pulling our legs? When you call him arrogant and then explain how only you understand the deep, hidden truths of the world, it's kooky enough that I wonder if you're just trolling. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/1469298708 http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/14...
- tedks 12y ago
  >Further, there's no particular reason to think it was a huge evolutionary driver for us. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bV9yeFV6_ckC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=machiavellian+intelligence+hypothesis&ots=lFX6cl-qT7&sig=70PQGbx0zu5HyIO9l-mzqjdQU1M#v=onepage&q=machiavellian%20intelligence%20hypothesis&f=false http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bV9yeFV6_ckC&oi=f... >People are naturally violent, but we mostly set that aside This is the most demonstrably wrong thing. Try killing a man and say that you are naturally violent. Humans are social animals and to commit violence against one another is very difficult for us. The people who do not have this trait we call sociopaths. The people who harm others for a living do so at the cost of massive psychological trauma, probably unhealable, and the best and most effective killers have to be taught how to kill for years and years by people who have made it their job to teach how to kill, based on years of research and development of new ways to break people down and build them into war machines. The most common response to seeing death is to vomit, and you say people are naturally violent? What do you know of violence? >Could you be pulling our legs? When you call him arrogant and then explain how only you understand the deep, hidden truths of the world, it's kooky enough that I wonder if you're just trolling. I think it's condescending and ironically, a status-grab to say something like "I pity people who directly pursue the thing I acquire by doing other things. I am better than they are, because I pursue these other, distinct things, that wholly coincidentally lead to the thing these other people pursue. How pitiful they are."

CyberDildonics 12y ago

I think it's simplistic to say that someone attacking a problem because they think it will be profitable is intrinsically shallow. There could be many problems that a person sees they could solve, and they could choose one most likely to be profitable first a stepping stone to make the others easier. Also some things are said to be difficult, and that alone gives certain types of people motivation to solve them, since they feel a certain type of disconnect with their intuition of what is possible and what other people around them are telling them.

no_future 12y ago

There is a miasma of fakery and posturing in the startup world about making money, everyone pretends as if they are so passionate about what they are doing and not interested in money at all, even though they are almost certainly interested in money to some degree. I guess they feel that being at all motivated by monetary gain cheapens their image. Reminds me of an article I recently read about attitudes surrounding money in French culture, pretty interesting: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/12/12/no-exit-3 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/12/12/no-exit-3 You can be passionate about what you are doing and interested in making money as well, it isn't either or. Personally I have no shame admitting I would be delighted to make an obscene amount of money in a short period of time, because to me money means freedom. I could spend time with people I love and do things I find interesting and enjoyable, rather than living for the next paycheck and having money end up owning me and my life as is the case with so many people who pursue high stress, high paying long term careers to "provide for their family" and end up miserable and distant. Another reason is that, call me entitled and selfish, but I don't enjoy the idea of working for someone else, likely doing something I'm only marginally passionate about, and having them take majority of the value of my efforts while giving me a fixed salary, though for many people I'm sure the stability of this is perfectly acceptable. However, I do agree probably nothing good will come of you if you are motivated purely by profit with 0 interest or passion in what you are doing. I select projects that I am personally interested in simply because I find it extremely difficult to work on things that I don't get excited about.