[dangus]

I’m not afraid to be judgmental…

The article author hasn’t figured out that he got to where he is because he was lucky, not because he was special in some way.

The cringe comes in with the way he does it. He seems to realize he is an Elon bro but still thinks DOGE is an important national priority and not a problematic oligarchic downsizing of our important federal services and regulatory bodies.

It’s amazing how even millionaires and billionaires don’t understand that national debt doesn’t work like personal debt.

But anyway, that’s a tangent. The guy dumped his girlfriend so he has no family to spend time with, and he’s wondering why he’s bored. His only attempts at stimulation involve self-service: how can I be smart and successful especially in a way that everyone will know it?

I can only imagine how being financially set for life would positively impact a typical fiscally responsible family (people with the restraint to hire a financial advisor). Imagine being able to cancel daycare and spend your days with your family instead of burning your life away in the office.

I even know a person who has no children but thanks to a windfall just does his hobbies and hangs out with friends. Still works a day job for health insurance but now work doesn’t define their life. They’ve done things like learn how to DJ and travel to see their international friends on longer visits and not just little two week vacations that corporate zombies get to take.

But the author is struggling to find a way to make work define their life, to get their life to return to capitalism that they have been blessed to escape.

Hey author if you are reading this, try doing something positive like help people. Volunteer. Everything you have tried so far has been self-centered.

[verygoodnotbad]

I am afraid to be judgemental.

> The article author hasn’t figured out that he got to where he is because he was lucky, not because he was special in some way.

It seems like a lot to assume that suggests the author is not a fast technical learner and builder.

> Hey author if you are reading this, try doing something positive like help people. Volunteer. Everything you have tried so far has been self-centered.

That sounds like good advice for me, but not to the author. I sometimes follow orders from random people for fun, but I infer that the author does not.

The author traveled off the paved path. Reality gave him with wealth and time, but unsatisfaction instead of satisfaction. His role is now to figure out a path back to satisfaction, perhaps it will be a short path or a long path, a common one or a one the world hasn't seen before.

[lazide]

I think it’s the natural result of someone who has ‘won’ a game they have been obsessing about/that defined them.

People often find a similar lack of purpose (albeit much, much shorter lived) after being engrossed in a book series, very hard video game, or any other pursuit.

The big difference here, IMO, is this is a game that society is literally constructed around - for its own survival. The ‘rat race’ puts food on everyone’s table, provides care when we’re sick, defines what future our children can have (and if we can even have children) - even what rights we have (or don’t have) in many cases.

Is it so surprising that having won that game, some people - often the ones most obsessed with it - struggle to figure out what is next?

[sausagefeet]

> It seems like a lot to assume that suggests the author is not a fast technical learner and builder.

Unless you think one can choose to be a "fast technical leaner and builder", then that is still luck.

[Chris2048]

Then what is the antonym of luck? Sound like a tautology.

[sausagefeet]

I don't know! But I don't think that changes the argument very much. Unless one thinks that we can choose to be smart or a fast learner or have interests that happen to be lucrative, we should be very thoughtful about how we choose to reward people who are successful. This isn't a new or original idea, it's an old debate.

[thegrimmest]

There is an implied collectivism in your statements. The idea that "we choose to reward people who are successful" implies there is a collective with the legitimate authority to make such determinations. I reject this idea. Instead I propose that legitimate authority only exists to create a liberal ecosystem, not to meddle in the outcomes that ecosystem produces. A person's fortune (or misfortune) to be born with particular traits, into a particular childhood environment, is entirely their own. I see no source of legitimacy to redistribute that fortune to other people without explicit consent.

[sausagefeet]

This view makes no sense given any cursory view of history. What about European countries going to the Americas, taking people's land (with out consent) and gold (without consent) to enrich themselves? Or what about the relative success of any tribes in the Americas prior to Europeans showing up by defeating other tribes?

