[HN Gopher] Andrew Wilkinson: "I read a book that blew my mind a...
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Andrew Wilkinson: "I read a book that blew my mind a little "
Author : prostoalex
Score : 20 points
Date : 2021-11-07 19:50 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| hirundo wrote:
| See also Purity Spiral.
| cap10morgan wrote:
| Peter Thiel almost certainly didn't invent this. The idea that
| our decisions are heavily influenced by those around us is one of
| those things that's been well-established in the relevant
| scientific communities for some time but has a hard time breaking
| into the popular consciousness because we don't want it to be
| true.
| Jugurtha wrote:
| That thread also blew my mind a bit. I do ask the question when I
| want something. "Why do I want this ?".
|
| Something that drew my attention to this phenomenon is all the
| ridiculous Hollywood movie scripts. It's always an unpopular
| teenager who'll then gain superpowers and impress people in his
| high-school, and everyone will ooh and aaah and take pictures and
| videos of him doing something 'cool', and the proverbial girl
| becoming impressed. It's the guy swallowing a pill and magically
| becoming fluent in several languages and masterfully play
| instruments to the audience's awe and women's lust.
|
| I find there is such an emptiness that makes me almost certain
| those who write these either are virgins, or write them for
| virgins. Either way, it is sad.
|
| I also see it in interests (language learning, writing, book
| reading, singing, writing, film making, and music) in the circles
| I frequent made of people in these fields, and it is accurate
| down to the speech patterns sometimes.
|
| Sometimes, however, I think that this intrinsic/extrinsic
| dichotomy has its limits. You may start learning something or
| wanting something because of, or thanks to, someone else. It is
| extrinsic, but is it ? It is by definition. Can something you're
| not aware of be intrinsic. People you frequent expose you to
| different tastes and passions and fields and horizons.
|
| You may have started programming extrinsically because someone
| you respect did it, and it unlocks an intrinsic desire.
|
| Because of or thanks to depends on what you make of it.
| sirdavidof wrote:
| It's often underappreciated how _hard_ it can be to tell why you
| want something.
|
| I've spent weeks thinking as rationally as I could about a
| decision, and with years of hindsight realised it was based
| mainly on what others wanted.
|
| If anyone feels they've solved this, I'd love to hear how.
| lupire wrote:
| It's "Keeping Up With the Joneses" in annoying Twitter thread
| form.
|
| Is that mind blowing?
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| _The book is called 'Wanting', by an guy named Luke Burgis._
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| You mean, the basic logic of kids in preschool who only want the
| toy some other kid is playing with?
|
| Yes, the world is full of sheep dazed by the sheer complexity and
| cacophony of the modern world. It's very hard to make logical
| decisions about every part of your life, instead people glom onto
| templates to follow. It's just a lot easier.
|
| Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a good, interesting idea. Maybe
| "wanting" the book has deeper ideas...
|
| But it's hilarious the thread name-drops Peter Thiel in a SF-
| focused thread about wanting things only because prominent people
| have/want them, when it's basically advocating for deciding your
| own way.
|
| One of the inherent parts of humanity the social animal is
| belonging. People do many things subconsciously simply to belong.
|
| Our world is utterly insane. We are headed towards an
| environmental disaster if you do the smallest amount of research
| or thought, and yet a strict environmental lifestyle is viewed
| as, at best, eccentricity.
|
| No one is happy it seems, yet everyone buys into the same
| materialistic sales campaigns and keeps doing the same thing over
| and over to try to make themselves happy, the colloquial
| definition of insanity.
|
| The amazing invention of marketing in the 20th-21st centuries is
| that marketing unlocked people tautologically and defensively
| want because other people want. By highlighting that everyone
| wants and hoards, it makes everyone defensively hoard, because we
| all evolved in resource scarcity, so seeing people hoard triggers
| us all to hoard defensively.
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