Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

[Thailandnotes]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...ulture/399599/

[seobook]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

I think with economic liberalization and this whole world of neo-liberalism that we’re living in, there’s just less and less room at the top. One of the really frustrating outcomes of this has been this whole proliferation of basically first- and second-class labor systems.

One of the big issues with networked economies is we are shifting from a bell curve distribution system to a winner take most distribution system. Whenever some of the Wikipedia editors want to delete a person's article one of them slides in a comparison to Kim Kardashian to state how their significance is a farce, has been manufactured, etc. ... and yet, of course there is still an article on the wiki about her. And the reinforcing biases which exist at those sorts of layers also exist in the algorithmic layers at search engines and social sites and among editors at news sites chasing pageviews.

I highly recommended the documentary by Adam Curtis named The Century of the Self

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

One of the big issues with networked economies is we are shifting from a bell curve distribution system to a winner take most distribution system. Whenever some of the Wikipedia editors want to delete a person's article one of them slides in a comparison to Kim Kardashian to state how their significance is face, has been manufactured, etc. ... and yet, of course there is still an article on the wiki about her. And the reinforcing biases which exist at those sorts of layers also exist in the algorithmic layers at search engines and social sites and among editors at news sites chasing pageviews.

I highly recommended the documentary by Adam Curtis named The Century of the Self

Apparently the writer of the article on the Atlantic hasn't read Epicurus. He stated that one of the problems with happiness was the onslaught of advertising and this was in the 300s BC! de Botton on Epicurus.

The point being that advertisers sold their products by showing that if you buy their product it will offer the 3 things that he believed made one happy: Friends, Freedom and an Analyzed life (thought).

I really do enjoy modern humans "discovering" something they think is new: "These accounts are maintained by people, whether public-relations managers or interns, and they didn’t just post photos of the products or events [they are promoting]. A lot of times they would post photos of business trips or backstage at like a catalog photo shoot, presenting pictures of their work as super fun and joyful. I thought that was fascinating that they were using pictures of their work to sell products."

There is an ancient Assyrian tablet written around 732 BC that has this etched on it:

"Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching." Circa 732 B.C. Nothing is new, all is repeated.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

Apparently the writer of the article on the Atlantic hasn't read Epicurus. He stated that one of the problems with happiness was the onslaught of advertising and this was in the 300s BC! de Botton on Epicurus.

The point being that advertisers sold their products by showing that if you buy their product it will offer the 3 things that he believed made one happy: Friends, Freedom and an Analyzed life (thought).

I really do enjoy modern humans "discovering" something they think is new: "These accounts are maintained by people, whether public-relations managers or interns, and they didn’t just post photos of the products or events [they are promoting]. A lot of times they would post photos of business trips or backstage at like a catalog photo shoot, presenting pictures of their work as super fun and joyful. I thought that was fascinating that they were using pictures of their work to sell products."

There is an ancient Assyrian tablet written around 732 BC that has this etched on it:

"Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching." Circa 732 B.C. Nothing is new, all is repeated.

Yeah. Advertisers and markers are getting marginally better all the time. But the game is the game.

The problem I have with concepts like "the system is shifting to a winner-take-all..." is the lack of agency in the idea.

"The system" or "the economy" in this case is merely a series of laws and public and private sector institutions/organizations. There are people who head them. There are boards that govern them. There are ways to get inputs into them. And they can be changed. At least they have been in the past.

But it's not 'the system' or 'the economy' that are chaining. It's the laws and the rules that are changing. And it's the Congressmen that are making the laws. And it's the donors that are paying the congressmen to do it. And of course the donors want the system to "shift to winner-take-all." Because the donors already won. And they want to take all.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

From reading Seobrook’s insights about Google, it’s clear he understands there is agency.

I’m also pretty sure the author of the The Atlantic article is familiar with similar scenarios found circa BC. Perhaps, itulip’s, “Are you a Doomer?” should be reframed as “Are you a Decliner?”

For perspective on this I highly recommend Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos. Talk about Century of Self! From Confucianism to this pledge recited before school in rural China in 2008.

Ever since God created all things on Earth, there has not been one person like me. My eyes and my ears, my brain and my soul, all are exceptional. Nobody behaves or speaks like me, no one before me and no one will after me. I am the biggest miracle of nature.”

