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Thin desires are eating life

834 points by mitchbob

by WhatsTheBigIdea

7 subcomments

I really like this article.
I bake bread. I have spent a good deal of time optimizing the recipe for deliciousness but also for time efficiency. Proving in a warm oven is a great tip. Also baking two loaves at a time!
All this nit picking about writing style is disappointing. I like that this person got their ideas out there. They are good ideas. Legible and easy to parse == good enough. I don't care about the writing style any more than that and you shouldn't either. It is a waste of everyone's time... yours especially.
It's very nice to hear about someone else who is interested in doing hard things/real things. Seems like there ought to be a meet up or a get together opportunity for people working on stuff like that. Perhaps a get-together where everyone gives a 2-5 minute talk about something they are working on then we all hang out for another hour or two. Seems like alcohol might help get the wheels spinning?
I fully appreciate the need for a catchy headline with a hook (it got me!) but I wonder if these ideas would be more powerful/useful if expressed in positive language rather than doom speak? I guess doom speak is the fashion these days and we all have to conform to the dominant paradigm... at least a little around the edges.
Generally... Bravo. Nice piece. Nice ideas.

by clowncubs

8 subcomments

This resonates. I work in web dev, and a little over 2 years ago I hit a wall. Everything was a screen. All day at work, at home, on the go. Everything felt hallow and unrewarding. I'm an introvert, so outside of my family, I didn't have many relationships. Of course, I was depressed. I began working on it by going to therapy and then one day I decided to try sculpting.
This changed everything. I found I was pretty good at it. It felt good because it was tangible, and it required me to learn and probe and practice. I kept at it. This grew in ways I couldn't imagine.
Now, I make collectible resin maquettes and busts and I even started making latex halloween masks. It's been a crazy journey to where I am now, with so much more ahead. I've met people and interact with people in ways I didn't just a short time ago. It's changed my life. It's thick. All of it.

by DarmokJalad1701

6 subcomments

> The yeast doesn't care about your schedule.
> The dough will rise when it rises, indifferent to your optimization.
Joke's on them! I run my oven until the temperature inside is ~100F - about a minute or so. Then I turn it off and set the dough in there along with some water (for humidity). It rises super fast compared to my kitchen which is ~65F in the winter and the bread is just as flavorful. Definitely not indifferent to my optimization.

by assemblyman

4 subcomments

Even with thick desires, I sometimes find myself day-dreaming about the state when I have mastered a skill or understood a topic deeply. At the same time, I know from experience that the process never ends. Even when one does master a skill, one is deeply aware of what one doesn't know or understand or what one is not good at within that domain.
What helps me is to focus on today. If I can spend even an hour on a topic and get lost in it or even get frustrated by it, it is time well-spent. I was going to say "it is progress" instead of "time well-spent" but even that's a trap. Progress implies moving forward in a preferred direction. While I can't say I don't want to make progress, I am training myself to care less about it. It is really the time spent engaging that's most valuable (at least to me).

by adamhartenz

2 subcomments

Wow, this seems like a lot of folks first encounter with a lyrical essay. I won't hold that against anyone. I have heard many things about the American school system. Writing like this is meant to be felt as much as evaluated. The argument matters, but the cadence and emotional momentum matter just as much. The author give you are chance to think about each point that is being said. Our dopamine addicted brains can't deal with this well anymore unfortunatly. Which is I guess why people feel uncomfortable, and don't know why.

by ianstormtaylor

27 subcomments

I can't help but feel that this article was written in a format that is the textual equivalent of thin desires…
Every sentence is separated into its own paragraph, like each one is supposed to be revelatory (or maybe tweet-worthy). It's pretty common design knowledge that if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing. The result is that reading the article feels choppy, and weirdly unsatisfying, since the larger arc of each point is constantly being interrupted.
Why choose such an antithetical form, to what is otherwise an important and deep message?
The only answer that comes to mind is that the author's livelihood, or at least their internal gauge of success, is tied to manipulating readers' thin desires.

