It's wrong to assume that work always gives purpose, especially under capitalism, where work is often driven by profit rather than personal fulfillment. Many people are forced to work just to survive, not because the work is meaningful to them. In such systems, purpose can be disconnected from labor, as economic necessity replaces personal choice. True purpose comes from autonomy and alignment with one’s values—not just from being productive in a system that may exploit or undervalue human potential.
Well said, fully agree. Now we just need to keep saying it in ways people can’t pretend to not hear, can’t pretend to misunderstand, and back it up with data, both scientific and the self-evident data of our actual values, because a lot of the values and emotional valences we actually do have about our fellow humans don’t square with a lot of our poorly-thought-out truisms about blame, entitlement, merit, and luck. People who have to work to survive are people who have to do whatever horrible lowly thing is necessary to help an owner get and stay rich perpetually as they approach the level of an oligarch. That’s the machine. If someone can luck into a job they like, and that helps good people make the world better, that could be meaningful. This is vanishingly rare. Even if the whole truth was laid bare, we’d discover a callousness that is well-hidden behind a multitude of fallacies, euphemism and cognitive dissonance. Our only job is to make it harder to hide so that these inner demons can be confronted honestly instead of hidden to fester indefinitely while millions suffer unnecessarily. Thanks for your support Ingrid. I am running on fumes here and if I can get my sea legs I will go very hard on this with every ounce of talent and energy. It’s hard to find support because I don’t play games, I don’t pander, I don’t game algorithms. I am whispering in the wind and it means a lot that you hearted this. Hearts back atcha. Subscribing to you right now.
Spot on. Presuming that “employment” through a “job” is fundamental to “purpose,” and then taking the liberties to make that choice for everyone by defending the imposition of jobs on everyone who isn’t independently wealthy — of course out of the “goodness of heart and genuine concern for the commoners’ well-being” to preserve purpose for humanity—is the persistent goblin mumbling in the background and needs a good swatting down in the clear light. Perhaps I shall expand on the point in a future post.
It's wrong to assume that work always gives purpose, especially under capitalism, where work is often driven by profit rather than personal fulfillment. Many people are forced to work just to survive, not because the work is meaningful to them. In such systems, purpose can be disconnected from labor, as economic necessity replaces personal choice. True purpose comes from autonomy and alignment with one’s values—not just from being productive in a system that may exploit or undervalue human potential.
Well said, fully agree. Now we just need to keep saying it in ways people can’t pretend to not hear, can’t pretend to misunderstand, and back it up with data, both scientific and the self-evident data of our actual values, because a lot of the values and emotional valences we actually do have about our fellow humans don’t square with a lot of our poorly-thought-out truisms about blame, entitlement, merit, and luck. People who have to work to survive are people who have to do whatever horrible lowly thing is necessary to help an owner get and stay rich perpetually as they approach the level of an oligarch. That’s the machine. If someone can luck into a job they like, and that helps good people make the world better, that could be meaningful. This is vanishingly rare. Even if the whole truth was laid bare, we’d discover a callousness that is well-hidden behind a multitude of fallacies, euphemism and cognitive dissonance. Our only job is to make it harder to hide so that these inner demons can be confronted honestly instead of hidden to fester indefinitely while millions suffer unnecessarily. Thanks for your support Ingrid. I am running on fumes here and if I can get my sea legs I will go very hard on this with every ounce of talent and energy. It’s hard to find support because I don’t play games, I don’t pander, I don’t game algorithms. I am whispering in the wind and it means a lot that you hearted this. Hearts back atcha. Subscribing to you right now.
https://youtu.be/cGNJXDSBXaM?si=GD-VQe0EDfvOdBuF
This one is very informative, I think
Regarding Dr. Santos' course, I felt the need to send the following email:
"Dear Dr. Santos,
I am quite unhappy and need to ask genuinely, is it possible, (even right) to be happy in a tormented world?
Personally, I am "happy" as a grandfather of 86 with six grandchildren in fairly stable family environments.
But I am unhapphy about the world these youngsters are inheriting from my generation.
Do your courses address states of mind I am indicating above?
Sincerelly yours,
Janos Abel
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What we believe drives what we think and do
Maddening as Sunak's assertion is, it is a relief from the more frustrating response of “who will work if people are not forced to by lack of money?"
That question is dead in the light of Musk's views.
Then Sunak's worry opens the field for arguing that education fails to prepare new generations for life. instead of a life of work.
Sunak's thinking is strangely shallow: teach youngsters how to get good jobs so that they can find purpose for their life.
Why impose job-seeking between life and purpose, instead of changing the purpose of education?
Spot on. Presuming that “employment” through a “job” is fundamental to “purpose,” and then taking the liberties to make that choice for everyone by defending the imposition of jobs on everyone who isn’t independently wealthy — of course out of the “goodness of heart and genuine concern for the commoners’ well-being” to preserve purpose for humanity—is the persistent goblin mumbling in the background and needs a good swatting down in the clear light. Perhaps I shall expand on the point in a future post.