At what arbitrary point would you like to start counting as to where we should start respecting this "consent"? Do you want to undo any previous actions or should we just take whatever arbitrary power structures we've landed on and start? C'mon, this is ridiculous.

We live in a society which, by definition, requires multiple people participating. Your right to consent (or not) sometimes doesn't exist because society takes priority. There is no high philosophy here, it's just the reality of how things work. Get over it.

[bruce343434]

It depends wether you believe in determinism. If you do, then everything is just "luck". If you believe that your mind is something special that can come to conclusions truly independently (create information out of thin air) then the consequences of actions are skill or intelligence.

Or whatever. "Luck" is just a dumb concept we humans use to handwave away edge cases.

[sausagefeet]

It does not require believing in determinism to believe a majority of one's outcome is based on context that they do not control. For myself, I didn't choose which country I was born in (I happen to be born in a wealthy country). I also was not born into abusive parents but rather parents who valued science and school. We happened to get a computer early because of my dad's job and I happen to have enjoyed it. That doesn't mean it's a deterministic outcome, but it is chaotic, in the sense that given all these inputs it's not possible to predict the outcome. And small perturbations can have significantly different outputs.

> "Luck" is just a dumb concept we humans use to handwave away edge cases.

Or maybe this view is just people who really want to believe there is something else. What is that something else?

[Spooky23]

Luck is a combination fortune and the ability to exploit it. We all have examples of the right ideas at the wrong time, as well as serendipity dropping the right circumstances at the right time.

[xenophonf]

The antonym of "luck" is "misfortune".

[wizzwizz4]

> It seems like a lot to assume that suggests the author is not a fast technical learner and builder.

I'm a fast technical learner and builder. I will never be where this guy is, in part because most of my resources are going into keeping myself afloat. I live my life as though "luck" isn't a factor (what's the use in declaring defeat?), but it's certainly not merit that separates the rich from the poor.

[tw04]

> It seems like a lot to assume that suggests the author is not a fast technical learner and builder.

There are a lot of really, really, really smart people who never become generationally wealthy. Generational wealth almost always includes either luck, or intentionally heading down a morally reprehensible path.

You’ll have a tough time convincing me the guy who invented loom is smarter than or contributed more to mankind than Nikola Tesla.

Which is probably a perfect example because Edison took the morally reprehensible path.

[boringg]

Your examples are at the extreme end. You can be a fast technical learner or builder which does make you special but not be an inventor or someone who can grok science and systems similar to Tesla / Edison.

Loom != DC or AC electricity its a helpful tool not transformational technology such as electricity.

[tw04]

Op said he got lucky, the response implied he didn’t. My example is extreme because the circumstances of making several hundred million dollars on a startup exit is EXTREMELY rare, and has far more to do with luck than skill.

[dangus]

If he was a fast learner and thinker he would have figured out that DOGE is an illegal oligarchy scheme.

[antics]

There is truth to what you say. But I sense what I wrote came off more negative than I intended, and I am not sure it makes any of our lives (our lives or his) better to be hard on the author. Self actualization is legitimately extremely difficult.

[dangus]

If I were you I wouldn’t worry about what you said coming across negative.

The article author is essentially on the wrong side of the class war. I don’t really care how well he self-actualizes and I don’t think anyone should.

At this point he’s a <1%er who essentially thinks it’s a good idea to help the richest man alive fuck up the government.

[numpad0]

I think he IS special. You can't easily have $60m income and be this bored. He could probably, say, get a million dollar in $1 note and burn it dollar by dollar in the backyard one evening and be a YouTuber overnight. Getting exposure is stupid, so what, he could pay an "NPC" do it for him.

What this guy is missing is creativity. And we don't have data to determine if it's contributor, detractor, or tangent to the position where he is at. I'd bet it's a bigly contributory, as gains from x-factors are called gambling.

[Litost]

I suspect burning $1 notes one at a time might take a very long time (it takes longer than you might expect burning bundles of £50 notes [1]) and as you say "What this guy is missing is creativity", just burning $1m dollars just for the sake of it, unless you're making some creative comment some would probably see as pointless/divisive.