[dcarrigg]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

From reading Seobrook’s insights about Google, it’s clear he understands there is agency.

I’m also pretty sure the author of the The Atlantic article is familiar with similar scenarios found circa BC. Perhaps, itulip’s, “Are you a Doomer?” should be reframed as “Are you a Decliner?”

For perspective on this I highly recommend Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos. Talk about Century of Self! From Confucianism to this pledge recited before school in rural China in 2008.

Ever since God created all things on Earth, there has not been one person like me. My eyes and my ears, my brain and my soul, all are exceptional. Nobody behaves or speaks like me, no one before me and no one will after me. I am the biggest miracle of nature.”

I had some really really long big thing written out here. But the system ate it.

So instead I'll do some relatively quick bullets with Wizard of Oz analogies:

-Not saying Seobook doesn't understand agency, just that common turns of phrase like 'the economy' or 'the system' serve the same function as job descriptions form the Atlantic Article asking for 'enthusiastic' employees. It's to give you a brain-arrest. To stop you from thinking. To make everything polite and meaningless. And it's easy to slip into. Like a little coma.

- That function is to grease the skids for Homo Marketus...make sure he doesn't freeze up like the Tin Man. Smile. Smile. Weather? Shoes. Smile. Monetary exchange. Thank you. The point is to smooth, monitor, record, and force all transactions to be market transactions, no matter how minuscule or insignificant.

- Capitalist media cannot glorify the worker like Soviet Realism, so must display images of weaker happy workers and glorify the work environment instead. The soviet worker wore his own clothes, and with gleaming muscles, took a sickle to grain. The American worker wears what his boss orders him to, and with a gleaming smile, removes fries from the fryalator. The lollipop kids happily follow the yellow brick road.

- People must be atomized and alone. Otherwise they might help each other out and figure out it's all a game, and they can play too. They all have deficiencies until they're together (scare crow, lion, etc). Institutions and culture must be set up to promote atomization and individualization at every turn. Sharing and off the books non-monetary transactions amongst people who care about each other must be eliminated or at the very least minimized. You're supposed to follow the yellow brick road alone.

- The difference between the old BC examples and now is that exit--retreat to other lands--was a realer option then, albeit never for a single individual. Now all the land is privatized. The commons are gone. Even the oceans are carved up into EEZs. There appears to be no way out. So Oz feels that much more real.

- So that's just how Oz works. There is a Wizard. Does wonderful things. There is an Emerald City. Powerful. You're laboring for wage on the road. You're lonely. Nobody's there to help. That's 'the system.'

- You're really not supposed to stop and think. Thought-arrest. Just act. Read the sign at Dunkin' Donuts that says "Opportunities Brewin'!" Don't even stop to think what those two words mean, why they were written, whether they were true, what purpose they serve, etc. Everyone knows what you do. You follow that stupid road. Don't ask questions.

- Because what happens if you stop to think? What if you ask, "Why are there 18.6 million vacant homes in my country and yet 0.6 million people are homeless?" Or, "Why do we throw away 31% of our food, and yet have 35% of the population obese and 16% of our children hungry?" Or, "If there's enough doctors, homes, and food for everyone here to have a decent baseline level existence, then why are 90-some-odd percent of us forced to work for 40+ years just for basic access to this stuff? And even if we are forced to work, why not at least guarantee us some sort of work to do, or some sort of base-existence so long as we're doing something useful and meaningful?" See, that would never do.

- Hunger, homelessness, joblessness, loneliness--none of it is out of necessity--it's just the wicked witch there to scare you back onto the road and prevent you from straying. Once in a while a good witch will come along too, but all to the same purpose and effect. Keep you on the road.

- The whole point is to atomize everything--to make and record transactions--to turn every little thing into a market operation, and to make every market operation more and more purely impersonal and market-based. From 1886 to 1959, a Coke is 6.5 ounces and costs a nickel. What size is a conner of Coke now? What does it cost? Can you compare? Find coupons? Maximize your volume to price ratio? Now you're doing it right. Even the simplest of transactions are no longer simple. You have to buy a 22 ounce bonus bottle for $1.63 on a credit card. Gone are the days of exchanging even one simple coin for one simple reasonable-sized portion. Everything must be gamed. Every transaction must be complex, with opportunities to pick up 'consumer surplus.' And it doesn't matter how much insane overhead goes into the process. Because it's not about actually maximizing efficiency or even profit or anything like that. It's about making every transaction into a market transaction, whether or not it makes sense. We're off to see the Wizard.

