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‘How Do Bounties Work?’

quite

quiet

Tyler explained what he dislikes about his job in the ‘About’ section of the discussion, which is quoted in the bounty terms:

Many of the tasks I am assigned seem eminently automatable, and performing them is excruciating for me (though I recognize my good fortune overall). Even when there are micro-problems which require creativity to solve, I still find the process painful, given that they are other people's problems rather than my own. It is the same pain of school: creativity forced to work toward answers to questions not asked.

Have you thought about quite quitting?

Could you also come up with the reasons you dislike your job? Is it because of co-workers, managers or the work you actually do? In either case, the calculation in the calculated risk of quitting your job might be mentally checking out from it, but reaping the good thing about it, which is the financial stability.

But what is the import of the story to the present debate?

‘The Simplest Thing in the World’ has themes about fear and safety vs self-actualization. For example:

What’s the quality that all the people you know have got, the outstanding quality in all of them? Their motive power? Fear. Not fear of anyone in particular, just fear. Just a great, blind force without object. Malicious fear. The kind that makes them want to see you suffer. Because they know that they, too, will have to suffer and it makes it easier, to know that you do also. The kind that makes them want to see you being small and funny and smutty. Small people are safe. It’s not really fear, it’s more than that. Like Mr. Crawford, for instance, who’s a lawyer and who’s glad when a client of his loses a suit. He’s glad, even though he loses money on it; even though it hurts his reputation. He’s glad, and he doesn’t even know that he’s glad. God, what a story there is in Mr. Crawford! If you could put him down on paper as he is, and explain just why he is like that, and . . .

… people go their whole lives resisting their passions, and are secure.

Physically maybe. I can’t look into those people’s minds but I suspect they don’t ever really feel psychologically secure. It takes a certain kind of mind to have physical security, rather than fulfillment, as one’s main concern for one’s whole life. https://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/self-esteem.html

It’s essentially living like an animal.

… my bad for combining ideas in #3819 …

No worries, and good catch. What you could do, to clean up this branch, is revise #3819 to remove this part:

The concerns are over the tradeoffs of leaving the day job (finances, impact to employability, etc.).

And then, before submitting the revision form, uncheck criticism #3834 underneath the form.

It’s not strictly required – there are cases where joining multiple criticisms into one comment is fine – but I almost always recommend splitting them, especially for beginners.

… people go their whole lives resisting their passions, and are secure.

Physically maybe. I can’t look into those people’s minds but I suspect they don’t ever really feel psychologically secure. It takes a certain kind of mind to have physical security, rather than fulfillment, as one’s main concern for one’s whole life. https://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/self-esteem.html

You should reach far higher in life than merely ensuring food/water/shelter. It’s a pretty elementary concern and easily met.

who's

whose

Well, this is starting to sound a bit contrived. But even in the dark ages, people could be guitarists and find a job they love. Or they could create a new job they loved.

Tyler is saying the six-month minimum won’t be an issue.

Well, agreement doesn’t sound like criticism. It sounds like agreement!
But I see now that you meant to say – correct me if I’m wrong – that the six-month minimum of reserves won’t be a problem for you. In which case that indeed neutralizes my criticism. I’ll counter-criticize my own.

I think that's a misreading. If 'hard to vary' is a fixed criterion used to measure the value of an explanation, it would go against Deutsch's own criticisms of justificationism (various chapters of BoI and FoR) as well as his criticisms of scientism – that is, the misapplication of scientific methods to philosophical problems (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=tzWGfi4XhLA&t=7s). I see why you would interpret the BoI quote in that way, but in the context of the whole philosophy your interpretation is implausible.

Regardless of what Deutsch meant, though, the main point is that it's possible to talk about the virtues of explanations without falling into justificationism, for example when trying to explain progress.

I have made related points in #3883.

I see why you would interpret the BoI quote in that way, but in the context of the whole philosophy your interpretation is implausible. It would go against Deutsch's own criticisms of justificationism (various chapters of BoI and FoR) as well as his criticisms of scientism – that is, the misapplication of scientific methods to philosophical problems (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=tzWGfi4XhLA&t=7s).

Regardless of what Deutsch meant, though, the main point is that it's possible to talk about the virtues of explanations without falling into justificationism, for example when trying to explain progress.

I have made related points in #3883.

It seems that you've taken the idea of hard to vary as saying that the process of choosing between competing theories is just about measuring how much of this trait they have. One clearly wouldn’t get better explanations from doing that, as it would just be a mechanical way of judging theories.

But this is a misunderstanding of hard to vary, which is simply an outcome of the process of conjecture and criticism. It's not a criterion to be applied before any critical discussion has taken place.

The same goes for other aspects of good explanations, such as depth, accuracy, elegance, reach. These are things we aspire to have, but they are not criteria for judging theories, for which we need no justification.

Still learning the art of Veritula (my bad for combining ideas in #3819). From the top, this branch seems to be:
Go on hiatus?
- No hiatus, compress activates
----- Yes hiatus, can't compress. No hiatus because resume gap.
--------- No to resume gap -- So YES hiatus. But currently #3834 flows up and flips to a no-hiatus criticism (because I melded a yes and a no idea in one comment, and Dennis criticized the latter).
------------- Yes hiatus via this comment to correct

"It’s best to write only one criticism at a time."
----- Best, or required, to avoid errors?! (or I'm confused)

Still learning the art of Veritula (my bad for combining ideas in #3819). From the top, this branch seems to be:
Go on hiatus?
- No hiatus, compress activates
----- Yes hiatus, can't compress. No hiatus because resume gap.
--------- No to resume gap -- So YES hiatus. But currently #3834 flows up and flips to a no-hiatus criticism (because I melded a yes and a no idea in one comment, and Dennis criticized the latter).
------------- Yes hiatus via this comment to correct

"It’s best to write only one criticism at a time."
----- Best, or required, to avoid errors?! (or I'm confused)

Still learning the art of Veritula (my bad for combining ideas in #3819). From the top, this branch seems to be:
Go on hiatus?
- No hiatus, compress activates
- Yes hiatus, can't compress. No hiatus because resume gap.
- No to resume gap -- So YES hiatus. But currently #3834 flows up and flips to a no-hiatus criticism (because I melded a yes and a no idea in one comment, and Dennis criticized the latter).
- Yes hiatus via this comment to correct

"It’s best to write only one criticism at a time."
- Best, or required, to avoid errors?! (or I'm confused)

There's no security in not pursuing your passion

Do we mean by security something other than food/water/shelter? Or, resisting your passion only buys temporary security? This isn't true; people go their whole lives resisting their passions, and are secure.

There exist people who's passions exclude all available paying jobs, unless this is not physically possible. Aspiring guitarists in dark ages.

Only that I didn't see it, not that there wasn't any, but I see that this is effectively the same. Edited the comment to be a criticism.

The Fountainhead is on my list. Listened to ‘The Simplest Thing in the World’. One message seems to be that one's creativity will continuously resist attempts to coerce it into doing something it doesn't want. A will of its own. I feel such resistance acutely at this current job, more so but no differently than during previous jobs and assignments, as we all have. But what is the import of the story to the present debate? My creative muse will continue fighting me so long as I'm trying to steer it towards other things? I have no doubt. The questions here are over what is practical, secure and strategic, all largely in the financial sense--or so I think. Where does one draw the line between passion and security? Maybe there is no general-purpose explanation. I will continue reflecting.

So we could say working via discipline to make money tentatively, as part of a problem solving process, is not irrational? I suppose that's what I'm doing now...