Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

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>Waking up early and getting things done is a matter of self discipline.

Anything a person can do is a matter of self-discipline. I could not have slept for 36 days because of working 2-shifts and still "have the discipline" to go for a run. Slim chances, but it happens.

But self-discipline is much easier to muster in "easy mode", when your other duties are taken care of by an army of servants.

Talk of self-discipline without talk of environmental factors making people less tired, less stressed, and less concerned with basic life matters to focus on that discipline is moot.

And talk of self-discipline should take into account aggregates, to discover what's the baseline for most people under certain conditions, not point at some outliers that did it against all odds and say "Here, anyone can do it" (as if difficulty doesn't matter). That's like pointing out Usain Bolt and saying "here, anyone can run sub-10 secs and if you don't you just lack the discipline".

Do you think e.g. a-list actors who trivially lose amazing amounts of weight for roles have "more discipline" that the average folks who statistically fail much worse in their diets?

Or that they have personal chefs, trainers, massagers, cleaners, and so on, plus a 5-10 million dollar incentive (to get the next "action" part), siding with their "self-discipline).

> But self-discipline is much easier to muster in "easy mode", when your other duties are taken care of by an army of servants.

Self discipline is also easier when you actually work on your self discipline, plan your day, have a schedule, stay off your phone and computer when not working and so on. There are countless ways you can make your life easier and stress free.

Losing weight is a matter of eating healthy foods, using the stairs instead of elevators, taking walks during lunchtime, don't eat/drink sugar rich foods and drinks. Losing weight is obviously difficult when one has a medical condition that prevents losing weight, but when you don't it is a matter of self discipline to lose weight. Also taking daily vitamin D supplements makes a huge positive impact on ones mental and physical health.

Nothing you are saying is explicitly wrong. Yeah life is easier when you have self discipline. But you're presenting what you're saying as a counter to what the other person is saying, which is that having all of those extra environmental factors (personal chef, housekeeping, etc) make it way easier. What you're saying is self discipline for the common folk is easier when they work on it vs if they don't. That doesn't negate that while them working/focusing on self discipline is easier by, say, a factor of 25% (numbers are just for explanation purposes), having to not worry about doing the dishes, planning your meals, etc makes it easier by 85 or 90%.

Everything is a matter of self discipline, sure, but that's one factor out of a billion. You seem to be arguing that losing weight or getting your life together can be as easy as it is for the rich and powerful if you want it bad enough and take some vitamin D. That makes it easier, but not as easy as it is for, say, Jeff Bezos to exercise every day.

In some ways it's easier to exercise self-discipline when someone is super rich, but in others it is harder. For example, look at all of the rich and powerful with drug and alcohol problems. When someone has almost everything it is easy to become lazy and/or abuse substances.

Is it easier for Bezos to get out of bed 20 minutes earlier and do 100 burpees than it is for you or I? IMO, it's not that different.

>In some ways it's easier to exercise self-discipline when someone is super rich, but in others it is harder. For example, look at all of the rich and powerful with drug and alcohol problems. When someone has almost everything it is easy to become lazy and/or abuse substances.

I look at them, and also see how it's easier for them to get out of their abuse problems, with top notch rehabilitation facilities and everything set up for them.

They also get top notch medical assistance while doing them, and first rate drugs. Many even have their doctors prepare the stuff.

Which they can afford and do at a nice environment, not some crack house.

And when they're caught by the police, they usually get a slap on the wrist and some rehab time, not hard jail like commoners.

And when you stop doing drugs, you get to go back to a nice warm house, and financial independence. Not to your abusing home, or living in the streets.

There are tons of junkies around where I live (not a shabby or poor neighborhood even, just has a shabby square nearby), that don't have these easy ways out.

Now, imagine a rich person, getting out of drugs, while enjoying all those niceties while he was abusing them, and saying "I did it all through my self-discipline" -- and implying by that that common junkies lack the same level of self-discipline (while they might have 2x his self-discipline but face 10x the problems to overcome).

What does it matter how easy it is for the rich to do anything? How is that relevant to the applicability of a Stoic mindset?

>Self discipline is also easier when you actually work on your self discipline, plan your day, have a schedule, stay off your phone and computer when not working and so on.

That's true, but cyclical. All of those things are still easier when you are rich and basic concerns are taken care of by others, which was my argument.

I didn't say those are impossible for non-rich folks.

Just harder.

People make it sound like being rich and having servants has no benefit on these regards... If anything maybe it's even a burden. If that's the case, I accept donations.

Ok so for some other people self discipline can be much much harder but it's still self discipline.

You keep references armies of servants or other BS as if somehow that makes adopting stoicism more likely. Stoicism is there specifically for when life is difficult. Why do you not understand this? If you have an emotional hissy fit whenever you need to do something difficult, then perhaps you should adopt a more stoic attitude and just get it done.

>You keep references armies of servants or other BS as if somehow that makes adopting stoicism more likely.

Err, TFA is about how rich and powerful adopt stoicism as a fashion (back to the times of Rome). So, yeah, I guess it does make it more likely. Seneca was a stoic. His slaves, not so much.

>Stoicism is there specifically for when life is difficult. Why do you not understand this?

Because what something is supposed to be for, and what people adopt it for are two different things. Christianity is also supposed to be a "religion of peace", but that's not what many of it adherents use it as...

You understand absolutely nothing about what there is to criticize in the various religious and how that is completely separate a personal, non-religious philosophy like Stoicism.

Furthermore, nobody adopts Stoicism as a fashion. I don't know where you're getting this from. Waking up early, eating right, going to the gym, etc. are not things exclusive to Stoicism if that's what you're implying. That is ridiculous. Just because people talk about it does not mean they're virtue signalling (a concept that comes from various philosophies and religions [Stoicism, Taoism, etc.]) about how Stoic they are. Nobody is making laws that hurt the poor, which are based on Stoicism. I don't care about Seneca or his slaves. That's not relevant to Stoicism. I don't even know how you could even attempt to make the connection between these two things. It's like if someone who regularly went around kicking homeless people said "You should feed and take care of the homeless", would you then be opposed to feeding and taking care of the homeless? That's absurd. There's no rational connection between those two things, but that's what you're trying to do with respect to Stoicism and folks like Seneca.

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