How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
Locked

JL13
Posts: 645
Joined: Sat May 17, 2014 7:47 am

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by JL13 »

Thanks! I was really enjoying that....

Where's the rest??

User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6359
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by Ego »

He posts links to rough drafts on twitter. https://twitter.com/nntaleb.

Quote:
There is an expression “never buy when you can rent the three “Fs”: what you Float, what you Fly, and what you ...that something else”. Yet many people own boats, planes, and end up with that something else.

True, a contractor has downside, a financial penalty that can be built-into the contract, in addition to reputational costs. But consider that an employee will always have more risk. And conditional on someone being an employee such a person will be risk averse. By having been employees they signal a certain type of domestication. Someone who has been employed is giving you the evidence of submission, from having gone through years of the ritual of depriving himself of his personal freedom for nine hours every day, punctual arrival at an office, denying himself his own schedule, and not having beaten up anyone. You have an obedient, housebroken dog.


The regular paycheck of an employee causes him to make demands on future paychecks which in turn makes him an obedient, housebroken dog. This is why I prefer the irregular income of self-employment with sketchy history. I cannot make demands on non-existent future paychecks. This inherent instability frees me to be disobedient when the situation demands it and housebroken when I feel like it.

User avatar
Sclass
Posts: 2791
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by Sclass »

Ego wrote: This is why I prefer the irregular income of self-employment with sketchy history. I cannot make demands on non-existent future paychecks. This inherent instability frees me to be disobedient when the situation demands it and housebroken when I feel like it.
This reminds me a lot of the response I got from landlords while trying to rent this summer. I clearly had money. I'd show them years of rent. But I got this feeling some of the landlords didn't like how I didn't fit the landlord/tenant relationship mold because I was unemployed.

Having funds to pay the rent wasn't sufficient. They wanted me to be below them or scared of them...or so it felt at the time. I sensed some unease with the level at which we met. They were used to dealing with subservient people. I can almost say during the interviews they were trying to ascertain how well they could control me. It wasn't like the relationship I have with the manager of a hotel which is what I originally wanted.

I had a job interview that went bad many years ago that went like this. They hiring manager actually was an old friend. He dug me up after I'd been unemployed about two years (this isn't the first time I "retired" ;) ) and I'd explained to him how I'd been surviving. When one of his employees interviewed me he seemed disgusted. He outright said "I've heard you're rich and you work for fun" as if it invalidated my usefulness to their organization. He said things like "you've been out so long I don't think you are ready to work." Or, "we need guys who have responsibilities". He gave me the thumbs down according to my pal. I later learned the guy works weekends and evenings till 9pm. He has held his job at that place till today going from 1998 till the present even though he no longer works for my friend.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Taleb cracks me up. Who else would quote that expression?

bryan
Posts: 1061
Joined: Sat Nov 29, 2014 2:01 am
Location: mostly Bay Area

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by bryan »

This thread reminds me of the time I was working at a customer site (Google) for a week or two, fairly early in my career. The first thing I did when I landed back home on a Friday evening was go to our office and do a couple more hours of work. The work environment was still affecting me.. Luckily it only took a few days for me to get my work/life balance back.

Their environment is pretty ingenious to extract maximum productivity out of their employees. It's better for both employee/employer than more traditional firms or peers, but man is it super draining for the employee. Then you realize all that creativity and productivity is for a company that ultimately makes money advertising. I guess it's better than working for DoD contractors? Also, they are trying to find other ways of making money applying all that productivity.

But it fits with this article.. All those engineers could be working at more useful businesses or doing their own thing but instead they are attached to the financial/social compensation of being a Googler.

User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6359
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by Ego »

7Wannabe5 wrote:Who else would quote that expression?
:lol:

It so perfectly represents Taleb's thinking, where 2/3 is prescient and 1/3 delusional. Or maybe it's 80/20.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Ego:

Right. I am kind of agree with the argument he developed, but, IMO and experience, personality type often determines career choice or employment form as much as career choice or employment form influences personality. For instance, I could pick out which 5 year old would likely be well-suited for the fast-paced, profanity-spewing occupation of stock trader vs. which one already shows potential for salaryman success. Likely due in part to my own personality, I have maybe spent more time than other people interacting with people who are likely to not give a flying f*ck about behaving in a civilized, domesticated manner much of the time, and I assure you that there is a downside to that sort of thing. In the model I use, the healthy juvenile desire for freedom rises towards and in accordance with the acquisition of adult authority in the masculine realm of functioning, BUT admirable adult leadership is only achieved by moving from authority towards responsibility in the feminine realm of functioning (or vice-versa depending on where you started.) IOW, a person who is only concerned with his own freedom in the moment is a punk, but somebody lacking any punk-energy (f*ck you attitude) will never be able to muster enough authority to balance a high level of responsibility in a non-life-energy sucking admirable manner. Accepting responsibility in a situation in which you have no authority is the equivalent of abdicating your freedom, so the reverse process of letting go of responsibility will be freeing until you hit the limit of your ability to exert authority. IOW, people have only a limited ability to increase their personal levels of freedom, authority, responsibility and vulnerability independent of self-aware improvement in other realm, but where you start from is determined by your personality and your previous experience. This is kind of a ridiculously simplistic way to explain what I mean, but if you are somebody who is only at the 15% level for vulnerability, you won't be able to maintain 85% level of freedom and/or 92% level of authority because you will be out of balance. However, self-aware focusing on improvement in one of these realms will lead to rising tide that lifts all ships.