- Isn't that really what a lot of the 'service economy' is about? Taking tasks that were otherwise personal, friends, families, and neighbor tasks and turning them into market transactions? The kid up the street doesn't mow the lawn for the old widow anymore. Now her son lives three states away and just hops on his smartphone and drops in a credit card to task rabbit to have someone come down and do it for a bunch more money. Substitute social capital for real capital. That's the point of it all. It's just not how we're wired psychologically. So do it with heavy doses of fake happiness and a smile. If I only had brain...

- And that's the whole problem with people working together or arranging things without market transactions. They might actually get to know and like or even love one-another. And then they might team up. Maybe they'll even decide someone doesn't have to work for wage and can do these other tasks without market transactions. Maybe they'll let friends and family stay rent-free. Maybe they'll pool capital and accumulate it much quicker than an individual ever could. Maybe they'll use that to game 'the system.' Maybe they'll all show up at Emerald City together, make it inside, and pull back the curtain when none of them could do it alone.

- See? Maybe it's not 'generation me' or 'the century of self' for any reason other than those that suit the Wizard. The same reason he hides behind a curtain pretending to be big and powerful. He knows that even a handful of lollipop kids could end him. So it's best to keep everyone talking about 'the system.' And all the wonderful things it does.

Long story short, I see these weird linguistic flukes as interrelated. The reason we anthropomorphize "the economy" is the same reason we "do what we love." It's also the same reason we're confronted with ever more pointless choices when conducting simple transactions. It's because there really are choices that matter. But it's best for Oz--particularly that man behind the curtain--if you only make certain choices.

You're supposed to make the choice to work for wages--and if you don't the flying monkeys of homeless and hunger are always there to make sure you pick that choice. So it's best that you think you're happy while you're laboring for wage. Since you're not supposed to have a choice whether or not to decide to labor for wage anyways, being proud of your choice of the kind of labor you do is the last way to digest this lack of agency and keep one's ego together. You're not supposed to make the choice to go out with a group of people and simply work different land and exit the system. We have deeds and cops and guns and surveyors and everything to prevent that from happening. So you're supposed to cheer for your country in the olympics and your local sports team that buys its players from the four corners of the earth and trades them for different ones every month. Be proud of wherever you ended up or were born, because that's not really much of a choice either. But the owners do get to choose which players play for them regardless of where they ended up or were born. Funny that. The symbol of the team, not the team itself, is the only tie to locality anymore. It's not pride about your choice of where to live, or your choice to have exited. It's coping with the lack of choice to exit.

Anyways, you're supposed to chose to be alone and labor and not to run extensive family, friends, or multigenerational capital generation and preservation schemes. That's for Rodger Herbert Willard Montgomery Crowninshield III and family to keep their private island in Buzzards Bay and their brownstones on Beacon Hill. You're not supposed to play that game. You're supposed to ask your acquaintances, "What do you do for a living?" in the exact same fashion a traveling peasant might have asked "And who is your lord?" "Doing something for a living" is a phrase that so baldly marks one as a wage laborer, it's probably a joke some Rockefellers would tell each other on Bellevue Ave in Newport whilst playing croquet at the 'summer cottage.' Pride in one's choice of vocation, like happiness from it, is not really about choice, but coping with a lack thereof.

Meanwhile, you're supposed to behave like Homo Marketus with the wages you do bring home. You're supposed to try to angle every possible little transaction for some super petty amount of money here or there. Franklin's penny saved and earned was worth a beer or a dozen eggs. Anything less than that wasn't worth exchanging money over. You didn't have to haggle and trade and shop and compare for every little petty thing. That's one of the big changes. Not only are there more service jobs doing what otherwise would be a standard non-market load of domestic work, but the pettiest transactions are highly bureaucratized, formalized, and marketized and set up to offer you the illusion of choice and competition. The funniest thing was, back when there was more competition, prices seem like they were actually more stable at any given time. That is, the price variations are not a function of competition, but a function of monopoly/oligopoly. Again, it's a process of feeding into the illusion of choice in a situation where you're only really meant to make one choice.

