me: not worth the hours upon hours of programming time that went into that projectI'll be the first to admit that I have a tendency to write "pretty" things without complete justification. I do like my posts to look “pretty,” and I always welcome challenges to my conclusions. But I also think there's validity to what I'm saying, so feel free to object to what I say, and criticize my penchant for high-minded and romantic ideals.
me: like
it's a good idea
me: and lots of people will use it
probably
and it'll make a lot of money
so good for them
but essentially useless for everyone else
Person: so something has to help people to be worth doing?
me: doesn't it?
Person: i suppose so
me: there are so many people in the world
that need so much help
we don't go off and help them
or donate all our money to them
but the least we can do is work toward something
that will help people in the future
not create shiny products that will make us lots of money
Person: well darn
there goes my plan
me: it's not like programmers can't do useful stuf
it's just that 90% of them don't.
Person: true
me: like
started out as one of these kinds of things
but then they expanded
to do so much more
they use their influence so responsibly
but that's one of thousands of startups
with such ultimately useless projects
even facebook falls under this category to some extent
Person: yeah
me: didn't you read my blog
Person: what
which blog
me: the last post
Person: yeah
it sounded legit
me: but that was the point
Person: oh
somehow i kinda missed the extent of it
me: what
dangit
Person: well
you started writing pretty stuff
that sounds nice
but i'm not sure i believe
me: wat
which part
Person: "Well, because I've always felt that we owed it to humanity itself. As melodramatic and romantic as that sounds, it's what I believe. We owe it to ... ourselves ... to dedicate our lives to making this world a better place."
dude
helping people is good
however
why is it our purpose
me: because if we don't do it, who will
Person: no one
is that bad?
me: yes
we got rich off society
how is it fair that we just go around and do nothing to help other people
Person: i dunno
what is fair
me: it's fair that everyone gets an equal shot at being happy
which is not even remotely close to true right now
Person: oh
that actually sounds pretty legit
i can agree with that mostly
but like
then i can ask why it matters if people are happy
me: because it's what everyone wants
Person: but why does it matter what people want
i'll skip a step
why does it matter that there are people
i mean
i don't mean to be annoying
or anything
but like
any argument about things like what are people meant to do
relies on like
meaning of liife
type of stuff
in my opinion, at least
me: that's probably true
but we're here
we have a lot of time
with which to do stuff
we all kill ourselves right now
and it wouldn't make the slightest difference
Person: so we define winning conditions for life?
and kinda agree upon them to the best of our ability?
me: more or less
you can argue that there's no "fair" or "right" or "wrong"
and i can't conclusively prove you wrong
but i feel like all of those arguments are hypocritical at best
because no one will ever willingly do what they're saying
Person: true
interesting
the fact that we have wills gives us all of those concepts
me: what do you mean
Person: well
if nobody wanted anything
there wouldn't be 'happy'
me: true
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Professionalism, continued
Here's a conversation I had recently.
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So I mean, its not that your initial statement was written prettily and that detracted from its goal (at least imo). Rather, the concept itself is pretty, to some degree. It's quite true that there's no reason a priori for people to work towards these kind of goals, and obviously often enough people don't. What you're saying is not that we have some imperative to do these things, but rather that it would be nice if we did. You feel strongly about it, like this is a very desirable outcome, but you're not actually saying that we have to do it. If we were somehow compelled to do it, I feel like the act would actually lose some of its meaning.
ReplyDeleteI mean I really like you're stuff, its pretty thoughtful. To be honest, I couldn't help but find parts of the conversation pointing to a God. At least from my perspective, the existence of a God, not just a distant one, but a personal God answers those questions. But maybe some will say thats not a satisfactory answer...
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