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This bugs me, because it's the cynical negativity that I often feel, but it's one-sided and extreme. Except for hermits, all of us want services from others. Serving is, therefore, part of the social contract. We work, we pay taxes, and we do lots of work for others' benefit. Nothing wrong with that. To rip from Game of Thrones, valar dohaeris. In fact, most people rot in a life where they don't get opportunities to help out (i.e. serve) others and become deeply unhappy. They feel unfulfilled. It's the alienating and creepy institutional experience, the entrenched ingrate upper class, the perverse social demands, and the dehumanizing, corrupt, and capricious evaluation process-- and, in addition to all this, the fact that it has nothing to do with productivity (people could be just as productive, if not moreso, in better environments)-- that make institutional Work so horrible. People like to do things for other people. That's not a waste of life. That's a major part of being human. Being forced to do things-- often boring, degrading things-- in some subordinate context is what makes people miserable at work. |
If you're smart, you level up to Mastery fairly quickly.
Once you're no longer an absolute novice, it's frustrating to spend your days without meaning or purpose. The novice finds meaning and purpose internally when learning. Once learning has plateaued, meaning and purpose come from integrating with society.
This is where the shackles of jobs start to erode your self: the masters at bad workplaces dole out meaning and purpose based on die rolls. They don't understand the connection between what people are good at, what they want to do, and how they should do it. You get told what to do. You have little leeway. When your choices are removed, the friction eats you alive.
Modern hippy startups try to get around the last part by letting people do whatever they want. Those companies can be pretty much counted on one hand though.
In short: companies exploit the Mastery of smart people while forcing you to look at Purpose through double slits and removing Autonomy resulting in your knobs of happiness being broken without you even realizing it.