Why are so many people going ‘goblin mode’? | Hacker News Reader

Why are so many people going ‘goblin mode’?

theguardian.com

41 pointsnipung27119 comments

Goblin mode is another manifestation of "Tang Ping" [1] and the "Great Resignation" [2]. We're seeing a global regressive psychological event. Perhaps it's a reaction to the "shaming industrial complex" I read about earlier [3].

I think we got into this horrible self-obsessed insecurity when the honourable Protestant work ethic mutated into something dark under late capitalism. As people are forced to commodify themselves, to "work on themselves", not as selves but as objectified means to sell in pursuit of ends, simply to eat, they eventually give up. Erich Fromm elegantly describes this process of reification and its effects on the soul [4]. Similarly, the relentless pressure of advertising, and technology that sells domesticated conformity, popularity, and tepid acceptability, actually produces its opposite in the long run. Our self can only emerge once we've shaken off all that pressure.

Goblin mode may look like surrender in the face of a system of unreasonable demands, but it is a surrender against it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Resignation

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30810085

[4] http://www.core.eqi.org/fromm.htm

That’s one way to overthink it.

I pose another explanation: it’s just laying down, doing something you enjoy, and deciding to relax for a day.

Nothing new. It’s not rocket science.

And on that note, I'm off to the beach. :)

Have fun!

I had a forest walk today. Cleared my head and reminded me how beautiful nature is.

I think people are disconnecting way too much from what's real and embracing what's not real.

User name checks out...

If the economy doesn't grow, but productivity keeps growing then people must either work less or they must find increasingly less productive work so that they can work the same amount.

Since people insist outcompeting their peers in how hard they work (protestant work ethic) it means people don't work less. They work more and then they have the option to retire early. However, what if it actually isn't possible for everyone to retire early due to demographic reasons? If the boomers retire and the millenials retire early, who is going to do all the work? At some point people will realize that they have to go back to work and that all the extra work they did in their youth was of no use to anyone.

Working extra long hours in your youth doesn't work. Imagine building a stockpile of 70s cars in your 20s and then driving them in 2020. It just doesn't work. You are dependent on young workers in 2020 to produce brand new cars.

Yes. This is how "Bullshit jobs" (see Graeber) came to be so common.

> "work on themselves", not as selves but as objectified means to sell in pursuit of ends, simply to eat,

And on top of that the hypocrisy, when you are expected to pretend that you like it, that it is the true meaning of your life.

At one of my previous jobs, we had to set up some "self-improvement goals" every year. But obviously, it had to be something job-related. Not just generally job-related, but something closely related to the specific project you were currently working on, or some role you currently had, that kind of stuff.

It drived me crazy, because I am usually the kind of person who talks a lot about self-improvement. The concept actually means a lot to me. But the aspects of my life where I feel that self-improvement would be most desirable, those are unrelated to my job. I would like to be a better person, to improve my skills, to find more meaning in life, to help others more, to spend more time with my friends, to do some of those things I always wanted to do because I am not getting any younger, to learn new things that are completely fucking unrelated to my daily job, and maybe even learn something completely different so that I could try a different kind of a job.

But instead, someone was trying to gaslight me, to make me believe that the true meaning of "self-improvement" was to close tickets faster, or to become a manager, or that kind of stuff. I already spend a large part of my time working for the corporation, to pay my bills. If you need me, then pay me; and if you don't need me, then fire me. If you want me to become a better tool for your purposes, feel free to offer me more money, or reduce the amount of work so that I can spend a week or two studying the thing you want me to learn. But don't call if "self-improvement", if it means nothing to myself, other than becoming a better tool for your ends. Be honest, and call it "tool improvement", or maybe just "training".

Sorry for the rant, but I really resent the implication that I am not "self-improving" if I focus on my personal life and goals.

Ultimately anything a company does is for its own benefit. But there are shades. In some smaller firms you'll get to work on things that set you up for the long run, way after you leave. Those companies actually "invest in people". It happens in smaller industries where there's churn and the same people may come back as employees, customers or even employer/suppliers several times in the their life. Making and maintaining relations with good people is a canny investment.

Dehumanisation of working relations, giant companies and globalism have driven that out. While the original form of the "corporation" was almost a mini welfare state, financialisation has actually turned that care into hostility.

Today, especially in tech, companies not only want to control every thought and action, but to make sure you don't take any value beyond their door. This is evidenced by the rise of draconian employment "agreements" such as non-compete, non disclosure, no rival employment clauses, intellectual property land-grabs into your private life and personal data, and so on. These are cults that want to own you, make no mistake.

This is actually another reason they eschew standards. Someone who learns open tools and protocols can migrate in their career. But if you can keep employees working with obscure, proprietary workflows, and keep changing them, then the dizzying torrent of make-work "re-training" means they will never gain enough independence to fly the nest.

That is a funny term, but my feeling is that this isn’t something new, that this is something many/most people do but don’t admit to.

What’s interesting is how inventing a term to say it makes it more normal, more acceptable, which is always nice.

Here's a pre-pandemic account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Pzk3NlWJE

Sean's such a good story teller it's not fair.

Yes it's ancient; slobbing out, dropping out, letting yourself go. As you say, what's changed is that people are happy to wear it in public in an era of self-obsession about appearances not seen since Victorian times. That's the shift.

Diogenes of Sinope is arguably the OG goblin.

Seems to me like goblin mode is only necessary when you've fully bought into modern social media driven culture. Otherwise, "goblin mode" is just winding down after work at home and chilling and doesn't require its own term.

Backlash from relentless status pursuit, it was bound to happen some day.

"I am in this picture and I don't like it"

its hard to live in stuffy britain. no wonder.

Intentionally dressing and acting like a bum is a very American thing and it’s been a gradual descent towards that point. People used to dress up in suit and ties just to leave their house, a trend that began ending sometime in the 60s.

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