And so you think, "Why are things set up this way?" And maybe it's a new culture of selfishness. Maybe it's all the advertisers. Maybe it's employers capturing value off passion. Maybe it's just the economy encouraging it.

Or maybe its all one big coping mechanism for a pile of social creatures that were never really meant to be happy trapped on a world where all the land is already owned and fenced off in a highly institutionalized market system that expects them to be rational calculators instead. This goes double for a system that wields homelessness and hunger (and joblessness by proxy) as weapons to severely restrict the universe of acceptable choices and throws out banal and pointless false choices out instead like a pacifier to shut us up and substitute for the real thing. And the craziest thing is that it's really easy to simply start liking the pacifier.

This is kind of where the Atlantic piece misses the mark imo. Employee wellness initiatives are not trying to get you to lose weight to be better sales people or to quit smoking to end cigarette breaks. In most of the positions where this stuff is offered, people are working at some sort of desk and the breaks don't affect productivity at all and they're selling nothing. It's them trying to pay you $500 to act the way they want you to. To live the way they want you to. They want to find some level of market mechanism that will control your personal choices. Some places are simply banning smokers from working there, and saying "quit or lose your job." It's not about profit. It's not about efficiency. Not any more than selling three different sized Coke bottles for 37 different prices at 12 different locations within 100 yards of one-another is about profit or efficiency.

It's about making a more perfect Homo Marketus. It's about making it "your choice" to make the one choice you're supposed to make. It's the exact same trick every parent has used on their children a million times. You don't say, "Do your homework. Then take a bath." You say, "Do you want to do your homework? Or would you rather take a bath first?" You make them believe they have a choice. Then they do exactly what you wanted all along.

Rational Actors, Efficient Market Hypotheses...these things are not theoretical models being used as a scientific endeavor and tested empirically for validity to explain social phenomena. These are theoretical models being used as a normative endeavor to shape social behavior. In that regard, Seobook's recommendation of The Century of Self sounds interesting as a look into some methods of shaping social behavior to conform to the models, and I'll throw an episode on presently. There needs to be a means by which Homo Sapiens becomes a more pure Homo Marketus.

Otherwise, the only key difference between what I'm talking about and that Atlantic piece is the assumption that profit and efficiency or even economic growth or something are the end-goal of these types of intrusive activities. But my guess is that they're just incidental. If you can get greater predictability and control at the expense of slower or even negative profits and growth, it's probably a worthwhile endeavor. The value of asset prices is not nearly so important as who controls key assets. Therein lies one of the few means to make choices denied everyone else, and the only one which doesn't require overcoming coordination problems.

[seobook]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

I had some really really long big thing written out here. But the system ate it.

So instead I'll do some relatively quick bullets with Wizard of Oz analogies

The quick version was only a little over 2,300 words I love reading your writing & would have preferred the longer one.

common turns of phrase like 'the economy' or 'the system' serve the same function as job descriptions form the Atlantic Article asking for 'enthusiastic' employees. It's to give you a brain-arrest. To stop you from thinking. To make everything polite and meaningless. And it's easy to slip into. Like a little coma.

It is a tricky balance. If you don't do any of the shorthand you can quickly sound foreign or longwinded. If you do it too much everything is fuzzy & context is lost.

Sometimes the shorthand strips meaning & sometimes it informs. For example, when Google started folding query chains and engagement metrics into their relevancy algorithms more aggressively I described the sort of ranking shift as brand bias. That was quickly denounced as sloppy thinking or incorrect or overblowing a minor change or such; rather than concision & a spot on correct projection of trends. The cartoon version of the message wasn't much appreciated either. Then a half-decade later it is all...

And that's the whole problem with people working together or arranging things without market transactions. They might actually get to know and like or even love one-another. And then they might team up. Maybe they'll even decide someone doesn't have to work for wage and can do these other tasks without market transactions. Maybe they'll let friends and family stay rent-free. Maybe they'll pool capital and accumulate it much quicker than an individual ever could. Maybe they'll use that to game 'the system.' Maybe they'll all show up at Emerald City together, make it inside, and pull back the curtain when none of them could do it alone.