by thisoneisreal

0 subcomment

My framing for this is "mass production of stimuli." Before industrialization, the number of things grabbing your attention at any given moment wasn't super high. But once you had mass production, and especially the innovation of extrinsic advertising (associating psychological properties not intrinsic to the product being advertised itself), we were all suddenly awash in stimulating signals. But like this article notes, those stimuli go mostly unfulfilled by the action we take (buying the thing, opening the app), and so we all have this low level background noise of frustration and dissatisfaction.
EDIT: Some later posts mentioned it, but philosophers and religions have contemplated this stuff for centuries. Nevertheless I do think it's an exacerbated problem in the modern world due to technology and scale.

by tekawade

0 subcomment

Resonates well with me. I was thinking same lately as many other comments.
Random stranger on Reddit mentioned - *The art of frugal hedonism* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216874949
This book is indeed eye opener. Though I am too deep to turn around quickly without crashing I am well on may way and there is many more miles to go. Hoping to take few of my friends with me too.

by euroderf

2 subcomments

> How could this be, when we've gotten so good at giving people what they want?
> Maybe because we've gotten good at giving people what they want in a way that prevents them from wanting anything worth having.
This has a political interpretation too. Have you noticed that online "petitions" have mostly disappeared lately ? Maybe this disappearance is based on now-widespread recognition that the way to get the attention and concern of the political establishment is to get out on the streets and make some noise.
Online activity can _motivate_ protest, but it cannot really express protest in a way that "matters". It's busy work. Keep the monkeys at their typewriters.
Online is the equivalent of hanging a sign in your window; it does not tell you whether your opinion is shared by most of your fellow citizens. Thousands of likes versus the knowledge that social media keeps each of us in our bubble, feeding us more.
But a monster rally in your city and elsewhere can tell you precisely that your opinion is shared by most (or "sufficiently many") of your fellow citizens. Pithy placards to the fore!

by ragazzina

1 subcomments

>The business model of most consumer technology is to identify some thick desire, find the part of it that produces a neurological reward, and then deliver that reward without the rest of the package.
I expected the author to have language learning as an example, but they did not include it. I wonder where Duolingo fits in this, I see a new language learning app every week.

by mtalantikite

5 subcomments

This is a core concept of Buddhism, called tanha, and has been contemplated for a couple thousand years at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81

by delichon

5 subcomments

Desires to consume (create) are thin (thick).

  Thin: A desire to enjoy a book, video game, movie, musical performance, new technology, love, ...
  Thick: A desire to make any of the above.

The cure for Dementors isn't chocolate, it's becoming a tiny god of creation. Meaning is in making.

by moultano

0 subcomment

I wrote this following a similar line of thought, but with the root problem being a collective action problem around community rather than an internal psychological tradeoff between short and long term. https://moultano.wordpress.com/2025/12/09/the-dead-weight-lo...
I certainly think hijacking our short term rewards is a big part of it, but in addition, that hijacking prevents people from putting in the effort that make collective alternatives competitive.

by Twixes

3 subcomments

Halfway the this post, I realized checking the HN front page was merely a thin desire – so I'm off to read a book. Farewell!

by phito

3 subcomments

Very nicely written. I've been slowly removing thin desires from my life. It's hard to do at first, but what I've noticed is once I am free from them, I do not miss them at all. Almost like I was under a spell.

by adim86

2 subcomments

I think this article is really true, and I think a consequence is that people are really hungry for thick desires these days but they cannot put a finger on it. They notice themselves not growing, they get the dopamine hit they were looking for but it feel like empty calories.
As a software engineer, I decided to build an app about side quests. Reading this article I realized I could not put a finger on what I was getting at either, but I just knew I hadd to add wholesome activities that were not part of my life into my life and I kinda built this app for myself (initially for a hackathon) and just shared it with friends.
Hopefully it's useful to someone else on here (nasty self promotion): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sidequests-hq/id6751321255

by keybored

1 subcomments

You are creating content[1] that is insightful. To everyone. Equally known.
We all cheer. We know this. Then we move on.
A catchy title. A novel enough term. That will hook them.
We all read. We all smile. The daily grind.
This insight is not original to me.
[1] It’s just content now
Not essays
Not music
Content

by coffeecoders

0 subcomment

Us software engineers assume value comes from serving more people, faster, with less friction. But many of the things that actually make life feel coherent such as learning a craft, maintaining friendships and building tools for one person, only work because they’re slow and specific.
Tech doesn't give us the wrong desires but the easier versions of the right ones, and those end up hollow.

