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My claim is roughly that whether you’re growth or fixed mindset, in the median case, life pressures will balance and eventually overwhelm your motivation to learn. You can only hope you’ll level off in a good place by then. Again, when, not if.
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Joke interlude. This is the only original joke I’ve made up in my life.
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Replying to @literalbanana
Doctor: you only have a few hours to live I’m afraid, how would you like to spend them? Patient: Bring...me...startup...podcast...at...8x...speed
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This whole thread plus original snark inspired by noticing how little learning the learning LARPers are actually doing. They’re creating an illusion of learning. There are derpy people I know who are the same they were 10 years ago who claim to be “constantly learning”
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Some replies asking me what definition of learning I’m using. You’re welcome to your own, but if you’re not changing in ways that alter your adaptive fit into your environment, you’re not learning by my definition. You’re larping learning or seeking stimulation.
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It’s odd that it’s okay to be a champion of excellence as “meritorious” or a champion of the left-behind/oppressed as “unfortunate”, but noticing the conditions and adaptations of the vast middle is taboo. Mediocrity, self-delusion, finite learning... modalities of the middle.
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Societal grand narratives are driven by a wishful hobbesian false Darwinism. A world of absolute winners and utter losers. No hanging on, treading water, sinking to training, surviving, good-enoughing, wing-and-prayering. The great 1-sigma blindspot in societal self-images.
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“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” — Edward Abbey. Original context was an environmentalist critique of the logic of capitalism. “Lifelong learning” is actually the same ideology at a personal life level.
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Doesn’t the word “growth” mean something specific in capitalism (becoming larger) and something general in learning (becoming “better”/more enlightened)?
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Okay, that makes sense and jives well with this tweet twitter.com/vgr/status/122 Hopefully “idea markets” is more transparently tautological. Also, perhaps lifelong learning is less objectionable if called “lifelong suffering-reduction,” because why wouldn’t you want to do that
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The arguments against endless-growth capitalism are different (resource limits, mounting externalities) but that too is endless learning. But at least there it’s kinda well-posed since the economy might be immortal for all we know. The market might really be an eternal learner.
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