

Brainwashed: How to Reinvent Yourself (Seth Godin) - albertcardona
http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/66.01.Brainwashed

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mseebach
_When exactly were we brainwashed into believing that the best way to earn a
living is to have a job?_

I don't buy this. Humans are risk-averse and a having a job isn't the _best_
way to earn a living - it's the _easiest_ and to a certain extend the safest.

Founding a start up, or working as a freelancer isn't for everyone, and
pointing fingers and yelling "you're brainwashed because you didn't make the
same superior choices I did" isn't very constructive.

~~~
DenisM
Taking risk aversion to its logical conclusion one will end up selling himself
into slavery - a good slave owner will take care of housing and nutritional
needs of his slaves in good or bad times because he has vested interest in the
slaves being alive and healthy. It's easy to see drawbacks of slavery, and so
it stands to reason that risk-aversion, like many other natural urges, must be
controlled.

Employment in that regard is the same story - you are trading in part of your
autonomy in exchange of lesser risk exposure. It's rarely a good trade.

~~~
foldr
Taking virtually anything to its logical conclusion is a bad idea. The logical
conclusion of risk non-aversion isn't all that pretty either.

~~~
DenisM
The opposite of risk-aversion is not risk-seeking, as you seem to imply, but
risk-management as I have explicitly advocated in my previous post.

~~~
foldr
I don't share your intuitions about opposites. Risk-management is in any case
a middle-of-the-road position. A person might rationally decide that the best
risk/reward balance, given their particular goals, was to get a job.
(Especially if these goals include doing a lot of stuff outside of work, since
startups don't give you much free time.)

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DavidMcLaughlin
So many of his points are patently false. I wonder if the author is aware of
the bubble in which he lives.

In fact, when trying to get through this manifesto I was constantly reminded
of this Bill Watterson quote in his Kenyon speech:

 _Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare
achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the
good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an
eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to
the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding
job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities
is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home
and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a
job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You'll be told in a
hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be
satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a
million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them._

~~~
mxyzptlk
Thanks. I didn't know about that speech. Here's the whole thing...

<http://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html>

------
iskander
>Do you remember learning to factor quadrilateral equations? x2 -32x +12? Why
were you taught this? Why did they spend hours drilling you on such clearly
useless content? Simple: you were being trained to be a compliant cog, someone
who could mindlessly follow instructions as opposed to seeking out innovation
and surprise.

Oh god...

~~~
yagibear
I liked the quadrilateral (as opposed to quadratic) touch.

~~~
anatoly
And the x2 (as opposed to x^2) touch.

------
PostOnce
I have no idea where this is coming from. I mean, I know my share of
naysayers, but this is America. We're told from day one "You're in America!
You can be or do anything you set your heart and mind to!"

 _The American Dream_ isn't exactly an obscure phrase...

So, "brainwashed into believing you're average" is complete nonsense.

~~~
staunch
The American Dream is precisely about being average. The white picket fence
and all that.

~~~
DenisM
More accurately, it's believing you could be anything you want and choosing an
average comfortable life. This is in contrast to not having the choice at all.
People like having choice, not necessarily using it.

~~~
stinkytaco
What's wrong with a comfortable life? I mean, from a genetic perspective, what
I really want is for my child to have children. Having and "average,
comfortable life" has, thus far, been a pretty good way to achieve that.

~~~
DenisM
I didn't say there is anything wrong with that. What exactly are you arguing
against?

~~~
stinkytaco
The corollary to your statement is that if I have an average, comfortable
life, I did not choose it. I simply let myself "fall into" that life. I view
this as a negative statement, though perhaps you didn't mean it that way. I
_chose_ a comfortable life and worked to achieve it. It didn't just _happen_
to me because I coasted along.

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bricestacey
Apparently this is only the intro to a larger manifesto that you have to click
"View this Manifesto" through to read. (didn't realize at first) Here's the
link:

<http://changethis.com/manifesto/issue/66.01.Brainwashed#view>

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Angostura
The message I take away from this is that Seth believes he much much more
special than the people who draw a wage.

~~~
DenisM
And he's right, he is more special. He is also ready to explain you how to
become special - a better you.

Imagine that a person is in fact brainwashed - how would she react to someone
trying to explain it to her? Would she perhaps become defensive? How would she
go about discovering if she is brainwashed or not? How would she go about
changing that?

I submit it is in fact nearly impossible to use one's own world view to
understand the limits of one's own world view. The best way to explore the
boundary is to listen to someone who has gone further than yourself in a given
direction.

The other great option is to look for people with a more limited world view
than your own, pay attention to patterns of behaviors and convictions that
make those people limited and then look for the same patterns in yourself. I
have made many great self-discoveries using this tactic.

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greyman
I understand the article appeal to the would be entrepreneurs, but still, I
feel somehow warped "marketers" thinking behind it, something I would call a
disrespect or disdain towards an actual work.

For example, I have been working in a team of about 1000 people, consisting of
software developers, testers, QM people, sales and management, who together
worked on a large software system deployed in hospitals.

There are several companies fighting in this niche, and all of them are big
corporations. The magnitude of the task just doesn't allow any small startups
to compete. And yet, most of the people working on it are employees, because
just that is the way the work is organized.

But let me ask, why should some marketer call it "compliant work"? Why it
doesn't deserve to be called just a "work", at least?

Maybe what Mr Godin doesn't realize is that what he calls "compliant work" is
something which allows him to survive in society - food he eats, clothes he
wear, or doctors who care after him... most of this is "compliant work"...

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revdinosaur
It seems that this is nothing more than an (average) attempt at providing
self-help type information in the form of a conspiratorial stab at public
education. (Seven Ways to Blah Blah Blah.) Notice that he immediately derives
the goal of public schools from a result: people become complacent, therefore
the "system" intends to brainwash people to be complacent!

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jafran
ugh, is he serious? does anyone actually believe that the reason people don't
run their own businesses is because they were brainwashed? as opposed to, um,
lemme check, lack of desire, lack of funds, lack of skills, etc. i have issues
with this assumption that the natural state of everyone is to be above
average. i don't think the math works.

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msort
A good read. Summary: Through failures, learn the ability to ship arts (work
that matters) and ship them.

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zeynel1
"Do you remember learning to factor quadrilateral equations? x2 -32x +12? Why
were you taught this? Why did they spend hours drilling you on such clearly
useless content? Simple: you were being trained to be a compliant cog, someone
who could mindlessly follow instructions as opposed to seeking out innovation
and surprise."

I agree with this. He's right.

