Most people tend to be satisfied with something like, “well you get a job, and jobs pay money” - but I’m still anxious. Where do jobs get money? Mostly (but not only!) customers. Where do customers get money? Mostly (but not only!) jobs
-
Show this thread
-
A Paul Graham essay about wealth relieved a substantial amount of anxiety. Without referring to it, my recollection is: money is a proxy (imperfect) for what people want. Get good at making or doing what people want, and you’ll be OK That’s good enough to function, but still...
1 reply 1 retweet 41 likesShow this thread -
Pause. Let’s switch up to an interesting fact. Some of the biggest sources of money in the world are “investment funds”. Saudi Arabia’s investment fund, which I assume is made primarily of oil money, invests billions in proxies that invest in tech, construction...
1 reply 3 retweets 17 likesShow this thread -
These hallowed portals of money are so massive and opaque, I’m not sure it’s possible for outsiders like me to develop an accurate model of them or how they work over the course of an entire lifetime. They’re almost like gods, or the high priests of the church of the $$$ god
1 reply 4 retweets 27 likesShow this thread -
Pause. Switch back to jobs. A job is a role in an organization. My favorite fun example of an organization is a bank heist - the getaway driver gets paid even though he isn’t “directly” involved (depends on how you see it). When the heist is simple, every job clearly “matters”
1 reply 2 retweets 20 likesShow this thread -
The scary thing to me as a teenager m was the prospect of working a bullshit job in a bullshit organization, cranking widgets that nobody actually cares about, nobody actually wants outside of the bizzaro context of the organization itself
3 replies 8 retweets 65 likesShow this thread -
It’s interesting to reflect on this now - why was I so averse to this? Seriously, I was constantly nauseous in junior college because I felt like everyone around me was hallucinating and I was given a placebo or something. Everyone marching in lockstep to a beat I couldn’t hear
2 replies 3 retweets 62 likesShow this thread -
Some time, space, reading & reflection has made it clear: school isn’t about education, school is part of an economic-industrial complex mass-producing interchangeable widgets for the capitalist meat grinder of humanity. Annoying wokebros whining about this doesn’t make it untrue
3 replies 22 retweets 127 likesShow this thread -
Parents and teachers and peers all unwittingly conspire to create this mass hallucination where people collectively mutilate, cauterize and brand their minds in service of The Economy - and not The Economy itself, but their imperfect, vague and detached conceptualization of it
3 replies 10 retweets 67 likesShow this thread -
The prospect of it always seemed hideously bleak to me. The prize for doing well in school, it seemed, was that you get to win one of the higher paying jobs in one of the more prestigious organisations, meaning you get to crank high-prestige widgets instead of low-status widgets
3 replies 7 retweets 77 likesShow this thread
Sounds like someone wants teeshirts to be high-status widgets
Two words: gold thread
-
-
-
- 4 more replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.
