That's correct. If I recall correctly, Marx was one of the first to note that the value of this kind of work (which he called "reproductive work" if I'm translating the German "Reproduktionsarbeit" correctly) is not reflected by our economic system (in terms of monetary output) properly.
Tangentially related: Childcare subsidies are a big win for governments because it lets them convert what would otherwise be "unpaid" labour into something that appears in GDP.
Better than that; by transferring a bit of money from taxpayers you can account for wages from 2 paid jobs, the mother's and the carer's.
There is a sort of neoliberal logic to it of course; in early childcare in my country, ratios are 4:1 - there is an "efficiency gain" if the mother earns more than childcare fees for the children under care.
But of course childcare availability is certainly not a bad thing even if there might be agendas in play.
But why are they raising a child? What is the "purpose" of that child? To be nurtured to the point where it can breed and create a child who itself needs to be nurtured to the point where it can breed and create a child who itself...
One line that stuck out for me: "To the best of our scientific knowledge, human life has no meaning."
Maybe the meaning of life should be to improve our scientific knowledge. By understanding more deeply the nature, the universe that we live in and how the brain works, we could answer better this question.
There is a good Micheal Chricton interview somewhere out there where he says meaning is just a post facto story we learn to cook up over time. You ask a 5 year old WHY they want a particular thing and all you will get is BECAUSE. Over time that 5 year old realizes he better come up with a good story people want to hear cause everyone keeps bringing up this WHY question for every other action he takes.
There is no why there is just the fact that you want chocolate ice cream right now or you want to climb that mountain or save the world. The why part is just a story you need when others look at you quizzically.
Find the things that are in your nature. Do it to the best of your ability.
That's how things like the Taj Mahal get built. It's not just about instant gratification.
from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations §217: 'If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."'
> To the best of our scientific knowledge, human life has no meaning."
Maybe the meaning of life should be to improve our scientific knowledge.
This has been the conundrum of the existentialist for well over a century. However, you need to consider those who don't enjoy science. For me personally, it was mostly the arts that spurred my love and thirst for scientific knowledge.
Thea beauty of being human (assuming free will isn't an illusion) is that since life has no meaning, the individual gets to define a personalized meaning of life.
If one finds the popping of bubble wrap their life's calling and has their physical, psychological, social, etc. needs met, then by all means pop those bubbles until transcendence. :)
> but I found out that I'm not enough good to do something meaningfull
Don't shortchange yourself. History is an extremely abridged version of reality. For things like, say Einstein's theory, his wife was an important contributor in the sense that he'd converse with her almost every day in formulating his theories.
Of course you have to pay bills, but you don't have to published papers that are heavily referenced to have success. If you enjoy it, that is its own reward.
Well, it sorta depends on how the anxiety or low self esteem manifests itself. If the person is aware of their anxiety and doesn't try to cover it with over-compensation in the other direction (excessive self assurance or arrogance), then it can be rather charming.
Would it suggest that like-attracts-like with mental illnesses? E.g., if you have ADHD, other people with ADHD will be more predictable to you than people without ADHD, so you'll prefer to date them?
Is not the problem misdiagnoses? There are a lot of conditions that mimic ADHD, I think the problem is that a lot of diagnosis are not thorough enough.
In the ted talk, he doesn't explain why this is not just a correlation. Maybe there is something else that makes you happy and makes one better at having relationships. For exemple, someone who has anxiety disorder will not be good with relationships and most probably will be unhappy. But the root cause of unhappines is anxiety.
I think what you are missing is the fact that this time the changes will take place much faster. With farming, the changes were slower and generational.(The children of farmers didn't do farming). And still these changes had colossal impact on societies(and a lot of blood was spilled).
Exactly, plus there's no way driverless trucks will be allowed onto city streets. Maneuvering trucks in urban and suburban corridors requires the drivers to break the rules of the road constantly.
Automation makes sense for long haul highways, so truck drivers will shift to being last mile drivers.
I disagree that it'll never happen but driverless 18 wheelers are the trolley problem writ large. The momentum from these vehicles is far more than a passenger vehicle so they have that much more capacity to cause damage and death. I think driverless taxis will happen first and then probably smaller delivery vehicles. I'd love for USPS to have automated delivery into standardized neighborhood boxes.
Once there's enough driverless vehicles large trucks can signal smaller vehicles things like "I need to turn right so please leave me room in the left turn lane to my right". Frankly the tow truck industry needs some disrupting. At least here in Houston they are the most dangerous lawless drivers on the road and need to go.
18 wheelers will drive to depot, cargo will be moved over to smaller self driving trucks and other delivery vehicles for the last mile. At least, that's the way it should be, even today without the automation. Huge trucks have no place in an urban environment.
And Terrence Tao who is quated was also extremely good at olympiads. As I see it, the olympiads are a good cost-effective way of identifying talented kids, they are in a way just IQ tests.
I think the point being made is that the converse need not be true: kids who are not good at these sports need not feel discouraged from pursuing mathematics.
Yep. Success in math contests is correlated with success in producing mathematical research/getting tenure/measure what you will. But if you sample math professors, you won't find that most of them were problem solving champions. (A large minority perhaps, and probably more in number theory.) The common factor is more likely that they really like doing mathematics, and have the skills needed to suceed in secondary aspects of the job.
I know plenty of very good mathematicians who did not participate seriously in this kind of thing. (Disclosure: I work as a mathematician at a research university.) I'm not sure why the only ones quoted here are mainly ex-winners. Indeed, while these competitions may have the positive effect of putting like minds together, it's possible that they have the negative effect of discouraging those w/o the aptitude for this particular kind of competitive sport (which is what it is), or who do not have access to the kind of coaching and practice that successful competitors often have.
I think what you call it is more complex. As I can see there are three important capacitities: attention to details, working memory and iq (capacity to see patterns, what is tested in iq tests). In my experience they are all important, I'm pretty bad at the first two, and this makes me miserable in my job.
attention to detail correlates with interest in the topic. Maybe find something to work on that you care about a lot of that excites you. If not cultivate your interest. Pretend it's your child then love it unconditionally.
Working memory: Memorize things that surprise you. Then Try to understand why you were surprised. You don't have to memorize things you understand.
