jondlm

I really liked the article. Thanks for sharing!

Here's my alternate title: people are insane, software reveals it.

Insane feels too strong, though. I believe people make sense. We just have this crazy ability to fool ourselves by spinning stories. And many of the stories we continue to spin were handed to us without our awareness.

This gave me a hearty laugh!

I've been carrying one of his poems around in my pocket recently. I'll leave it here for y'all. Maybe it'll find someone else as it found me when I needed it most:

> To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

> To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

> and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

> and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

A couple weeks ago I went by myself for a hike through an old lava tunnel cave. I needed a flashlight because it was pitch black. I found a small nook in the wall about a mile in that I could wedge myself in to. I sat down, turned off my light, and let myself feel the enveloping darkness for a long time. I cried. The only sounds were of small droplets of cold water hitting the floor and my body. I let myself settle in to the sensation of being buried alone under the rock where liquid fire once reigned. I felt at peace. When I finally emerged from the cold tunnel a thrill ran through me as warm air gushed over my skin and the distant sun found me once again. I sat and fed the birds that visited me in the remote wilderness while I listened to the gentle whirl of wind in the trees.

Good article! I agree that curiosity is a wonderful place to land.

However, I think putting anger and curiosity on two levels can be a subtle trap. It can lead to diminishing the importance of anger. They’re all just emotions; just appearances in our minds. We don’t decide when they show up, but we do have the capacity for awareness.

In my experience I’ve found anger to be an immensely important emotion. It signals to me that something very important needs attention. And when entire populations are angry, that’s a really important signal. Granted, following the first thought that follows the anger tends to be unhelpful (it’s easy to villainize). But the initial signaling of importance should not be underplayed.

This is a follow up post to the last post I wrote about quitting Stripe a few years ago. I hope you enjoy!

Many thanks to fnordpiglet.

You're not wrong. I also think it's a trap to think they're in a fundamentally different category than we are. Yes, the blast radius of their harm can be enormous. _And_ they're humans like you and me. Likely hiding deep wounds of their own that are screaming for care-full attention.

> I think that CEOs of those companies are ethically challenged people, narcissists and sociopaths.

Likely true in many cases!

> there is no evil emerging in big systems

That's a very definitive statement!

What brings you to the conclusion that there aren't forces at play that we don't yet have a good name for or don't yet have the scientific means to study?

I did say "ostensibly" ;)

Agreed that power nearly always corrupts. It does so in often subtle and slow shifts. In general we have a paucity of leaders who wield their power on behalf of the oppressed.

The truth is that the "bad" leaders need powerful help. They need someone to come alongside them and love them into the light of the damage they've caused by drifting into complacency. And I'm not talking about "nice" love here, it might initially look more like shame.

This... this... this! This resonates soooo deeply with me.

The wild thing is that these tech "systems" (aka companies) are made up of ostensibly good people. It's often impossible to look at individual people and say, "they're the cause of this damage." I believe that some form of evil (this word feel inadequate) emerges amidst these large systems that is incredibly hard to pinpoint. It's why dissension is so fucking critical. Tech companies continue to profit from the status quo and we need courageous people who disrupt that.

The topic of this article felt familiar to me. It's similar to ideas in IFS: internal family systems. IFS also uses control systems to describe our internal landscape.

If the concept of multiplicity (we humans being a system of smaller systems) resonates with you, consider reading No Bad Parts by Richard C. Schwartz. I've personally found it immensely helpful.