[1] See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Qu...

[jkestner]

See, what separates the special titans of startup industry from the rest of us is the creativity to burn those dollars at scale.

[deltarholamda]

The girlfriend thing was very odd. At one time, "making it" meant now you can marry the girl, have a bunch of kids, and become a pillar of your community.

Get rich? Move to a small or mid-sized city, marry your girl, have some kids, and get involved. Need to be busy? Run a local business that hires locals. Use your money and expertise to improve your community, which is a lot easier to do as a big fish in a small pond.

[InsideOutSanta]

Yeah, the "I dumped my girlfriend of two years as soon as things got a little bit hard for me, why is my life boring and meaningless?" thing also stood out to me. As well as this:

"Within 2 minutes of talking to the final interviewer for DOGE, he asked me if I wanted to join. I said “yes”. Then he said “cool” and I was in multiple Signal groups."

DOGE is run on Signal, and his conclusion is "so smart," not "that seems like a huge red flag." This guy sounds like he's in line to be the next George Papadopoulos, the guy who gets thrown under the bus when everything goes sideways.

[jkestner]

Joining a group of rich tech executives on Signal and “learning how completely dysfunctional the government was” sounds like cult behavior.

[adastra22]

What is sus about Signal?

[Spooky23]

Federal entities require transparency and various rules to be followed to enable investigations and oversight. Remember when a certain political party was concerned about somebody’s emails?

The signal of using signal for running the business is that by working there you’re likely committing a crime every day by working there. If you’re not DJT’s bff, or when Elon gets kicked out of cool kids club, you’re boned.

[adastra22]

DOGE is not a government entity.

[richiricho]

The ignorance that you can just 'fix' a very old, grown on purpose structure by having some signal chats, is very high.

[compass_copium]

Governmemt agencies are supposed to have publicly available records

[InsideOutSanta]

The funny thing is that the "Department of Government Efficiency" is not a government department, or any kind of official government entity. It is probably (or will be) a federal advisory committee. Federal advisory committees have official rules on open meetings and reporting.

So the fact that they think it's a good idea to just start a bunch of chats on Signal should be surprising, but it's Trump and Elon, so I guess it's just another thing in a long list of insane things that just happen, and we just kind of ignore them and pretend that everything is fine.

[totallynothoney]

I think he's saying that "running" DOGE via a messanger app sounds more like some cryptobro hustle university / shitpost chat group than a serious organization. The description in the blog of working there that sounds like cokehead bender doesn't help.

[richiricho]

Yep the DOGE thing was crazy fucked up. You worded it very nicely.

[mnky9800n]

there is a wonderful quote from a soviet movie called guest from the future, you can watch the whole movie on youtube with english subtitles here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BB6bwJ9agM

Anyways, the quote is:

>> You are a pathetic victim of an idle mind.

I think this aptly describes the author.

[nishantmodak]

Wasn't it pascal who said that all of our problems come from our inability to be bored.

[joncrocks]

The commonly repeated phrase:

All of humanity's problems, stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. - attributed to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal

I think it's someone paraphrasing from the original text.

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/69487/why-did...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal

[lloeki]

It is, and the thinking of it runs deeper than the quote, in ways that directly echo TFA author's own words:

http://www.mpafrancais.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/9/8/19984595/p...

(en français, of course. I link to it in its original language as I take issue with the usual translation of the very title as "Diversion", which immediately lacks the double-entendre of "Divertissement", which in french stands for both "diversion" and "entertainment")

Maybe what TFA author should do is spend some time standing on the shoulders of giants and read some philosophy?