by themafia

0 subcomment

> The defining experience of our age seems to be hunger. > We're hungry for more, but we have more than we need.
You're describing consumer manipulation not an actual attribute of population.
> And so the infrastructure for thick desires has been gradually dismantled.
You're describing the consequences of inflation and manipulated market outcomes not actual desires of participants.
> The thick life doesn't scale.
This is almost entirely why we invented cities and society and put up with their consequences in our lives.
> So: bake bread.
So: stop making me pay taxes.
Maybe it's just me. I get easily irritated when I detect casual misanthropy dressed up as a "think piece."

by carabiner

0 subcomment

This is the concept of hungry ghost from buddhism: https://www.lionsroar.com/buddhism/hungry-ghosts/

by yial

2 subcomments

I’ve heard of “Idiot wisdom” and “wise wisdom”.
Idiot wisdom - is generic platitudes that sound nice, but aren’t actionable.
Wise wisdom- might not always sound nice, but is actionable.
My ego likes this article, if I believe that I pursue thick desires.
But some part of me thinks (and perhaps due to the written style ). That this is idiot wisdom.
Another commenter mentioned it ties to Tanha in Buddhism.
I don’t know. But- off to read some Shunryu Suzuki….

by snarf21

3 subcomments

I find it ironic that this perspective is being shared in such a "thin" way.
There are some insightful observations but the whole thick/thin perspective just doesn't resonate with me. As an old man (shakes fist at clouds), we have stopped prioritizing people. It is all about building and maintaining relationships and we've gotten lazy. And maintaining relationships is a lot of work and without it we do feel more isolated. So we try to fill that void with things that don't require effort like buying crap we don't need on Amazon and chasing likes on social media. We aren't happy so we try to be busy so we don't notice so much.
We saw a bit of a teeny correction during covid when people starting going outdoors and baking bread and cooking home cooked meals. But now everyone is back to working from home in their pajamas and tell themselves how happy they are with all the time they save not driving but skip over the lack of adult interaction (both good and bad).
But the problem is easily solved for each of us by things as simple as hobbies and volunteering and organizations (church, civic, etc.) Personally, I design board games and have friends over to test them and go to board game conferences. We've built a group that still test and communicate online but are happiest when we get to hang out and play games and go for dinner. There is no shortage of these opportunities but you have to get off the couch and join in. It is a place where you will make new friends and find happiness but you have to decide it is worth it.

by BiteCode_dev

1 subcomments

Always fun when geeks discover basic philosphical concepts like it's a new thing and not something greeks nailed 2000 years ago.

by hyperhello

0 subcomment

“Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” T.S. Eliot

by andai

0 subcomment

I'm reminded of this video on the legal definition of chicken broth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar7zddMDwcI
>Noah has a good point. He says they're not making soup. They're making savory taste solutions.
Tastes like chicken, but has virtually no actual substance. Same idea.

by RyJones

1 subcomments

I send postcards when I travel. I love doing it.
https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/ry-jones-postcards/

by pseudosavant

0 subcomment

This post really resonated with me, and some lack of fulfilment I've been working through lately. It seems a lot of commenters felt the need to bikeshed it instead of just trying to understand the point being made.

by ggillas

1 subcomments

I've always liked this song from the Cure, we're hedonists on a treadmill:
I'm always wanting more, anything I haven't got Everything I want it all, and I just can't stop Planning all my days away but never finding ways to stay Or ever feel enough today, tomorrow must be more Drink, more dreams, more bed, more drugs More lust, more lies, more head, more love Fear more fun, more pain, more flesh More stars, more smiles, more colors, more sex
But however hard I want I know deep down inside I'll never really get more hope Or any more time Any more time Any more time
I want the sun to fall in, I want lightning and thunder Blood instead of rain, I want the world to make me wonder I want to walk on water, take a trip to the moon Give me all this, give me it soon More drink, more dreams, more drugs More lust, more lies, more love
But however hard I want I know deep down inside I'll never really get more hope Or any more time Any more time Any more time Any more time

by impute

2 subcomments

Why is every sentence also a paragraph?

