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Jan. 29, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
56:27
968 Technological Know It All

A listener finds that his mother runs on PHP...

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Time Text
Hello. Hi.
How are you going? Not too bad, how are you?
I'm okay. Alright, so...
Yeah, so sorry to hear about your day at work.
Yeah. And it's been tough, right, since then, right?
You sort of felt pretty down and some suicidality has returned to your thinking?
Yes. So tell me what happened...
When you went, you got the job, and congratulations, kudos.
And then what happened for you when you went in for that day?
It started off alright, actually.
It started off kind of how I expected it to go.
I was just, you know, shown around and started working, things like that.
And I was just kind of working away, and then it just kind of hit me.
Okay, and was this after lunch, sort of mid-afternoon?
Yeah, probably 1 or 2pm, I guess.
And what hit you?
What was that experience? Um...
I couldn't concentrate on what I was doing anymore.
I kind of lost all focus and I couldn't really see what was in front of me.
I just had all these thoughts and emotions welling up.
So they kind of overran everything else that was going on.
And do you have any idea where these thoughts and feelings came from?
Was there any sort of precipitating incident or was it just kind of out of the blue for you?
It was just out of the blue.
So you were working, you had a cubicle, is that right?
Yeah. Okay, so you were working in this cubicle and you were working on coding or what was the task?
It was just coding, pretty routine stuff.
So it wasn't stuff that you, I mean, you were comfortable doing it and you felt you could and all that kind of stuff, right?
Yep. Okay.
And then I think as you described it on the board, to some degree sort of out of nowhere, you're just looking at the screen and you said it was meaningless to you?
Yeah, it's hard to describe.
I was kind of just looking at the code.
It was, you know, first day, so it was pretty routine stuff.
Stuff that I'd seen a thousand times before.
And it just kind of stopped making sense.
Like, my brain just couldn't even process what the code was or anything like that.
It just totally blinked out.
Right. And when this first occurred for you, like you're looking at the code and it suddenly turns into wingdings or, you know, I don't mean to trivialize it, but it sort of loses its meaning for you.
What was your thought about that experience?
I don't know.
I was just kind of trying to concentrate and get on with it.
I guess at the same time, all that kind of emotion came up, and I think probably the emotion kind of flooded out the meaning rather than it happening the other way around.
But it was...
Yeah, I was kind of trying to...
When the emotion first came up, I was trying to just work through it, I guess, and just keep going, and I found I just couldn't do it.
So the emotion, sort of the feeling of...
Would alienation be the right way of phrasing it, or would it be something else?
I guess it was maybe a type of disassociation, it kind of felt like, because...
I certainly felt like I was kind of away from myself, like I was sitting in that room, but I also wasn't, if that makes sense.
No, no, it totally makes sense.
It totally makes sense. And when this feeling occurred, first of all, has this type of experience occurred before for you?
Not really, no.
Okay. And when it occurred, did you feel fear or anxiety about it occurring?
Or were you curious?
Or like, what was your emotional response to the feeling of alienation or dissociation?
Well, at first, as I said, I tried to, I thought, you know, I'll just kind of work through this.
And when I kind of tried through that and I found that I really couldn't, I couldn't make sense for anything that was going on, the kind of anxiety and worry increased and it kind of built up in that manner.
Right, so you kind of felt like screwed, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh shit, right?
And now I'm fucked, right?
Now, did you have a sense of time pressure, like somebody's looking over your shoulder and you've got to do well your first day?
What was your experience of the time pressure, right?
Not hugely. I had kind of probably a two-day project and I had four days to do it because it was kind of just starting off and everything.
So there probably was a little bit, you know, obviously wanting to do well and stuff on the first day, but there really wasn't kind of a huge, that huge type of pressure and I was kind of working independently, so it wasn't like someone was looking over my shoulder or anything.
And could people look at the screen that you were working on and see what you were doing, or was there a sense of being shielded from that kind of scrutiny?
They could, yes.
They could, okay. Right, so you couldn't go to the FDR boards and say, help me people, I'm freaking out, right?
No. Okay, okay.
And so how long did this process go on, or how long did this feeling of alienation go on for?
Um... I'm not sure, actually.
Roughly? Probably half an hour to 45 minutes.