[BlueTemplar]

> Tel homme passe sa vie sans ennui en jouant tous les jours peu de chose. Donnez-lui tous les matins l’argent qu’il peu gagner chaque jour, à la charge qu’il ne joue point : vous le rendez malheureux. On dira peut-être que c’est qu’il recherche l’amusement du jeu, et non pas le gain. Faites-le donc jouer pour rien, il ne s’y échauffera pas et s’y ennuiera. Ce n’est donc pas l’amusement seul qu’il recherche : un amusement languissant et sans passion l’ennuiera. Il faut qu’il s’échauffe et qu’il se pipe lui-même, en s’imaginant qu’il serait heureux de gagner ce qu’il ne voudrait pas qu’on lui donnât à condition de ne point jouer, afin qu’il se forme un sujet de passion, et qu’il excite sur cela son désir, sa colère, sa crainte, pour l’objet qu’il s’est formé, comme les enfants qui s’effrayent du visage qu’ils ont barbouillé.

I wouldn't be so sure about this, this might depend on the personality of the player. Some might think that introducing monetary stakes in fact ruins the game itself. And you can even take it further : the winning itself might become secondary - at which point playing the game is probably more akin to a form of artistic expression, infused with a different kind of meaning. (There are also games where you win, but in cooperation with others rather than against others.)

But then this passage also reminded me of this recent thread :

"More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42468255

[finnthehuman]

> Hey author if you are reading this, try doing something positive like help people. Volunteer. Everything you have tried so far has been self-centered.

It's a common enough idea to tell someone rudderless to volunteer, but I feel like it's never tempered with the perspective of having volunteered and reflected on how the donated time has effected one's own life. Shaming someone rudderless into volunteering doesn't help them for exactly the obvious reasons it won't. At least no more than anything else you can lean hard into in life to avoid something else. Suggesting it as a fix to ennui is bad advice, the virtuousness of volunteering just masks how terrible it is.

[wadadadad]

I don't understand what you're trying to say here. To share my experience as someone who volunteers, I find it to be one of the most gratifying (humbling, helpful, makes me see the value of life) things, and I think it's worthwhile to share the idea that it could help someone who is searching for meaning. I wholeheartedly recommend volunteering for everyone who can afford it (which I recognize not everyone can). I'm not sure GP here needs to necessarily state "I volunteer and found it worthwhile" every time they recommend it.

What are these "obvious reasons" that volunteering won't help someone seeking direction?

I also don't follow why you haven't stated whether you've personally tried volunteering and whether it's "worked" for you, particularly when you seem dismissive of it and seem to looking for personal reasoning from others.

[finnthehuman]

>I also don't follow why you haven't stated whether you've personally tried volunteering and whether it's "worked" for you, particularly when you seem dismissive of it and seem to looking for personal reasoning from others.

I do. I did not start to distract myself from other life issues, I joined because I wanted to help the org accomplish it's mission. It's rewarding and fulfilling, but I'm not using it as a mental defense from something else in my life. Whether or not it "worked" in that sense is simply not a thing for me.

It certainly shifted a lot of my mental focus. That's why I mentioned you can lean hard into things in life as a distraction for what's consuming you. And I've certainly used that mental defense over the years, it just happened that the things I used didn't include volunteering. And over the years I've noticed through others that volunteering is a particularly good way of self-deception that you're not just employing that defense.

That's why shaming someone into volunteering when they're rudderless bothers me. It's hard to argue against because it has intrinsic value AND can work in the "the true $whatever was the friends we made along the way" sense, plus the slim chance they find a new life purpose. But also maybe it doesn't and they really should have been shamed into joining the clergy instead because that's where they would have found their calling.

[afpx]

How do you find a good volunteer organization? I volunteered for a couple years at different orgs, and it was a bad experience. All the bad parts of the workplace but with worse people and no pay.

[dijksterhuis]

i volunteer.

my suggestion to the author would be: spend some time volunteering and get over yourself (by that i mean their own ego which seems to be putting them at the centre of everything).

in my experience, some things tend to come out of it

- gratitude for where i am at in life because i’m struggling less than the people i’m helping

- empathy because jesus yeah these people are struggling and i’m seeing just how much it’s affecting them

- humility because you know what, i really am limited in what i can actually do for these people, none of my “technical prowess” is actually useful here

- purpose because man i feel bad for these people and id like to do more to help than just showing up once a week

i don’t volunteer because it’s “virtuous”. fuck virtuosity.

i do it because i need to for my own sake — to experience the stuff above. it’s selfish-selflessness. by helping others i also help myself.

edit — added the one about humility which is quite important

edit 2 — donating money (philanthropy) is not the same as volunteering. in case there’s any confusion. boots on the ground are required.