by conqrr

0 subcomment

Liked reading this piece.
Thin Desires, Shallow work, Chasing Glitter, Mindless optimization on result, Non virtuous, Dopamine chasing. All are but the same. Burnout is our body's response to it. Philosophers have said this for thousands of years that they all lead to anything but happiness.

by nicbou

0 subcomment

Thin desires are mental snacking. Thick desires are a full meal.
I find it hard because thick desires require a lot more activation energy before it becomes pleasant.

by workfromspace

0 subcomment

This reminds me of the definiton by Lionel Robbins:

   > Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.

Or the simpler version I remember:

   > Economics is about allocating limited natural resources to unlimited human desire.

by dangus

0 subcomment

This article feels judgmental, off-putting, and condescending to me.
It is especially so because it chooses real examples to put down.
Why is the author’s philosophy the arbiter of what we are allowed to enjoy? Why is basic shallow pleasure in life looked down upon?
It even feels condescending to people who have actual serious needs like hunger and disease who may turn to some of these “vices” for an escape. Meanwhile, thick desires are available for those privileged with free time, energy, and money.
By the end of the article I almost felt like the author was trying to evangelize a religion to me, in a really icky way.

by djaouen

0 subcomment

Has no one considered the possibility that those with the intent of learning new things still do learn, many times because of technology? Sure, there are millions who doomscroll pointlessly, but the solution to that is simple: put down the phone and read a book.
Moreover, the fact that I now have access to international publications & journals, as well as the ability to learn foreign languages literally at my fingertips, does not somehow deplete my human needs, any more than reading a newspaper depleted the need to read long-form books did a century ago.

by sans_souse

1 subcomments

Excellent piece, easy to read and I agree on most until this part:
```
     'The surveys all point the same direction: rising anxiety, rising      depression, rising rates of loneliness even as we've never been more connected.
     
     How could this be, when we've gotten so good at giving people what they want?
     Maybe because we've gotten good at giving people what they want in a way that prevents them from wanting anything worth having'
```
As much as it is true we are technologically more connected than ever, I would argue that much was taken away in parallel to what was given. The capabilities came to fruit but at the same time the governance and politics thinned out much of our desires at their core; ie now we're being told we want more and more because it's been determined we can't have certain things.

by singlow

0 subcomment

Everything is about X, because I can redefine X to mean anything.

by makk

0 subcomment

“Circling this territory for decades.” Try millennia. The world is filled with hungry ghosts. Ask a Buddhist.

by amosj

0 subcomment

Well written, this has given a concrete description to a vague notion that has been in my mind for a while

by xpe

2 subcomments

```
  > A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it.
  >
  > A thin desire is one that doesn't.
  >
  > ...
  >
  > The person who checks their notifications is [a thin desire],
  > afterward, exactly the same person who wanted to check their
  > notifications five minutes ago.
```
[I added the brackets]
The author, I think, would label the desire for sugary drinks as a thin desire. However, that desire tends towards unfavorable consequences: mood swings, poor dental hygiene, weight gain. Thus it undermines one's body. This "changes you" -- for the worse, yielding a contradiction. If the preceding logical analysis is sound, the article's terms or argument are flawed.

by dzink

0 subcomment

Yes, and… The thin is nowadays engineered to be addictive, so weaning off of it may be hard. Going cold turkey during a vacation or completely ditching devices for a while may help.
Yes, but… The call to hipsterdom (doing something precisely because it doesn’t scale) may not be necessary - if a person has successfully weened themselves of the pacifier of cheap dopamine they should use all of that spare brain power to create things other people who are still addicted can use to get out of the quicksand of social media. Or to make things that will help the world - scaling is up to the creator. No merit to sealing off away from the world. Improve the world.