And was it getting any better or worse over that time period?
It was getting worse.
I kept on trying to just kind of block it out and work through it, and I couldn't.
So I just kind of built up to the point where I said, you know, I've got to go, I've got to leave.
And I got out of there.
And, like, did you sort of resign or quit, or what was the process?
Yeah, I basically said, I'm sorry, I can't do this job.
I've got to leave, and I just left like that.
Right. Okay. Okay.
And so there was a process that you were going through.
You said two things which I'm not sure I can quite put together.
So you said I was trying to work through it and I was also trying to repress it or something like that?
I was trying to, I guess, probably work through it isn't the right term.
I was trying to kind of, I guess, ignore the emotion and get on with the work.
Which didn't work, right?
No. Right.
And why were you attempting to ignore the emotion rather than...
Like, what would it have felt like for you if you had tried to accept the emotion and just say, you know, give me more alienation.
Tell me, you know, what's going on.
It probably would have been uncomfortable kind of in sitting there on my first day and kind of, I don't know, staring off into space or whatever.
Well, you can go hide in a toilet, right?
I mean, there's places that you can go where you have some more privacy, right?
I mean, but there was a reason that you attempted to push away what you were feeling, because if you had accepted what you were feeling, some negative consequence would have occurred.
Now, would that negative consequence have been people's perception of you on the job, or would it have been something, like, do you feel like you would have ended up, I don't know, taking your pants off and doing the Macarena on a boardroom table?
Or, like, what would have happened if you had not rejected the feelings?
It probably would have been the perception of other people at the job, and probably the pressure I had put on myself to do well as well.
well I would have kind of failed in that respect, I guess.
You would have failed to do a good job, is that right?
Yeah. Okay.
Now, obviously, you did fail to do a good job.
I mean, just objectively, right?
Not in terms of blame or anything, right?
Yeah. Right, so I don't think that logically that can be the answer.
Okay. Okay. And I'm not saying you're lying to me or anything.
I'm just saying that, logically, if you said, well, I rejected this feeling because I was concerned about not doing a good job, and as a result of rejecting this feeling, you ended up walking off the job, that is not...
Do you see what I mean? Like, that doesn't make a huge amount of sense just in terms of cause and effect.
Yeah, yeah.
So, it seems to me likely that there was some other, and again, I'm not saying any of this was conscious, but it seems to me likely that there was some other motivation that you had for avoiding these emotions, these feelings of alienation.
Hmm. I guess I was probably a bit worried about...
Kind of being in public and stuff like that rather than just, you know, being at home or whatever.
Right, because you've had some significant experience with social anxiety, right?
Yeah. So this was a huge step, right?
Yeah. And can you tell me what it is that you did?
I mean, again, maybe you have an answer, maybe you don't.
don't, I'm just curious, what it was that you did to prepare for this step?
Not a huge amount, I don't really think...
I mean, I've kind of thought through it quite a lot and talked to, you know, some of the people on the board and in the chatroom a little bit, but nothing major.
Right. Now, again, this is because, I mean, it would be great if you got what you wanted and it succeeded, right?
It would be great for you and so on, right?
So that's sort of what I'm thinking about.
So if you were talking to someone, like let's say you were a therapist or something, right?
And one of your patients had a significant fear or significant social anxiety and was going to go and work in an open or communal area.
How would you prepare that patient?
or would you say that preparation would be helpful or useful?
Probably some kind of exercises or something to, you know… Yeah, some visualization exercises where you sort of sit there and visualize being around people and, you know, there's phobia workbooks that you can work through, right, where you sort of visualize or write down your experiences so that stuff doesn't, you know, quite catch you by surprise, right? Like, you don't go from having a terror of heights to parachuting, right?
Yeah. Because that's just going to fail, right?
Yeah. I didn't really feel a huge amount of anxiety before going to the job because, I mean, I haven't worked in a while, but I also didn't go out and try to kind of get a job or anything before I thought I was ready.
So in my own mind, I kind of, I was kind of okay with that.
I kind of thought I was ready for it.
Well, I totally understand that, but you weren't, right?
Yeah. I mean, not criticism, it's just an observation, right?