Or the one person who pushes this view heavily enough is seen as a crazy conspiracy theorist cynic (even if they generally like people but have little faith in a few psychopaths at the top).

See? Maybe it's not 'generation me' or 'the century of self' for any reason other than those that suit the Wizard. The same reason he hides behind a curtain pretending to be big and powerful. He knows that even a handful of lollipop kids could end him. So it's best to keep everyone talking about 'the system.' And all the wonderful things it does.

The century of the self is all about the bread and circuses. Keep them distracted. Keep them buying. Keep them wanting more.

Being the wizard by manipulating the mind.

Give people their free markets and their torches of freedom!

Pride in one's choice of vocation, like happiness from it, is not really about choice, but coping with a lack thereof.

Partly agree, but partly disagree. I've been here (especially while in the military and sometimes going a month or two with no sunlight!) & I have been truly happy, excited, enthusiastic by work stuff. My wife was first a customer, and I don't think she would have later became my wife if I was at the "really hating all aspects of this moment" end of that spectrum. Of course, being self employed made it easier for me to like what I was doing. And I think most people who are self-employed for an extended period of time are forced to think about the wizard more than someone with a regular job.

And so you think, "Why are things set up this way?" And maybe it's a new culture of selfishness. Maybe it's all the advertisers. Maybe it's employers capturing value off passion. Maybe it's just the economy encouraging it.

As people have access to more information & more ways to communicate, there is a greater need for a wider variety of distractions.

The Century of Self sounds interesting as a look into some methods of shaping social behavior to conform to the models, and I'll throw an episode on presently. There needs to be a means by which Homo Sapiens becomes a more pure Homo Marketus.

I think you'll like it. And you'll probably like this, but have already heard it.

Otherwise, the only key difference between what I'm talking about and that Atlantic piece is the assumption that profit and efficiency or even economic growth or something are the end-goal of these types of intrusive activities. But my guess is that they're just incidental. If you can get greater predictability and control at the expense of slower or even negative profits and growth, it's probably a worthwhile endeavor. The value of asset prices is not nearly so important as who controls key assets. Therein lies one of the few means to make choices denied everyone else, and the only one which doesn't require overcoming coordination problems.

If you can pass losses off onto others then profits don't matter, but it is a tiny sliver of businesses which can do that for an extended period of time.

Potentially productive assets which lose money eventually get acquired.

Money is the hammer (buying assets, ads, lobbyists, politicians, etc.) which prevents one from sliding down the ladder.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

The push to monetize everything in the US took off in the late 60’s/early 70’s.

I’m amazed what’s still free in Thailand and how much that slows the rat race. Chiang Mai is the country’s second largest city. I have never paid to park my car except at the airport. The air at the gas station is free. The drinking water in the 5-gallon bottles is free (30 cent delivery fee). When I try to pay the vet for clipping our cat’s nails, she tells me to stick a donation in the jar so she can reduce the bill of poorer folks.

As for atomizing everything, that requires technology and monopoly on a scale that hasn’t reached most countries yet. There are six mom and pop stores selling dry goods and food within a 2-minute bike ride of our house. Only 2 of those stores even bother with a scale even though the owners have Ipads and smart phones.

From 1886 to 1959, a Coke is 6.5 ounces and costs a nickel. What size is a conner of Coke now? What does it cost? Can you compare? Find coupons? Maximize your volume to price ratio? Now you're doing it right. Even the simplest of transactions are no longer simple. You have to buy a 22 ounce bonus bottle for $1.63 on a credit card.

When I lived in New Orleans only local beers (Falstaff, Dixie, Jax) could be sold in 12-ounce cans or bottles. Bud and everyone else had to package their stuff in 9-ounce containers. Huey must have thought that one up.

Thanks dcarrigg for your thoughts. Can you post a short reading list?

[photon555]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

Yeah. Advertisers and markers are getting marginally better all the time. But the game is the game.

The problem I have with concepts like "the system is shifting to a winner-take-all..." is the lack of agency in the idea.

"The system" or "the economy" in this case is merely a series of laws and public and private sector institutions/organizations. There are people who head them. There are boards that govern them. There are ways to get inputs into them. And they can be changed. At least they have been in the past.

