If you want to become a generous person such as him, when do you know when you've reached a limit in compassion? Would someone like your uncle ever think, for someone who is excessively rude, uncaring, disagreeable, unfriendly: "he is not worth my time, I should move on?"
Actually, the last time I saw my uncle, I asked how he could be generous, and yet not be taken advantage of or stuck with horrible people.
He said that what he'd learned to do was to condition whatever help he was offering on the person taking some tiny step first. Often, it was as simple as "make up a budget for you and your wife to go on a three day getaway, send it to me, and I'll write you a check." He said that almost everyone who was just in it for the handouts couldn't be bothered.
My uncle also mixed a lot of his giving with encouraging young people's talents. He'd hire students who were excited in X, to do X for him in some way. He hired students to take photos, make music, decorate houses, build apps, archive things, paint, and who knows what else. He even hired a student to make memes. This way the students not only got money, but grew in their skills and were excited that someone wanted their work.
There were, of course, some rude and uncaring people in his life. But those people didn't want to spend time with him so there was never really a conflict there.
This is great stuff. My aunt would pay us to read books. We had to provide a hand-written summary/review to her to collect. I can't remember the exact amount - somewhere between $8 and $18 each.
One of the reasons why I think your uncle's gestures made such a big impact is that he made gestures that rewarded good things AND he wasn't a relative to many of the people he interacted with.
When I was about 10 yrs old one of my dad's best friends asked me about my grades and I was proud to say I got straight A's. He reached into his pocket and gave me a $5 bill which was a lot back then for a kid and I knew he didn't have a lot of money too. It was fun spending it at the arcade and also bragging a bit to other friends. :) I'll actually never forget that moment because it was the first one I can recall where a non-family member / non-teacher praised my grades.
The only other moment I can recall was from grade school when an older student used to hand out fireworks to those that showed their report card with straight As. You can imagine how all the top students rushed out of school ready to redeem their report card for some fireworks their parents would probably never buy except for maybe July 4th. Possibly dangerous but absolutely brilliant. A cheap fun reward that literally celebrates the accomplishment.
Most of us get told how special and amazing we are by our parents and family all the time growing up. Often times the praise isn't really deserved since we're special snowflakes. When a stranger, family friend or anyone not related gives praise or reward it can be extremely impactful and reinforce that we're on the right path and that it really does matter. Those moments get seared into our memories.
I'm working on figuring out how to do some sort of unannounced cash or gift reward to those with straight As with one of the local public schools.
Your short retelling of your uncle's kindness has rather inspired me to be more diligent in my approach to being kind to others. Thank you for sharing!
This is literally what I'm trying to convey in my personal statement for university. I'm thinking of studying computer science at uni (I'm in my last year of high school) and this is precisely my dilemma: how to keep my interest alive by focusing on the beauty of programming itself, automation, the abstract creative nature of it, while ignoring the overwhelming downsides: drowning in this virtual world that is out of touch with reality, in this mass of useless information, useless innovations, profit-driven apps, addiction to smartphones, etc. Consumerism as it was in the 60's, applied to everything digital.
I'd be more than happy to discuss this further with anyone as it's something that's preoccupying me a lot right now as I try to decide what to pursue in my studies.
Another thing that helps me cope with this tech world: hoping to be able to contribute to or work along standards such as those of Calm Computing (https://www.calmtech.com/), or TimeWellSpent (http://timewellspent.io/). Through things like these, and through the pessimistic view I have right now of the tech world, do my best to contribute to it in a beneficial way, more "ethical way." Basically, I'm motivated to work in tech to try to "shift" it a tiny bit, to fight the enemy from inside.
What you're seeing is the information equivalent of an endless, free salad bar with everything a human being could possibly eat available in unlimited quantities. There are high-quality veggies and hideous junk foods, clean water and toxic booze, fresh foods and spoiled. Go ahead, eat anything you want, as much as you want, whenever you want.
Whether this will be heaven or hell for you ultimately depends on whether you can carefully and deliberately develop "consumption" habits that support you in the long run. With proper care, the more options the salad bar offers, the better your chosen subset will get.
I largely agree with that sentiment, but it is difficult to separate oneself from the rest of a society that has made unhealthy choices. The market is driven by the masses and we participate in the market. The salad bar may be unlimited, but there sure are larger areas of it dedicated to serving the tastes of everyone else.
Yes, it's a perspective that I have to work to maintain. It's hard to constantly have to seek for the high-quality veggies and reconvince yourself that what you're doing is worth it.