by Europas

0 subcomment

My thick desire is unfortunate a 40h grind to pay bills.
If i would have money tomorrow, i would know immediadly what i would do: Slowly and steadily renovate a old house, building a park/garden, having greenhouses and doing pottery.
Having a workshop and doing everything thick.
I hope i can achieve this before i'm 45 because i have the slight worry, that either AI will take over and my dreams break or i'm to old/fragile/broken to enjoy that.

by bgnn

0 subcomment

Great piece!
Made me reflect on my own persuasion of thin desires and my struggle to control them.
It also made me see that my hobbies and my career are actually about following my thick desires. I'm in tech, yes. But I chose, among all the possibilities, to be an analog circuit designer. The analog part is what makes it a long hard skill to master, and my day job feels like constant learning from my interactions woth the world. I can't imagine doing anything which isn't interacting with the actual physical world!

by highfrequency

0 subcomment

A useful angle: does doing this thing make me more able to enjoy it over time (eg by increasing the subtlety and dimensionality of perception), or less able to enjoy it over time (eg by desensitization)?
This is the practical reason to favor “thick desires” over thin ones: they slope upward over time.

by ensocode

0 subcomment

Nice to see that some people still feel the difference. I’m not sure whether the next generations will experience it as strongly, having grown up with much thinner lives. In my experience, deeper desires tend to emerge outside the comfort zone — a place fewer and fewer people seem willing to enter today.

by stanfordkid

0 subcomment

What’s the point of this article — everyone knows desiring heroin is different from wanting to become an Olympic swimmer.

by megamix

1 subcomments

I appreciated the post, this is just not correct thought if you've heard about Open source.
"The entire economy of software assumes that code should serve millions to justify its existence."
Maybe she points to /tech industry/ and not /software/

by tonymet

0 subcomment

Thick and thin in both cases, without purpose, is still hedonistic.
Learning calculus sounds more magnanimous than checking notifications, but what's the purpose? She says you're better off after a year, but in what way?
What if the person checking notifications is waiting on a delivery for a soup kitchen. and the person learning calculus just wants to brag about it or talk down to others because of their credentials?
The purpose matters more. You have to have a purpose. Both "thin" and "thick" desires can be very meaningful with purpose. Even desiring a donut with a lonely neighbor can be better than a year learning calculus -- with the right purpose.
The issue with her approach is it assumes virtue in collecting diplomas (or activities that lead to them) : learning math, languages , getting a masters. It's still feeding the ego using this thick/thin framework.
But if you don't have a purpose, that's just as vain as showing off your car or your watch. It's just another embellishment.

by ursAxZA

0 subcomment

Ironically, consuming essays about “thin desires” often becomes a thin desire itself.

by derekenos

0 subcomment

Reminds me of what Frithjof Bergmann called our "poverty of desire" in his (excellent) book: New Work New Culture: Work We Want and a Culture that Strengthens Us

by profsummergig

0 subcomment

Since the article mentioned enjoyment of calculus,
Anyone got content suggestions or a syllabus I can use to learn to "enjoy" calculus?
I understand the basics, what it is for, chain rule, power rule, product rule... but still, no joy.

by ryanjshaw

0 subcomment

Is reading HN a thick or thin desire? If you say thin: I say, what if today I find an article about thick and thin desires that changes me?

by peterbonney

0 subcomment

I like this piece. Doing hard things for the simple reason that they're hard is good for the psyche. I truly believe that.

0 subcomment

by adamwong246

0 subcomment

Get a motorcycle. Learn to ride it. Learn to fix it. Obtain joy.

by xg15

0 subcomment

> Social media gives you the feeling of social connection without the obligations of actual friendship.
Pornography gives you sexual satisfaction without the vulnerability of partnership.
It feels weird how after a very good explanation of why thick desires are in the end more rewarding, she focuses on the (ostensible) negatives here, like some sort of obligatory tax or payment that you're evading by focusing on "thin" desire.
Formulated like this, the obvious retort would be "yeah, so what? - why should I bother with obligation and vulnerability if I can have the same rewards without them?"
Of course everyone who has 100 online friends but no one to go to a party with knows why this is bullshit - but it's not following from this paragraph.
Maybe a better way would be to explain that the "negatives" are in fact positives: e.g. The obligation is what lets one build upon a friendship - both for you and your friends - but you do have to explain it, you can't just take it for granted.

by scotty79

0 subcomment

So hard drugs are a thick desire?
After all who says change is always a good thing? When you are doing well maybe it's better to stick to thin desires?