I mean, just empirically, I mean, if we were looking at this, you know, completely dispassionately, then you thought you were ready, but you weren't ready, right?
Yeah. Now, either that means that you have no capacity to predict the future, or you wanted to fail.
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
It's one of the two. I think it's actually much more empowering and I think accurate that you did not want to succeed in this job, right?
Because otherwise you are going to be paranoid about every prediction that you make, right?
Because if you say, well, I'm ready and for some completely unknown reason I turned out to be the opposite of ready, right?
Then that's going to be really disempowering, right?
Yeah. Whereas if you say, well, I achieved what I wanted, I just wasn't conscious of what I wanted, then I think that gives you a much more secure sense of control and predictability, right?
Yeah, I guess so. But, you know, is that true or not?
Well, we don't know. We're just sort of figuring it out.
I mean, this is all just thoughts, right?
Again, it doesn't mean anything to do with truth.
We're just sort of playing around in the sandbox, right, seeing what stands.
Yeah. So, I'm going to ask you an odd question and you can let me know if you even have an answer, right?
Tell me a little bit about the history of your relationship with computers.
I've loved them ever since I was really a kid, I guess, probably seven or eight years old.
You know, I was really into them.
I started kind of building them when I was 11 or 12 and stuff like that, so...
Yeah, I guess probably as I was growing up, they were a bit of a form of escape.
I'm not sure if that's where you're going with it, but probably...
I do kind of enjoy them.
I enjoy the programming. I enjoy the kind of simple, plain logic of it all, and it's kind of...
The English language, how most people use it, is just full of bullshit, and programming, it's not.
So that's kind of something I've always enjoyed and sought refuge in, I guess.
Right, right. Okay.
And you have particular opinions, not just about computers as a whole, but about certain approaches to using computers, right?
And I simply talk about you have a preference for PHP over ASP and so on, right?
Yeah. And what is the basis of that preference for you?
In that circumstance, ASP, basically, it forces you to do things.
Like, if you're using ASP, you have to use ISS. And if you use ISS, you have to use Windows.
And PHP, you know, you can use Apache or ISS. And, you know, with Apache, you can use Apache on Linux or on Windows or whatever.
So, for me, it's kind of the ASP. Basically, you make that choice and you don't have any other choices.
Okay, and what does that mean for you?
I know this sounds totally tangential, but it might not be if I'm thinking right.
And plus, you know, even if it does, we get a fun geek talk, right?
So no biggie. But what does it mean if you end up choosing a platform that then locks you into Windows?
What does that mean for you? Because you have a strong reaction to that, like emotionally, right?
Like it's not a sort of way the pros and cons decision for you.
You have kind of a visceral reaction to that, right?
Um... Yeah, I guess some of that could have come from the experience I've had in the past where, you know, problems with, you know, migrating websites for clients and things like that where, you know, it just doesn't work if you have ASB. You can't, you know, you have no options.
Well, sorry, just to be precise, it's not that you have no options, right?
You always have the option to use Windows, right?
Yeah, you have more limited options.
As you know, for web surfers, Linux is kind of dominant and it's cheaper and things like that.
I guess probably my preference for PHP is just you can choose PHP and that doesn't in any way dictate any of your other options at all.
That's probably what that's based on.
Well, sure, but just the phraseology that you're using, like dictate your other options, if you choose ASP and you understand the ramifications of that choice, then you choose both ASP and the consequences.
It's not like you choose ASP and then the consequences are dictated towards you, if that makes sense.
Yeah, that does make sense.
Because you know in advance the consequences of choosing ASP, right?
I do, but there's some clients that I've worked with before, they haven't.
So, I mean, yeah, I do, of course, but yeah, I wouldn't say that's the case for everyone.
Right, right, okay.
And do you think that there are circumstances under which it would be wise or beneficial to choose ASP?
Oh, I'm not sure.
I don't really know of anything that you can do in ASP that you can't do in PHP, but obviously there's the.NET framework stuff and things like that, but I can't think of a situation, no.
Okay, have you ever asked someone why they have chosen ASP over PHP? Yeah, I have.
And none of the answers have particularly satisfied me.
And what are the answers?
What have the answers been? Oh, I guess they have satisfied me, but they haven't been the things that I've kind of...
