montyf

Yeah, you can play whatever game you want in life. However, playing the money game is dangerous, and can easily create attachment and greed. I'm not necessarily preaching about his choice of game -- more about his lack of perspective, really.

I see what you mean as well. But, I don't think this kind of thing should impact your well being. The guy said in other posts that he can't get into those better companies and is considering suicide. It sounds so odd to me that I don't know if he's serious.

Sorry, but is this a serious post? Honest question.

> My total comp for the first year is only $145k out of undergrad with a base of $106k. My friends at places like Google, FB and Cruise are making more like $180k-$230k by comparison.

Heaven forbid someone is making more money than they know what to do with than you are.

> Im honestly terrified that the value on the resume will decline over time and i will never be able to get into a more prestigious company.

Is this a real concern? Surely you can be hired on technical merit. Google hires new grads! And people who only worked at "top-tier" companies still have to pass an interview everywhere.

> The idea of being relegated to a 2nd or third tier company has been eating at me, and comments on places like CSCQ, Blind and this AskHN nearly drove me to suicide before.

That's sick. Not to be insensitive for you, but our priorities in this industry are whack. Surely you can find a meaningful job outside of a megacorp that's bleeding the world dry. Or do you just care about money and status?

Is central control necessary? I know it's a tough pill to swallow, but I encourage you to think about it some more. And don't think in terms of subsystems but rather real entities.

> Otherwise though, I found that his personas largely reflected his current emotional state. One persona would almost always be "out" when he was upset with a friend, or struggling with some stress. Another was more childlike and playful. He described them as always there, and even though he appeared to allow one of them to be "in charge" as he put it, he said the voices were always in the back of his mind, directing his thoughts.

That doesn't sound like a disorder. The abnormal thing about your friend is that he is more aware than the average person.

The illusion of a single, unified self is just that. When you talk to people in your dreams, who are you talking to? Their responses are quite intelligent, if you listen. When you say embarrassing things under anesthesia with no memory of it, who said those things? When you get irrationally angry, who the hell is it that comes out? Same with the alcoholic who swears one day he'll quit and forgets about it the next day -- different people.

Moreover, there are huge areas of your brain that work quietly and subconsciously (from your perspective). Not only are they conscious, they're smarter than you. They prove it through intuition and gut feeling, if you listen.

> while his condition lent itself to occasional mood swings, he made a point of _respecting_ his voices, allowed them to become a part of him, and I feel had largely learned to cope.

I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but I found your tone somewhat condescending. It's not his alternate selves that he needs to "cope" with, but society's notion that something is wrong with him. This might sound too new-age for people, but the more aware you are, the more you realize just how sick everyone else is. We literally have conscious beings imprisoned within us.

> He had figured himself out for better or worse

Probably figured himself out better than the rest of us ever will.

> There are other things like adrenal hyperplasia which are really common and results in developing secondary sexual characteristics of both genders.

"Really common" is people bullshitting. Most of this stuff is in their heads. I don't know about adrenal hyperplasia but certainly you don't need to be a liberal to have it? So why do only liberals want preferential treatment?

Sorry, all this crap is just identity politics... it's not based in reality at all.

> To suggest that people can't or shouldn't advocate for acceptance of their conceptual identity is pretty misguided.

I'm sorry, but made-up genders simply do not find their way into my model of the world. I never encounter such people in real life (hopefully they've all been siphoned off to Portland by now) and I simply do not have the time or the energy to so much as blink at such whacko ideas, much less accommodate the crazies by building special bathrooms just for them and their delusions. So sorry, but I will never "accept" this into any personal framework and will treat people like normal people with real genders, not made-up ones.

> Simply not having XX nor XY chromosomes happens about in one in every 1666 people. Surely you have met at least two thousand people in your life.

That's a disease, not a gender. What makes people with such a disease think they are special? Moreover, why should I care about this particular disease when there are much worse?

Honestly, everyone has quirks, not everyone makes them the core of their identity.

Edit: apparently someone here is offended by my comments and instantly downvoting them. Pretty sad, and doesn't help your cause. If censorship is the best strategy you can think of, then maybe your cause is total fucking bullshit.

I understand now, though I would argue that nothing you call "objective" is actually so. These goals you listed are just the formulation of a game, which a lot of Westerners choose to play (though not all global citizens, which already makes your opinions non-objective). We can choose to play any games we want on this planet, and it baffles me that people choose to invest time (the only thing you ever truly invest) into one of the worst games.

It's no wonder that whenever I go back to America or see Americans in my travels I am struck by how utterly shallow and unhappy they seem to be. And the stereotype of the American Smile is already disappearing from people's memories.

Because we're humans, not asset-collection algorithms. I'm sorry that this is an honest question.

Do you view everything in life in terms of investing and value extraction? If so, that is deeply, incredibly sad.

> you have several multi-decade goals to work towards

Why do you think the goals you listed are worthwhile? Who made these goals and why?

> I deleted the comment in case there is some sort of HN 404 taboo I'm not aware of.

Never do this. If someone doesn't like your comment, then you are just letting them win by removing it. That's exactly what they want: for the comment not to exist. Don't give them the satisfaction; people who engage in censorship practices don't deserve it.

That's not true at all. Overtime can most definitely be unpaid, and usually is.

Sounds like something I'd be good at. All I have to do is stroll through the woods and I have 20 ticks on my person.