0 subcomment

by Popeyes

0 subcomment

A post destined to be a self-help bestseller. I look forward to the If Books Could Kill episode.

by almost_usual

0 subcomment

It comes down to dopamine and if there was friction involved to get that dopamine.

by revinary

0 subcomment

"The desire to master a craft, to read slowly, [...]"
By the time I got to that part my reading had degraded to mere skimming -
a perfectly placed reminder :-)
Here's another angle on the issue: As humans, we evolved these useful litte machines of desire.
Desires to feed, mate, socialize attend and get attended to. All of those came about because they had some utility, a purpose.
Over time we found ways to exploit those machines using substitutes.
- Sweets are a substitute for nourishing food.
- Porn feeds on our desire to mate.
- Social media overloads the fine-tuned machine meant to orient us in the tribe.
I suspect a big part of capitalism is creating ever more efficient and subtle ways to highjack these aspects of our humanity on a grand scale.
Damn.

by wxce

0 subcomment

It was amusing to see a 'Sign Up' prompt right as the blog ended.

by block_dagger

0 subcomment

Why the short paragraphs?
They are hard to read.
See: this post.

by cynicalsecurity

0 subcomment

The irony is thick here. The author's railing against scalable thin desires... by writing a scalable viral essay that delivers the neurological reward of "deep insight".

by honkycat

0 subcomment

reads like an edgy high-schooler jerking off at how much better they are than everyone else.
Its like reading Rick Rubin from a loser whose opinions I don't value at all.

0 subcomment

by terrib1e

0 subcomment

Thin desires are just weak wills.

by andai

1 subcomments

>From the perspective of a frictionless global marketplace, all of this is pure inefficiency.
The frictionless traps you in an infinite web of bullshit. We need more friction at this point, not less.
A frictionless todo app affords cognitive bloat.
A frictionless communication medium affords noise.
Friction is natural and healthy and we heave deleted it.

by gynecologist

0 subcomment

2.5/10

by yunnpp

0 subcomment

I don't know who this Joan is, but this blog is a gold mine.
This other post on the infantilization of failure is very well-put:
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/uh-oh-the-infantilization-of-...

by teleforce

0 subcomment

>A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it.
>A thin desire is one that doesn't.
TL;DR
Thanks OP for enriching my thin vocabulary today, pun intended.

by GMoromisato

0 subcomment

This is an interesting piece, and it resonates with me. I remember when Guitar Hero came out and I shook my head at all the kids spending hours mastering it instead of just picking up a guitar and practicing.
But maybe our dissatisfaction isn't about thin vs. thick desires, maybe it's that we're exposed to a world (via the internet/social media) in which everyone is more successful than us. Even/especially on Hacker News, we're hit over the head with all the YC companies raising money, hiring A-players, releasing world-changing products.
When the world makes you feel like a slacker, it's no wonder we value thick desires. They become the lifeline to get out of our hole. If only I knew calculus, I could work for SpaceX and launch rockets. If only I understood gradient-descent, I could get hired by an AI company. If only I took the time to bake my own bread, maybe I wouldn't feel like such a loser.
This is a relatively new phenomenon, I think. Growing up in the 80s, before the internet, we could only compare ourselves to our friends and classmates. With such a small pool of people, we could always stand out at something. Maybe we were in the top three at basketball, or maybe we always got As in history, or maybe we were good at making girls laugh. And even if there was nothing special about us, it didn't matter: there was nothing special about anyone! We were happy to pursue thin desires because we didn't need to be more than we were. If we worked hard, it was to earn more money. If we practiced an instrument, it was because we enjoyed it. No one ever worried about "what it all means". There's a reason we called such philosophical musings "sophomoric".
And if you think about it, there's nothing special about "thick desires" either. Yes, learning how to play piano changes us. But so what? Why do want to be different? Is it to stand out? Is it to impress others? Is it to be able to say, "I can play piano"? Maybe they are all thin desires. Maybe it's all just a way to pass the time. Is learning about all the Impressionists really any different than memorizing the fire-type Pokemons?
I think having kids fundamentally changed my brain. Once you have kids and get exposed to the firehose of emotions they elicit, everything else becomes shallow. There is no 3 Michelin Star meal, no trek through the rainforest, no mastery of unusual skills that brings me as much pleasure as making my daughter laugh.
We used to know that. We used to know what it meant to live a good life. But now it's a mystery.