[begueradj]

<< I’m not afraid to be judgmental

Is there any single daily life situation where any person from around the globe and in the entire history of humankind who is not judgemental? Perhaps not at a job interview? Or maybe at dating or when trying to sell or buy something or simply when looking at that person?

[RaiausderDose]

100s meetings on Signal with the 'smartest people I have ever met' is a big red flag for me.

I know I'm an asshole, but I've never had good experiences with people who call themselves super smart.

And of course, they were identifying all problems with the government on signal in very short, super effective meetings... yeah sure, dude.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Some of the smartest people I know are also the most humble. Everyone can tell they're extremely smart but they'll be the last to admit it.

[lostlogin]

> He seems to realize he is an Elon bro but still thinks DOGE is an important national priority and not a problematic oligarchic downsizing of our important federal services and regulatory bodies.

Based on this blog and the needs of the overseeing oligarch, DOGE appears to be a therapy programme for millionaires and billionaires.

[dangus]

Now that is a hilarious take. It really is blatantly obvious how badly people like Elon Musk need therapy.

But we shouldn’t downplay what the program really intends to do: gut federal government spending rather than raising taxes on the wealthy to a sensible level.

Most federal government spending has very real benefits to the average person and should be thought of as more of an investment than a cost. But the DOGE mafia wants to cut programs that help the average person to protect their own fortunes.

E.g., the average person is harmed by shutting down the department of education. The wealthy who go to private school their whole lives are not.

[phkahler]

>> still thinks DOGE is an important national priority and not a problematic oligarchic downsizing of our important federal services and regulatory bodies.

I'm not convinced it's the later. There IS a looming financial problem with our government and nobody else is doing anything about it. Federal spending is up trillions of dollars (per year) in the last 5 years with nothing to show for it. There is huge inefficiency and Elon wants to take a stab at fixing it. Yes, the man has his flaws, but he's trying to fix things nobody else will even try. Not sure why people have to hate on that.

BTW, I do expect so over-cutting will happen and there will be fallout from that. But hopefully the budget gets fixed and congress learns something about fiscal responsibility.

[aga98mtl]

> He seems to realize he is an Elon bro but still thinks DOGE is an important national priority and not a problematic oligarchic downsizing of our important federal services and regulatory bodies.

I'm confused by this belief. Anyone who has ever interacted with a big government in the West knows they are a knot of old and confusing regulations that cause every thing to be slow and expensive. A leftist should be happy that the state gets to accomplish more with it's existing budget.

[tedivm]

The problem is that no one believes Elon and company are actually trying to "accomplish more with it's existing budget". That would be a great goal, but I don't believe that's what they're doing or even capable of doing.

Remember, Elon downsized Twitter by 80%, and then Twitter lost 80% of it's value. Simply firing a bunch of people doesn't accomplish more, it can actually destroy the value of the thing to begin with.

We've all seen this with republicans before. They take over, make things worse, and then use the fact that things are worse as an excuse for why the government shouldn't do the things it does. Elon isn't an expert in efficiency, he's an arsonist coming in to destroy the government so he and his buddies can extract more value out of this country.

[boringg]

Disagree with your take.

Many people believe Elon in that he's trying to right the ship. Elon has been very clear on his ambitions and he isn't what you are trying to paint him as (a political republican). And the counter point is that Elon and large portion SV have remained in the center while the Dems marched steadily left leaving everyone in the center without a party.

