Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

> Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

What counts as a return is quite subjective — it goes beyond money. Respect, happiness, meaning — all of these count.

Given that, if there are no returns at all, I bet that is not a positive-sum game that could last long. Like if you give and create value for others, but the recipient has no respect for you and you receive nothing — it is not meaningful and will not last long. And you'd better walk away and start worrying about the returns.

And to be frank, look at who creates the most value in the world — they also could be the richest. That is no coincidence. Take Elon Musk — tremendous positive-sum deals with people everywhere, and all together, that's what got him to the top.

Kudos to all the entrepreneurs who work hard and create deal opportunities that could make everyone win.

This post absolutely reeks with the privilege of wealth. For the vast majority of people on this earth, the "Returns" from their labor matter a lot more to them than some vaunted, abstract ideals, as those ideals won't put food on the table or a roof over their children's heads.

The bottom line is that the majority of people alive today have to take whatever deal they are given in a sense, as they absolutely do not have the "Luxury" of not "Playing zero sum games."

Must be nice to be rich enough to get to spout philosophical BS and not worry how you're going to pay for groceries, but most people alive these days are a lot closer to being homeless than they are to being millionaires, and quitting a job that pays their bills so they can "Provide value to a community" and not worry about how they are going to get paid just isn't even a remotely viable option.

Great advice if you want to be old and poor. Yes, there's a chance it works out because you're that good, but there's a chance it doesn't. This doesn't mean do the opposite and only worry about your returns, but strike a balance. The world we live in is not in general a bunch of isolated people in a meritocracy, connections and relationships within your workplace play a huge role. Politics exist. I know a lot of asshats that are highly successful even though pretty useless. Don't be that person, but don't be there for everyone and empty handed in the end.

Better advice would be stay hungry, stay curious, keep learning.

> "The trick is not to play zero sum games."

To be mean, I’d say no—those zero-sum games are always 'positive' for the players, because the people actually foot pay the bill aren't even at the table.

Come on, we live in a globalized reality. Those insulated by the 'Dollar Illusion' don’t even realize that the true costs are being extracted from the rest of the world. These so-called zero-sum games are nothing but a sophisticated machinery of power, meticulously designed to obfuscate the truth.

But those words are just too cynical; it doesn't really make any sense.

> This is what I have been saying the whole time. Go create value for others and don’t worry about the returns.

No. This is the time to abandon naive dogooderism.

The capitalists said that they don’t need labor any more. Fine. Prepare for that potentiality by not giving jack shit away for free. That includes permissively licensed open source software. But it goes way beyond that.

In the long term maybe we can get rid of the labor-employee relation so that people who do honest work don’t have to worry about their work becoming automated. Let the ones who engage in dishonest pseudo-work (capital accumulation) worry about their pseudo-productivity becoming null and void.

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This reads as a typical anti hype article that attracts the people that are fed up with reality. But this framework never works because it's detached from current reality. AI is a big thing and it will eat most jobs weather you call it stupid or you like it.

I didn't get a career/skillset for the aesthetics. Sounds like Communism, rabble rabble. Or a cult.

Is this effective_altruism.jpg?

Hack, actor, liar, influencer. You might as well share that LeGate kid

karpathy, geohot, william legate, any other "developer influencers" i need to avoid?