by bunnybomb2

0 subcomment

Philosophy is so 2024.

by jimbokun

0 subcomment

There’s nothing especially novel in here but she says it beautifully and succinctly.

by nrhrjrjrjtntbt

0 subcomment

Coffee is for closers

by dmje

1 subcomments

Terrific piece. Love her writing, recommend following her RSS.

by lo_zamoyski

0 subcomment

Imperfections aside, the article is hitting on something quite real. If only we had been studying the received wisdom of the ages instead of warping it into dismissible caricatures and smearing it with black legends, we would have learned about things like virtue and natural law. We would have understood the nature of sin and immorality, and conversely, the moral and the good life. We would have looked at the vacuous and empty temptations of "the world" with contempt and disdain, as vain things beneath human dignity.
Instead, we convinced ourselves that "morality" is a prison, that "freedom" is the ability to do whatever we please, that "happiness" is to be found in degrading and perverse gratification, worthless trivialities, and illusion. We laughed at the straw men that we erected of our forefathers to justify our depravity, calling them "prude" or "square". We embraced meaninglessness and gave it the veneer of intellectual respectability, because if life is meaningless, then what does it matter that I "get off" or how I do so? And when meaninglessness wore us down and left us empty and feeling like rubbish, we convinced ourselves that we are gods, that we can pull meaning out of a hat. "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven!" we declare. The stronger among us became practicing tyrants. "Submit to me and I will give you your meaning! I am your god now!" In overtly brutal regimes, those who didn't submit kept quiet or else perished making their refusal known.
So we consume and consume and consume. We consume to fill a void that consumption cannot fill. We consume, because we are small souls terrorized by the opinions of others in this race of material acquisition. We worship consumption, destroying all that is human and noble and good in the process. As the blog post notes, we are richer than ever. And yet, having children is now deemed "too expensive". Indeed, if consumption is your god - your ultimate imperative - then children are indeed "too expensive". They will always be "too expensive", as children eat into the resources that you could otherwise be using to consume. They are competitors eating into your advantage!
And careerism? The means. The middle classes suffer from this one the most, as the poor don't have careers and the rich don't need them. The careerist toils endlessly and fritters away his life so that he can consume, and consume, and consume...
And what about debt? Debt, especially at our scale, is the result of not being able to live within our means, of consumption taken up a notch. To "keep up", to "have" more than we can afford, we go into debt, and the usurers are more than happy to oblige. No one saves anymore, few really invest. We live in terror of losing our jobs, because without them, that monster of debt will get us. It will come for us, that is to say, it will come to collect those things that truly belong to it but in terms of which we have defined ourselves. We are lead back to careerism, to which debt chains us with relish and verve.
Everything is commercial. Everything is commoditized. Relationships are no exception; they are now commodities as well. Sex is transactional, a service, an infertile and sterile exchange of selfish gratification. When a spouse is now deemed useless, when the voracious hunger returns and torments us once again, demanding satisfaction, we reach for divorce, and a whole industry stands ready to assist us in expediting this process, for a price. People are disposable. People are things. People are up for auction.
And when we prideful, slothful, lustful, gluttonous, greedy creatures don't get what we want...envy and wrath rear their ugly heads to complete the magnificent seven. Our idolatry of consumption is finally crowned with hatred, fear, and despair.
Someone once asked: what is the difference between Christ and a vampire? The answer: Christ sacrifices his blood for your good. The vampire, on the other hand, sacrifices your blood for his good.
We are vampires.

by renewiltord

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What the fuck is this LinkedIn tier garbage. God help us.