Twitter was broken and full of bloat as is clearly obvious given that it is performing in many ways better than before engineering wise. It has become much more of a wild west given his free speech absolutism perspective but you can't possibly argue that what he didn't proved all the critics wrong - lights stayed on, kept shipping products. It certainly hasn't lost 80% value from his actions - he bought it at the height of ZIRP mania.

Now whether Elon has a enough inertia to actually be able to tackle some of the truly endemic issues of the Federal government is another question. Some of his new found friends will certainly poison the water but my take is he is authentic in his attempt to reduce deficit and lower the debt for the US while increasing growth.

[sarchertech]

>he is authentic in his attempt to reduce deficit and lower the debt for the US while increasing growth.

The only way he is being authentic is if he is an idiot.

If he knew what he was talking about and was being authentic, he wouldn’t be publicly stating that he is going to cut $2 trillion from the budget.

Payroll for the entire Federal civilian workforce is only $300 billion.

I guess he could just be suffering from delusions of grandeur and he think he’s going to be able to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, or the Military.

[tedivm]

He's planning on going after Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That's the only way to cut that much from the budget. Republicans have been transparent about their desire to remove the social safety nets for awhile now.

[boringg]

I think both parties know entitlements need to be changed. No current way to manage.

[sarchertech]

So then he’s delusional because he thinks he can come up with someway to cut $2 trillion from those programs that anyone will vote for.

[aga98mtl]

Yes, the republicans will cut spending. Next election cycle the Democrats will be able raise spending, but now from a more sound basis. The deadwood will be pruned. DOGE is good for both the left and the right.

Also do note that the current Twitter valuation is higher than we he bought it. Cutting 80% of the staff at twitter was the right move. https://www.yahoo.com/tech/elon-musks-startup-xai-now-120118...

[tedivm]

xAI and X are two separate companies. xAI is raising funds with a target valuation of $40b, but that has nothing to do with X. The article you linked to makes this pretty clear and validates what I said about the 80% lost.

> The new valuation means xAI has surpassed the $44 billion Musk paid for Twitter in October 2022. X was valued at $9.4 billion by Fidelity, one of its investors, in September. The firm, which invested $19.6 million in the platform, has written down the value of its investment by nearly 79% since 2022.

Cutting 80% of the staff happened during the same time period when Fidelity dropped the evaluation by 79%. Cutting the staff doesn't seem like a good move at all.

[sarchertech]

The problem isn’t that someone is trying to improve government efficiency.

The problem is that we picked a billionaire professional internet troll to do it whose stated goal is cutting 2 trillion from the budget.

And ignoring the fact that Elon is already running 3 companies, you couldn’t possibly find someone with more conflicts of interest than the richest man in the world.

Here’s a quote from Reason (hardly a left wing publication) that sums up how absurd their goal is.

“Musk and Ramaswamy's public pronouncements thus far do not inspire confidence. Musk's promise to save "at least $2 trillion" annually—approximately one-third of all (noninterest) federal spending—suggests a lack of familiarity with the federal budget. Roughly 75 percent of all federal spending goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, veterans, and interest, and the final quarter includes priorities such as infrastructure, justice, border security, health research, national parks, unemployment benefits, disaster aid, and disability benefits.”

Large organizations are inherently inefficient because id the non linear growth in communications overhead. If you don’t understand an organization, coming in and hacking away at it is insanely dangerous. How many companies have been ruined when hedge fund buys then and starts trying to “maximize efficiency”?

[aga98mtl]

Yes cutting $2T is not realistic. If they manage to do a few percent of the goal it is still going to be good for everyone.

Bloat is a major issue that prevent anglosphere societies from achieving goals that poorer societies do easily. Ex: Spain or France do awesome public transit for 3 or 5 times less than we do.

[sarchertech]

You don’t accomplish things by setting wildly unrealistic goals that you know are unobtainable.

And he’s not going to completely reorganize society so that we can build cheap public transit. Especially not by running a “government agency” that can’t do anything other than make recommendations to the president.

Do you know how many similar commissions we’ve had to reduce waste and spending?