User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6359
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by Ego »

7Wannabe5 wrote:In the model I use, the healthy juvenile desire for freedom rises towards and in accordance with the acquisition of adult authority in the masculine realm of functioning, BUT admirable adult leadership is only achieved by moving from authority towards responsibility in the feminine realm of functioning (or vice-versa depending on where you started.) IOW, a person who is only concerned with his own freedom in the moment is a punk, but somebody lacking any punk-energy (f*ck you attitude) will never be able to muster enough authority to balance a high level of responsibility in a non-life-energy sucking admirable manner.
I agree that people should accept their responsibilities.

Yesterday the first two Americans we dealt with after landing asked detailed questions about our travels and then had the exact same response, "Are you missionaries or something?" We hadn't been asked that question once in the past year.

Culture can encourage us to spawn responsibilities so that we have the feeling of being an adult. In the model I use, unnecessary responsibilities are avoided and all my energy is directed toward doing the best I can with the responsibilities I own.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I agree that our culture encourages people to take on responsibilities that they don't have the authority to handle or master. I have self-aware experimented with taking on more and less and less and more. Here's what I have noticed, and this may just be me. If I start from the core, the first thing I am responsible for is my own emotional state. The second thing I am responsible for is my own physical well-being. The third thing I am responsible for is obtaining and caring for whatever is strictly necessary to maintain my well-being. The fourth thing I am responsible for is upholding and enforcing overt contracts with other people. Etc. etc. etc. give or take on perspective. Okay, now put this aside for the moment and another thing I have noticed is that I want to do some work. Not necessarily very much work. Not necessarily work that will bring me money or validation. I just like to make a pot of soup, or dig a pit, or teach a kid to subtract sometimes. Some kind of "doing." Other times I just want to "be." The problem with just or only doing work that most relates to the core responsibilities that I most own is that it often gets boring and it sometimes isn't enough. I say this even though I absolutely grant you that it frequently is the case that many or most people, myself included, will often take on responsibilities outside of their strict realm of adult ownership in order to evade the tougher work of more core problems. Both things are true. Trivial example. It is strictly my responsibility and within the realm of my personal authority to do the work of arranging my hair in a lovely new manner. It is not strictly my responsibility or within the realm of my personal authority to tutor a delinquent child in math. First activity only interests me for maybe 15 minutes every 6 months. Second activity might interest me for a few hours every week.

User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6359
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by Ego »

7Wannabe5 wrote:The problem with just or only doing work that most relates to the core responsibilities that I most own is that it often gets boring and it sometimes isn't enough.
Okay, so a person is not "admirable" if they don't take on extra responsibilities but you take on those extras because you'd be bored otherwise?

Begs the question, is boredom an admirable motivation?

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Second question first. Boredom is not an admirable motivation. However, it is within the purview of each adult's circle of responsibility to keep oneself entertained. Those of us who have the monkey as spirit animal in the juvenile masculine quadrant simply have a larger or more difficult responsibility to fulfill in that regard-lol. Anyways, my precipitating motivation is not necessarily indicative of my ultimate feeling of fulfillment.

First question. Imagine that you are a rational alien observer of the human species. You observe humans exhibiting behaviors or sets of behaviors and there is one set of behaviors which is called "admiration." You also observe that there is another set of behaviors which some humans exhibit which is correlated with or causative of "admiration" behavior from other humans. You call this behavior or set of behaviors "admirable." You make a list of people who exhibited behavior that was correlated with "admiration" from others. Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, Jane Addams, Jesus, etc. etc. Now, I ask you, would it be the case that taking on responsibility beyond that which is strictly their own be in the observed behavior set of the people on this list, or not? Of course, we may be talking tomatoes and potatoes because my "admire" might be your "respect" and your admire might be my "appreciate." So, to make the matter as clear as possible, my definition of "admirable" is behavior high up and midway between behavior other people would likely "appreciate" and behavior other people would likely "respect", or in other words, behavior that is highly indicative of both empathetic care and strong authority or mastery.

Another way to examine the matter would be to observe that either a person completely avoids ever being in a position of leadership or a person sometimes takes on a position of leadership. Let's define "taking on a position of leadership" as the observed behavior of either verbally or physically attempting to instruct or alter the behavior of another person or people. If you exhibit authority and demand respect, but are not inclined to exhibit care then you might instruct other people to jump off a cliff. That would not be admirable. If you wish to exhibit empathetic care but are unable to exert authority or exhibit mastery or command respect then you might get pushed or fall off the edge of the cliff yourself and pull others down with you. So, that wouldn't be admirable either. So, that leaves only the question of whether or not it is admirable to choose to never take on a position of leadership? Never command, never instruct, never behave in a manner indicative of a desire to earn both respect and appreciation from others? I think we have circled right round back to the them of Taleb's essay because since I became observant of some aspects of human behavior a number of years ago, one thing I have noticed that the garden variety "nice" guy is as loathe to do as swear in public is take on the responsibility of offering another person direct instruction. The funny thing is that the internal brat is often yelling "Nobody can tell me what to do!" and not noticing that nobody ever actually is literally telling you what to do. It's just the echo-chamber of your own anxiety in the face of having to make decisions and take risks.

theanimal
Posts: 2628
Joined: Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:05 pm
Location: AK
Contact:

Re: How To Legally Own Another Person [pdf]

Post by theanimal »

This is great. Can't wait for the book.

Locked