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Comment by dzink | Hacker News Reader

Freedom is not “doing anything you want”. It’s “not having to do the things you don’t want to do”.

AI may automate a white colar subset of those, but modern day society has for the longest time used wives, young people, immigrants from countries with bad currency devaluation, etc, to fill the gap above. The article talks about status and attention as the ultimate goal, but that may be a male-only perspective. Or even a him-like-perspective. The reality is humans chase many ladders since brains have may proclivities. For more than half of the population (wives and the poor) the goal may be freedom or time to do more.

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> Freedom is not “doing anything you want”. It’s “not having to do the things you don’t want to do”.

Both of those are anemic views of "freedom".

The most robust understanding of freedom is and must be rooted in morality and thus human nature:

  Freedom is the ability to do what is *good*, or what one *ought*.

Because we're talking about human agency, "good" and "ought" here are normative and thus moral in nature. But morality itself is determined and underpinned by human nature. What makes a human act "good" depends on what it means to be human. There is no other basis for morality. Everything else is arbitrary, circular, or ultimately a tacit appeal to human nature.

And human nature has a direction. Good acts further human beings along that general axis (neutral acts at least do not retreat or deviate). Eating lead is unhealthy, but doing so intentionally, knowing fully well that lead is harmful, is evil, because a choice was made in light of knowledge to do what one should not.

women are just as status driven as men, and the poor men and women are even more so. when need is taken away the status race will be intense

living in the third world i have seen absurd stuff: early 20s women living in slums that own the latest iphone pro max on a 5 year term loan is a common theme

in london the children of the UHNW (net worth >EUR100m) compete for scholarships and academic achievements, or to create unicorn startups, because the only way they can differentiate themselves from UHNW peers is the academic arena where money doesnt matter. they also tend to make shitty films or own vineyards, or try to become authors, or try to make scientific discoveries, and get sucked in to Mystical Gurus like Mr Epstein and Elizabeth Holmes/Thanos

I grew up in that world. People making 150 per month would have kids carrying 600 phones just to put something on the table. In eastern europe, an adidas track suit seemed like Armani, when advertising just started after the fall of communism and people thought that made them feel sophisticated for wearing western brands. When you can’t brag with an expensive house or car, you brag with expensive accessories on yourself (gold chains, phones, watches).

It’s no different than a national geographic video where the loudest frog signals it can be bold enough to broadcast its location, even though it can be eaten. Wearing gold chains and bragging you have crypto is akin to yelling “come and rob me” in a less safe world.

The reality is that status is just a way to “encourage/compel” voluntary submission of services from other people, who may think they will benefit from your status rubbing on them in some way.

Strangers don’t support you for what you do, but for what you can do for them in the future.

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