by xpe

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From "How to know what you really want" by Luke Burgis [1]:
> There are two kinds of desire, thin and thick. Thick desires are like layers of rock that have been built up throughout the course of our lives. These are desires that can be shaped and cultivated through models like our parents and people that we admire as children. But at some level, they’re related to the core of who we are. They can be related to perennial human truths: beauty, goodness, human dignity.
> Thin desires are highly mimetic (imitative) and ephemeral desires. They’re the things that can be here today, gone tomorrow. Thin desires are subject to the winds of mimetic change, because they’re not rooted in a layer of ourselves that’s been built up over time. They are like a layer of leaves that’s sitting on top of layers of rock. Those thin desires are blown away with a light gust of wind. A new model comes into our life; the old desires are gone. All of a sudden we want something else.
Comparing the above conceptualizations with the ones offered by Westenberg (OP) could consume hundreds or thousands of words -- more than I want to spend at the moment -- but I will say this: both sets feel wrong, by which I mean they trigger my early warning detectors.
I'm not asking anyone else to trust my intuition. But you should trust yours. Intuition is usually a good starting point, at least.
With intuition alone -- without writing a full analysis -- we can see the above quoted explanations/definitions are highly complected. [2] Also, in my view, the offered metaphors don't carve reality at the joints. [3]
When I put ~20 minutes of concentrated thinking into the problem, here are some of the constituent parts of "desire" that I can unpack. (These are only fleetingly glossed over in the article.) In no particular order, to what degree are desires:
```
  - conscious?
  - intentional?
  - intentionally trained and reinforced?
  - authentic?
  - ones we want to have?
  - situational?
  - pattern-matched responses?
  - evolutionarily-selected?
  - socially constructed? (imitative, mimetic)
  - moral? (positive, neutral, negative)
  - permanent, durable, lasting?
  - self-reinforcing?
```
This is complex!
Over-simplication can be a disservice. Adding another metaphor reminds me of the "N+1 standards" problem. [4] Maybe the new metaphor helps, maybe not. Either way, now we have more to sift through.
[1]: https://bigthink.com/series/explain-it-like-im-smart/mimetic...
[2]: https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hi...
[3]: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/303819/what-do-t...
[4]: https://xkcd.com/927/

by nullorempty

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Thanks for this.

by coldtea

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Reads like AI slop.

by 9Mfhf34U

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This is the second time I'm finding out Joan's moved her RSS feed without announcing it...

by hamonrye

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[dead]

by barfoure

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[flagged]

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by JohnMakin

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> We're hungry for more, but we have more than we need.
I do not have more than I need. Very much the opposite - despite making a decent living, I cannot afford the bulk of my medical care that makes my life a lot more comfortable and extends my lifespan. making ends meet is sometimes difficult.
> We're hungry for less, while more accumulates and multiplies.
See above.
> We're hungry and we don't have words to articulate why.
I can articulate why, and a lot of it has to do with the protestant work ethic hell we've decided runs the entire world.
> We're hungry, and we're lacking and we're wanting.
Ok, finally I agree.
> We are living with a near-universal thin desire: wanting something that cannot actually be gotten, that we can't define, from a source that has no interest in providing it.
I am pretty sure what I am wanting - security, healthcare, housing, food, reliable work/career can be defined, and can be gotten.
> The person who checks their notifications is, afterward, exactly the same person who wanted to check their notifications five minutes ago.
Trivial counterexample and one that has happened to me - "Your father has had no pulse for 30 minutes, you need to get to the ER immediately." Definitely wasn't the same person 5 minutes after that. Or even, "Your role has been made redundant, please return your equipment to IT staff." Can probably think of many others.
This seems like fluffery that ultimately isn't saying much or anything at all really. Of course, in an economy full of thin fulfillment supply (such as the examples given in the writing here - porn, social media, etc.) and lacking in thick fulfillment (loneliness epidemic, bad economy if you're not on the tippy top of it, etc.), people will reach for thin ones. You can't wish or grind or hustle your way out of some of this, it is systemic, and in that, I agree with the conclusion here. I just don't believe it really accomplishes much of anything. There are those of us alive who aren't really even that old that remember the world when it was not this way.