But it's not 'the system' or 'the economy' that are chaining. It's the laws and the rules that are changing. And it's the Congressmen that are making the laws. And it's the donors that are paying the congressmen to do it. And of course the donors want the system to "shift to winner-take-all." Because the donors already won. And they want to take all.

+1

Congress Critters are surprisingly cheap to lease if we can believe the public records of campaign donations. I suspect there are many hidden bennies that slide under the table of regulations, out of sight and out of mind of most people. I think it was George Ure who suggested that our congressional asse(t)s be auctioned off on Ebay. At least we would know who bought them and the going rate.

[seobook]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

You're supposed to ask your acquaintances, "What do you do for a living?" in the exact same fashion a traveling peasant might have asked "And who is your lord?" "Doing something for a living" is a phrase that so baldly marks one as a wage laborer, it's probably a joke some Rockefellers would tell each other on Bellevue Ave in Newport whilst playing croquet at the 'summer cottage.' Pride in one's choice of vocation, like happiness from it, is not really about choice, but coping with a lack thereof.

Couldn't miss the chance to connect the above with this:

He says that he himself has slept with five different women he met on Tinder—“Tinderellas,” the guys call them—in the last eight days. Dan and Marty, also Alex’s roommates in a shiny high-rise apartment building near Wall Street, can vouch for that. In fact, they can remember whom Alex has slept with in the past week more readily than he can.

“Brittany, Morgan, Amber,” Marty says, counting on his fingers. “Oh, and the Russian—Ukrainian?”

“Ukrainian,” Alex confirms. “She works at—” He says the name of a high-end art auction house. Asked what these women are like, he shrugs. “I could offer a résumé, but that’s about it … Works at J. Crew; senior at Parsons; junior at Pace; works in finance … ”

...or...

The whole point is to atomize everything--to make and record transactions--to turn every little thing into a market operation, and to make every market operation more and more purely impersonal and market-based.

and

“It’s like ordering Seamless,” says Dan, the investment banker, referring to the online food-delivery service. “But you’re ordering a person.”

The comparison to online shopping seems an apt one. Dating apps are the free-market economy come to sex.

You are not just a consumer.

You are also...

Product (you)

[seobook]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

You're supposed to ask your acquaintances, "What do you do for a living?" in the exact same fashion a traveling peasant might have asked "And who is your lord?" "Doing something for a living" is a phrase that so baldly marks one as a wage laborer, it's probably a joke some Rockefellers would tell each other on Bellevue Ave in Newport whilst playing croquet at the 'summer cottage.' Pride in one's choice of vocation, like happiness from it, is not really about choice, but coping with a lack thereof.

Couldn't miss the chance to connect the above with this:

He says that he himself has slept with five different women he met on Tinder—“Tinderellas,” the guys call them—in the last eight days. Dan and Marty, also Alex’s roommates in a shiny high-rise apartment building near Wall Street, can vouch for that. In fact, they can remember whom Alex has slept with in the past week more readily than he can.

“Brittany, Morgan, Amber,” Marty says, counting on his fingers. “Oh, and the Russian—Ukrainian?”

“Ukrainian,” Alex confirms. “She works at—” He says the name of a high-end art auction house. Asked what these women are like, he shrugs. “I could offer a résumé, but that’s about it … Works at J. Crew; senior at Parsons; junior at Pace; works in finance … ”

...or...

The whole point is to atomize everything--to make and record transactions--to turn every little thing into a market operation, and to make every market operation more and more purely impersonal and market-based.

and

“It’s like ordering Seamless,” says Dan, the investment banker, referring to the online food-delivery service. “But you’re ordering a person.”

The comparison to online shopping seems an apt one. Dating apps are the free-market economy come to sex.

You are not just a consumer.

You are also...

Product (you)

[bpr]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

-Not saying Seobook doesn't understand agency, just that common turns of phrase like 'the economy' or 'the system' serve the same function as job descriptions form the Atlantic Article asking for 'enthusiastic' employees. It's to give you a brain-arrest. To stop you from thinking. To make everything polite and meaningless. And it's easy to slip into. Like a little coma.

Terms like that work, though, because they are appropriate shorthand for what is actually going on here.

