I have to say that the guy raised a huge red flag for me already in the first paragraph:
"I hit the gym, pursued the most interesting and important ideas I could find, and started looking for a wife."
Ho boy, I'm getting some Christian fundamentalist vibes with that sentence formulation. Like, a mix of a holy mission, an objectifying checkbox and a "time to get a wife to generate progeny".
So I continued reading:
"The squirrel has no way of knowing or checking that his instinct to bury the nuts will lead him to new life in the spring; he can only trust that God has given him what he needs."
"When we must we defer to a master who teaches us what to value, let us do that consciously and explicitly and personally. Let us aim to be uplifted thereby as we take responsibility for more and more of the task we are given, until the student surpasses the master to receive their visions directly from God."
"How does that project fit into creating a more glorious future? How is that future pleasing to God, the proper order of things, and your own felt value instincts? "
"God’s Trust Fund
The reason taking responsibility for the question of ends involves a leap of faith is that you actually have no sure-fire way to ensure that your visions are sound and good."
"Even fearsome Nemesis, born from chaos via night and darkness, is ultimately the hand of God and the minister of justice. Even the supposed exceptions to justice prove its rule."
"If your vision is beautiful and sound, it will flourish. Resources will unexpectedly come out of the woodwork to support it. If your vision doesn’t have that virtue, you will be struck down for its lack. That’s life. It is also justice. Where this justice conflicts with our own human desires, perhaps it is we who are wrong, not God."
"So take the leap, and have faith that God’s trust fund will come through with what you need."
Having read the whole article, the ongoing theme is "God" and "faith" and the whole article oozes with the unflinching conviction of a religious fanatic.
The man glorifies struggle and sacrifice for a "higher purpose" and then attributes good outcomes to the will of a divine being. I can't really stand behind that kind of reasoning, and I can't really understand how the HN audience resonates with this article. Maybe it's the hustle success story of an entrepreneur that is appealing to the audience, but the guy is actually sending a very dangerous and misleading message.
“I have to say that the guy raised a huge red flag for me already in the first paragraph: ‘I hit the gym, pursued the most interesting and important ideas I could find, and started looking for a wife.’ “
A healthy body, a healthy mind, and a healthy relationship are not red flags.
The guys at Palladium talk about religion as a social technology. People stuck in the “new atheism” phase will find this hard to follow.
Whether a belief is false or true is often completely irrelevant. Even if the Gods are "imaginary", their impact is most definitely real.
"I hit the gym, pursued the most interesting and important ideas I could find, and started looking for a wife."
Ho boy, I'm getting some Christian fundamentalist vibes with that sentence formulation. Like, a mix of a holy mission, an objectifying checkbox and a "time to get a wife to generate progeny".
So I continued reading:
"The squirrel has no way of knowing or checking that his instinct to bury the nuts will lead him to new life in the spring; he can only trust that God has given him what he needs."
"When we must we defer to a master who teaches us what to value, let us do that consciously and explicitly and personally. Let us aim to be uplifted thereby as we take responsibility for more and more of the task we are given, until the student surpasses the master to receive their visions directly from God."
"How does that project fit into creating a more glorious future? How is that future pleasing to God, the proper order of things, and your own felt value instincts? "
"God’s Trust Fund
The reason taking responsibility for the question of ends involves a leap of faith is that you actually have no sure-fire way to ensure that your visions are sound and good."
"Even fearsome Nemesis, born from chaos via night and darkness, is ultimately the hand of God and the minister of justice. Even the supposed exceptions to justice prove its rule."
"If your vision is beautiful and sound, it will flourish. Resources will unexpectedly come out of the woodwork to support it. If your vision doesn’t have that virtue, you will be struck down for its lack. That’s life. It is also justice. Where this justice conflicts with our own human desires, perhaps it is we who are wrong, not God."
"So take the leap, and have faith that God’s trust fund will come through with what you need."
Having read the whole article, the ongoing theme is "God" and "faith" and the whole article oozes with the unflinching conviction of a religious fanatic.
The man glorifies struggle and sacrifice for a "higher purpose" and then attributes good outcomes to the will of a divine being. I can't really stand behind that kind of reasoning, and I can't really understand how the HN audience resonates with this article. Maybe it's the hustle success story of an entrepreneur that is appealing to the audience, but the guy is actually sending a very dangerous and misleading message.