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Comment by allendoerfer | Hacker News Reader

This article makes me anxious that I just might not have any interesting ideas to share with the world, that I might be stuck in my own perspective and that others will see right through all the fancy words I come up with to masquerade it.

I think I might not be able to refrain from smiling when being called an intellectual. Only positive outlook: At least I do not think I will ever go as far as calling myself an intellectual in my own essay.

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now that's an amusing take.

But would you go so far as to call yourself an "elite" like this guy does...

>This is a key part of what it means to be a responsible elite.

The best description I ever heard of an "elite" is "A term used ironically to describe someone so out of touch with reality that they think people are using it to refer to them unironically."

Around the time I signed up for this site, I thought the same as you. 10 years and a couple of successful startups later - perspectives change. I don't know if I'd actually unironically call myself "elite" but we need some name, right?

The fact is there's a large number of very, very capable people out there who probably don't need to work for anyone else again if they don't want to. But they get jobs anyway because that's just the kind of people they are. I know quite a few of these people. This essay is a CTA to them.

Give it a few years and you might find yourself in the exact same boat.

And in case you hadn't realised, this whole site is the poster child for a "privileged elite" deciding the world needed something and just going and making it, and thank the gods he did.

The way I always hear the word used is to describe trust fund babies who have never had a job, or people who walked into a do nothing jobs because of their connections and are completely talentless. It is almost always used ironically, usually by people who have to put up with their incompetence. As I mentioned one of the defining features of this kind of 'elite' is that they are so completely detached from the real world that they don't realize people are making fun of them... amusingly, they also spend endless time trying to tell others how to live, which can be quite hilarious to most people.

Now in your case you clearly are not that kind of person the word is usually used to describe.

Do you think the people you are describing do not realize themselves that they do not need to work? You claim to be part of them, did you need that essay to realize it? You just stated you created a couple of startups during the last 10 years, so you seem to have already quit your job a long time ago.

> You claim to be part of them, did you need that essay to realize it?

I'm not really claiming anything beyond saying that I believe there's quite a few successful people working in jobs they don't really need to be doing and i think the point of this essay is to encourage them to maybe have the confidence to do something on their own.

The man of action serenely regards ruin as the most likely possible outcome, mitigates it where he can, and leaps anyway.

Satya Nadella might not call himself an elite but he is one. Ditto Scott Alexander or Sarah Jeong or wide, wide swathes of other people, of different kinds, in different ways. People can be secure, honest and self-aware enough to accurately use a word to describe themselves.

And I just thought elites had to be the men buying hygiene products labeled "tactical".

Ideas start to flow when you invest time and energy in exploring them, everyone can tap into that creative energy.

Its important not to preemptively judge yourself into believing that you aren't worthy of creating something purely of your own accord. You don't have to be a mastermind inventor and discover something entirely new, you can also be an innovator.

To be fair, the author does not go so far as to call themself an intellectual either. The word is applied to the people they surrounded themselves with, and the project they started, but not to their own person.

It's ok to be secure in your identity and interests. I hope things get better for you.

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