

‘Never Settle’ Is A Brag - partition
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/10/never-settle-is-a-brag.html

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partition
Here are some points I'd like to discuss:

1\. It's clearly not beneficial to "never settle" for everything. Some things
you _do_ settle on, hell you settle on them _out of habit_. Other things, like
your career or love life, is not so clear. But I believe the "never settle"
attitude and everything that comes with it is just useful all by itself, even
though you're most likely to end up with a dead end job and die alone or with
someone who hates you. Even so, the linked article is a good reminder that
it's not enough to "find what you love, then do it"; you have to not be the
~99% of people who either can't find such a thing (not for lack of trying), or
be stuck doing it badly. Cal Newport poses "love what you're doing" as an
alternative; but is that just consolation for being a slave in whatever system
you're working in?

2\. Steve Jobs is known for having a personality cult. Many people on this
very site have expressed that they are _unusually_ deeply affected by his
death, it's kind of scary. I say this as someone who is sad that he died and
as someone who uses Apple products on a daily basis. But the hero worship? I
think there's something more to this part. I think most people aren't really
engaged with their lives and actually despise them. The second the slightest
_external_ source of inspiration appears, they're engaged and ready to do
their life's work. And this is what Steve Jobs is good at doing, more than
anything else: inspiring people to work harder for his company by essentially
exploiting basic human psychology about feeling effective and belonging to a
community. So does the world really just belong to the people who can get away
with the most social manipulation? Or does this system of social manipulators
being at the top only work in cultures like in America? I just wish there was
some better way of doing things, to be engaged in life but not in service of a
_personality_, either directly or indirectly. Or is that the only real point
to life that has any behavioral consequences?

3\. Steve Jobs was probably the biggest idea man ever. It is possible to
categorize people into two groups: those who have the idea and those who do
the implementation. Steve Jobs was good at bringing implementors together to
build around a certain idea. But, often, implementors feel that they don't get
enough credit, either monetarily or socially, for what they do. Yet, from
personal experience, I think it's better if possible to be both at the same
time. Then you know both the problem and solution in intimate detail, and
don't have to deal with people, either manipulating them into doing work for
you or feeling resentful at being manipulated. And for the technical side,
there are a lot of nice force multipliers in the form of programming languages
and libraries. But if everyone wants to be this, then we all end up working
alone or with as few people as possible. How does one balance the loneliness
of being both the idea guy and implementor against the resentment involved in
being just one of them? Or is there some different perspective I haven't
considered that isn't feel-good bullshit about the members of a team being
"equally" valuable?