> how to keep my interest alive by focusing on the beauty of programming itself, automation, the abstract creative nature of it, while ignoring the overwhelming downsides
Focusing on the thrill of programming while ignoring the downsides is how we got here. Maybe you meant "focusing on the beauty... while ameliorating the downsides". Anyway, you seem much more self aware than I was at your age, so I'm sure you'll do fine. :)
> focusing on the beauty... while ameliorating the downsides
That's a great way to put it, thanks.
The second thing that worries me about doing compsci is the fact that I'll have to dedicate a huge portion of my life to staying in front of a screen. It bothers me a bit but for now it is outweighed by the advantages.
This also bothers me. There's something soul-sucking about screens once you spend more than 4 or so hours in front of one. And because I can't really put my finger on what it is about screens that has this effect, I can't come up with even a sci-fi version of a solution to this problem.
The closest I've come to even an inkling of a solution is the idea of a high-refresh-rate e-ink display and doing everything in a fullscreen terminal, because somehow my kindle doesn't have the "screen" effect on me. But I'm really not sure if this would actually be helpful, let alone plausible.
But you're a programmer, so you must manage no? I've actually thought about the e-ink display. I would immediately buy a very simple, lightweight e-ink laptop that allows me to do simple tasks.
There needs to be a generation or current of people in tech working against the trend to addict and disturb their users for profit maximization and pushing for some kind of ethical limit.
> acquiesce to jarring, rude, and disruptive technologies that foster a passive, frantic, reactive, unreflective, and anxious consciousness.
I totally agree with this and love the calm technology principle as well. I'd like to draw attention to the "Time Well Spent" project started by Google's "product philosopher," as I think it's very similar and equally as important.
http://timewellspent.io/
You would willingly give up the french language if asked to and replace it with english? As a french person too, this is inconceivable for me. I don't think cultural identity is really possible without languages. French culture would not be the same french culture if everyone spoke English.
If I understand correctly, you say that software as an art form must by default have a conventional and easily usable UI or means of interaction, ("practical considerations of the medium") before considering anything artistic such as the gameplay itself?
But what if, beyond working on the gameplay itslef, it was artistically interesting for someone to play around with the practical necessities of the medium and try to diverge from the norm? Everyone believed in a standard, approachable reading format from left to right until poets and writers started messing around with that (I'm thinking ee cummings and House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski). People tried to defy conventional ways to listen to music or watch movies too.
The DF UI is definitely a pain on the practical side and it's made it difficult for me to really get into the game yet, but from an outside perspective I think it's interesting that way too.
> If I understand correctly, you say that software as an art form must by default have a conventional and easily usable UI or means of interaction, ("practical considerations of the medium") before considering anything artistic such as the gameplay itself?
Yes. Exactly!
And in many cases (especially with games), people DO play around with the practical necessities and often stumble on something inspired. Like HomeStarRunner's "Virus" SBemail, or fourth-wall-breaking adventure games that comment on their own interface. But I think in DF's case it falls flat.
Western music is written in a consistent scale for practical considerations: it was discovered that writing music in a mathematically consistent format made it easiest for musicians to play and reinterpret. Sure, people deviate, but the vast majority of those efforts are terrible. Cinema -- even avant garde -- is constrained to the limits of film, audience attention, and patterns in storytelling, and the viewer generally expects certain things. Literature is constrained by the practical considerations of books and the written word, and so written text is formatted consistently per reader expectations. How is software any different?
Or the thought-games played by the Espers in The Demolished Man.
Personally I don't think the UI was planned out that much; maybe "it gradually got so" as the song says.
I think it's a bit like the qwerty keyboard. Maybe there was a rational for it at one point, but now it's just a thing you memorize and then don't think about much. In DF the 'loo(k)', '(v)iew', and '(q)uery' commands do similar but disjoint things which could easily be combined if Tarn really wanted to stop working on features for a while. Since he doesn't, it's just a thing that you memorize and then no longer need to think about; it becomes very much like touch typing.
I wouldn't generalize that any deviant, avant garde self indulgent artistic work that doesn't care about its audience and doesn't care about maintaining some conformity is necessarily "unwatchable" or "unlistenable" trash.
I personally think that sometimes it's not such a pointless path, and helps push the boundaries of art, of what is accepted, and is essential in bringing new ideas forward.
It prevents everything from having the same esthetic and feel. The graphics of DF is also what makes it unique from the rest.
