Product Review: Panasonic PT AX200U (Hipsters On Food Stamps Part 3)

[Recursion]

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/12/product_review_panasonic_pt_ax.html#more

This person is a conservative in a lot of ways. He/she (there's two of them, and they're coy about who writes what post) is absolutely brilliant and insightful, too. It's worth reading.

However much the NYT values her PhD, however much they value her intellect and opinions, it's way more than what they paid her, which is nothing. The question is, why didn't she demand to be paid? I'm not saying you have to do everything for money, god knows I write a lot of blog and drink very long rums and neither one have delivered profits commensurate with the labor. If she was promoting something of course I'd understand writing for free, but what can she do after writing for the Times except write for the Times again? See also Princeton, where you will pay them more to get the degree that they will then pay you less to use for them, in no other profession is learning how to do something more valuable than actually doing it. Is that ironic? Then she is able to affect a distance from "all this" while she participates 100% in it. Undoubtedly she's thinking, "well, hell, I got an article in the Times!" as if that has some incalculable value, but that's the trick. It doesn't. It's a scam.

"I'm not a vicious capitalist, I don't always have to get paid for what I do. I like to participate in the public debate." I. I. I. Stop it, look around! This isn't charity, the Times is a billion dollar corporation and Princeton is in actuality a gigantic hedge fund-- why are you giving them your work for free? "That's the system, I can't change it." Exactly.

No different than the person who doesn't ask for a raise because they're nervous, "should I ask for 5% more?" and they agonize about it for a month, ten months. The point isn't whether you deserve the extra money, the point is whether you deserve it more than the company, because if you don't take the extra money home to your kids, the company takes it to theirs. Note that no one ever frames it this way, it is always about "making a case" or "explaining how you can both benefit." Note also that in most cases the person you'd ask for a raise is a manager, one who has no investment in that money, it doesn't come out of his pocket. Yet he is the biggest obstacle, he will put sugar in your gas tank to stop you from getting that raise. Is that ironic? Or totally the point?

Glengarry Glen Ross is on Netflix, you should watch it a lot. The easy "critique of capitalism" is that "second prize is a set of steak knives" because that's how little it costs to motivate you to work harder for them, and if that doesn't work there's always "third prize is you're fired." But the real wisdom which is not about capitalism but which is about narcissism comes from understanding that first prize isn't a Cadillac Eldorado, you think Alec Baldwin needs a car? There is no first prize. Real closers don't want the prize, they want to be the best, that's why they will practice practice practice and don't play the lottery. The car is a temptation only for people who do not know their own value, the value of their own work, who won't lift a finger to advance themselves, who are motivated only by threats or by rewards, who would rather have the appearance of success than actual success. "I got an article in the Times!" celebrates the person whose brain is broken. "Alec Baldwin's character is a raging narcissist!" Jesus are you stupid, Alec's name is MacGuffin, that's why he's in Act I and never again yet propels the story forward. It is irrelevant whether Alec Baldwin has metal testicles or pathological grandiosity, what matters is that after years of C minus work, what finally gets those dummies fired up is First Prize or Third Prize, left to themselves they meander in mediocrity while deluding themselves that they are more than what they do. "I was number one in '87!" So was Alf. And the system knows this, which is why it lets Wampole call herself a professor but pays her like a TA----- and she's upset at hipsters. Is that ironic?

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. What on earth do you think is "absolutely brilliant and insightful" about that?

You're right about one thing; they are conservative. "In a lot of ways", yes; maybe you can point about any way that they're not. Because that extended piece is one long conservative rant about how no-one should do an arts degree, and how any such hippy ought to be out trying to get a 'real job'.

The bit you excerpted is no better; its message seems to be "I don't think this woman got paid for getting her article published on the NYT blog; therefore, by the magic of the market, it is worthless, and she is worthless too. Proper people are in constant competition to be measured as better than others; that's what makes anything worthwhile - being seen as superior to someone else".

The writing style of the blog is atrocious too. Perhaps if the author had studied the humanities, they'd realise that.

[bemildred]

2. The explanation of projection is not bad, and our higher ed. system deserves to be savaged,

but otherwise it's babble. Not bad as babble goes, but when you are done, you don't have much.