Otherwise, the only key difference between what I'm talking about and that Atlantic piece is the assumption that profit and efficiency or even economic growth or something are the end-goal of these types of intrusive activities. But my guess is that they're just incidental. If you can get greater predictability and control at the expense of slower or even negative profits and growth, it's probably a worthwhile endeavor. The value of asset prices is not nearly so important as who controls key assets. Therein lies one of the few means to make choices denied everyone else, and the only one which doesn't require overcoming coordination problems.

I agree, and you make a lot of really great points.

But the one thing missing from this equation is that those who are implementing these sorts of market forces ("looking for an enthusiastic busboy!") are true believers.

Working with a lot of business owners has taught me one thing: business owners care more about their business and products than anyone else on the planet. The person who owns the company that makes those translucent plastic butterflies with a suction cup that sticks to your window thinks his company is the most amazing damn thing on the planet.

Of course it is. It's how he got his boat, his plane, his homes, and it afforded him the time to get his pilot's license... His business is AMAZING! How could an employee not be enthusiastic about cleaning the toilets for such an amazing entity?

I never met a successful business owner who didn't feel that his or her business was not the most important thing on the planet, and that everybody needed and truly could benefit his or her product or service. Franchise owners often have an almost (sometimes an actual literal) religious connection with their corporate entities.

It's not profit or efficiency per se that drives this kind of agency. I'm not even sure what it is. But system is an appropriate shorthand for it. The foot soldiers writing these job descriptions are true believers, that's what makes it a system. I can hear the justification now: "Smoking is bad for your health, which means smokers don't respect themselves and if they don't respect themselves they can't respect the company, so quit or you're fired."

My thinking is, the profit might not be the motive for this kind of mind-control, but it might be the source.

[photon555]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

It's not profit or efficiency per se that drives this kind of agency. I'm not even sure what it is. But system is an appropriate shorthand for it. The foot soldiers writing these job descriptions are true believers, that's what makes it a system. I can hear the justification now: "Smoking is bad for your health, which means smokers don't respect themselves and if they don't respect themselves they can't respect the company, so quit or you're fired."

My thinking is, the profit might not be the motive for this kind of mind-control, but it might be the source.

You're right about it being a system. The New Testament refers to it as the world (system). It is ultimately controlled and utilized by satan to control and lead to damnation those who worship his world system, even if they don't see the devil that is behind it. The Christian is in the world, but not of the world (system). Sometimes its a fine line to walk and its easy to find yourself on the wrong side. But the believer has a powerful Helper to guide him, Who specializes in recovery operations. Its all about who or what you love and prioritize in your life. You can choose to put transient things first, or the One who made them for your use. So use the world (system) for life and for good, but don't be used by it, to promote its selfish agenda. Own your possessions and use them for good, but don't be owned by them, and allow them to control your life.

[astonas]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

It's not profit or efficiency per se that drives this kind of agency. I'm not even sure what it is. But system is an appropriate shorthand for it. The foot soldiers writing these job descriptions are true believers, that's what makes it a system. I can hear the justification now: "Smoking is bad for your health, which means smokers don't respect themselves and if they don't respect themselves they can't respect the company, so quit or you're fired."

My thinking is, the profit might not be the motive for this kind of mind-control, but it might be the source.

You're right about it being a system. The New Testament refers to it as the world (system). It is ultimately controlled and utilized by satan to control and lead to damnation those who worship his world system, even if they don't see the devil that is behind it. The Christian is in the world, but not of the world (system). Sometimes its a fine line to walk and its easy to find yourself on the wrong side. But the believer has a powerful Helper to guide him, Who specializes in recovery operations. Its all about who or what you love and prioritize in your life. You can choose to put transient things first, or the One who made them for your use. So use the world (system) for life and for good, but don't be used by it, to promote its selfish agenda. Own your possessions and use them for good, but don't be owned by them, and allow them to control your life.

The prophet motive?

Sorry, I don't really have a point; I just couldn't resist the wordplay.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Why ‘Do What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice

But the one thing missing from this equation is that those who are implementing these sorts of market forces ("looking for an enthusiastic busboy!") are true believers.

Cao Fei’s Whose Utopia (20 minutes) art film
Don’t skip the second half

http://www.ubu.com/film/fei_utopia.html