Discussion
"Successful people create companies. More successful people create countries. The most successful people create religions."
Sam Altman
(He wrote this on his blog and went on to say that he thought building a company might be the best way to create a religion.)
Essay Prompt: To you, what does it mean to be a "successful person" ?
Success is, when there is no success anymore because it has become part of yourself.
But in a traditional sense, success is, when you have accomplished something by yourself. Neither by your employees nor by your money.
@futurebird To be fully yourself, in a way that enables others¹ to be fully themselves. But you won't see that in terms of personal "success". You'll be doing it because it gives life to them and to you and is what matters.
It's an ideal, of course. Someone summed it up as "love your neighbour as yourself" and ultimately got killed for it. Someone who also had things to say about the dangers of making money into a religion.
_____
¹ not restricted to human others.
@futurebird I don't even think that religious leaders want to "create a religion". They want to spread some ideas, a worldview, some sort of wisdom and it then (sometimes) becomes a religion.
@TofuTheSquirrel @futurebird Spot on. I think they'd typically see creating one as a failure, in fact.
@TofuTheSquirrel @futurebird The religion comes about later. The leader isn't around any more, and people want to preserve the ideas and to live by them. Then *they* aren't around any more either, but the ideas and ways of expressing them in daily life are turning into a set of established beliefs and practices followed by a distinct set of adherents.
I've been reading the Bible and I don't really think the high quality of the supporting texts is the key matter in this.
It's a really confusing, sometimes primitive, sometimes obscure, occasionally inspiring, but just as often deeply boring set of texts.
I'm reading about "David and Goliath" at the moment and what I was taught that story was about has not much to do with what's really there.
So, the "ideas" live outside of texts often I think. And they change.
@futurebird to not be sam altman. looks like it sucks.
@futurebird Leave the world in a better state than the one you were born into. Sam is such a miserable failure..
@futurebird Throw a lasso around a Dunbar's Number of people. If all their needs are satisfiable solely by the efforts of those inside, that is a successful community. A successful person is one such that when included in a large random sampling of arbitrary communities, those communities are more than 50% likely to be successful. Note that trade potential and labor synergy makes this not a zero-sum game. *Everyone* could be "successful".
@futurebird “But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” George Eliot, Middlemarch
@futurebird
What an interesting question! I think my first draft would be: to find a way to contribute meaningfully to the world which aligns with your values and abilities, to not give up on trying to support and/or love other people, and to be open to learning and improving when you realise you've done something harmful.
But maybe success is a little like pride for me: I don't think it quite makes sense to me, the way it seems to for other people.
@futurebird Pretty illuminating about his state of mind 🙄
When people tell you who they are....
Someone should make a song of that quote.
Believe them, just believe them
When they tell you who they are
"they let you do it if you're a star"
you can know them from afar
Just believe them,
Don't believe *in* them
Just believe them
When they say, when you see
them say to you "this is me."
Don't be stunned to silence
when they tell you "I love violence"
@futurebird To connect with other people and nature. To have the possibility to love and be loved.
And to wipe such death-cult psychopaths from planet Earth. Perhaps by installing a crowdfunding to shoot all these guys to Mars, quite soon. With an Elon-rocket, because the possibility of an explosion is statistically the highest. Then solving the problems on Earth with their money.
@futurebird To find your place in a network of real love and mutual support. To live your life such that many more people mourn your death than celebrate it.
To me this is what is means to be happy or to live a good life. And I don't view either as identical to being "successful" which implies some kind of ... victory in your work?
@futurebird Someone who finds joy in the small things and is relentless in their pursuit for everyone to find the same (which means uplifting the majority of humanity while also humbling quite a few others).
well, it sure don't mean to read 1984 & decide that the best use of one's one & only life is to force others to believe or least pretend to believe that 2+2 = 5, which at the end of the day is what creating a religion is
for me i would say success means to develop the ability to appreciate & even in one's own way to add to the beauty of the world while leaving space free space for discovery & delight but i guess he'd consider that kind of thing downright sus since it might lead to art or even (horrors) science
"which at the end of the day is what creating a religion is"
Religions do often force people to pretend they believe, or really believe things that are obviously untrue. But, I think it's a mistake to focus on their incorrectness. The real issue with the organization of religion is that power to compel other people to act in the interests of the organization and it's leaders rather than think for themselves.
Making you say "2+2 is 5" is about someone having the power to do that.
agree...
when he says that he considers forming a religion to be the highest success, i interpret that to be what he is saying -- the highest success is about having power over someone even in the privacy of their mind
to me that is truly evil & the world would be a better place if he had never been born, which is surely the opposite of success for most people
@futurebird wtf.
Success = being yourself without harming yourself or others. Which is always an ongoing process
@futurebird I like Marcus Aurelius's comment: "One may live a good life even in a palace."
To me? Success is to learn how nature and the world works, to understand, share and apply ideas that even when scrutinized by your peers hold together well enough that someday someone might reach back to learn from what you said, or emulate what you have done because it was so effective, and through that effectiveness proved its inherent worth.
If your name isn't forgotten in this process then you have also become famous for better or worse.
But if you just want to be famous there are much much easier ways to get that done without making anything of real value.
@futurebird To me, all you need to do to be a successful person is to have an original thought and share that with another person. Which is more difficult than it sounds, but can be most readily accomplished by making art.
@futurebird You are loved without hesitation or reservation. That's the only real wealth we can find.
@futurebird Every time I hear some PR piece from the TESCREAL people, it just sounds like Scientology's obsession with stats. However, this quote sounds like the thing L. Ron Hubbard said after he created Scientology.