I would base my decision on, like some people have said, well, you know...
I just had a choice of the two and there was a local training course for the Microsoft stuff.
There's training courses all over the world for them, so people have found that locally or they thought they could earn more money with it or whatever.
So I guess there were peripheral choices rather than a choice based on the technology, in my opinion.
I mean, I'm not saying that's the case for everyone, but just the people I have asked, that's been the case.
Okay. And the reason that I'm asking you all of this is that I find you to be, I mean, you're a very likable person, and you also have a great degree of sensitivity and empathy.
But there's something in you that short-circuits.
around computers. Just my opinion, my experience.
I'm not saying it's true, right? Just my experience, right?
And the reason that I say that is because I think it might have something to do with your job performance and maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
It's just me, you know, spinning the webs and see if I get any flies.
That's as far as I can get.
But I find you to be a highly empathetic and sensitive human being.
But with technology, something changes in you, in my experience, right?
And the reason that I say that is because in the sort of brief exchanges that you and I have had about technology, I found you to be highly not empathetic, right?
Alright, yeah, that makes sense.
Was that just my experience or was that something that you also felt?
That does ring true.
Okay, so tell me a little bit about what was going on, if you don't mind, sort of on your side of that stuff.
Because it seems that you have a lot of emotional stuff invested in a tool set, right?
And that's not because you're crazy or anything like that, but we just need to find out, or I think it would be useful to find out, why that is or what is going on there.
Hmm. Yeah, that's interesting.
I've never really thought about it, I guess.
It's amazing because it's the one area that you seem to flip, right?
And you and I have talked about a large number of different areas, both on the board, in the chat window, in our conversations.
And you have been consistently a fantastic human being, in my opinion, right?
But then there's kind of like a flip when it comes to technology, right?
Yeah, that's probably true.
I guess, from my perspective, it probably seems like there's kind of a better way and a worse way, or even a right way and a wrong way, to take it to an extreme.
And... I guess that's how I think about it, kind of, the better way and the worse way to do it, rather than just kind of a preference, which, you know, it really is.
Well, no, it's not just a preference.
See, again, then you're making it somewhat subjective, right?
And we can talk later if we want about the decisions for ASP, at least from my side, but it's not just a preference.
It's not like flipping a coin.
There are very, very solid and smart reasons why one person would choose one technology over another.
But in your world, it's like there's the right way and then there's the stupid way, so to speak.
I'm just sort of characterizing it.
But you feel very strongly about this, right?
Yeah, I guess I do.
Well, I don't want to tell you you do if you don't.
It's just that was sort of my experience of our interaction.
I've never kind of thought about it yet.
I do kind of...
Like if you use the Microsoft stuff, you're falling for stupid propaganda or...
Do you know what I mean? It's like, don't take heroin.
It seems very strong for you.
For God's sake, don't drive off the cliff with Bill Gates.
He'll take your soul. It seems very strong for you, right?
Yeah, I guess it is pretty strong.
Although I'm not sure why.
Well, I think there's an interesting...
Because when you have a particular set of personality traits, which, as I said, I think are very positive, and then they flip under certain circumstances, that's usually a good place to look, right?
And since what you were doing was working with computers, it seems to me that this would be a productive place to spend a few minutes.
Because you kind of flipped for yourself, right?
Yeah. Like, you know the way that I said, like, you kind of flipped on me, and I don't mean flipped out or anything, but just, you know, your personality seemed to go through a bit of a reversal in and around technology.
For yourself, you kind of flipped on yourself, like, yay!
I mean, you really wanted the job, and you got the job, and you're there, and it's like, what the fuck am I now doing to myself?
Like, why am I turning on myself, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
So I think you experienced a kind of flip with yourself that I've experienced, I mean, to a much milder degree, just in our conversations about technology.
So I think if you and I have both experienced that same thing, it's probably a productive thing to unravel.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Now, your father's an engineer, if I remember correctly.
Yeah, he works in management, construction management.
Right, so what's your dad's perspective on the right and wrong way to do things?
I don't think he has a particularly strong one.
I guess, as I was growing up, there was probably a little bit more.
The things that come to mind are in terms of my education after high school and stuff.
It was always...
I assumed that I'd kind of gone to university, and that was kind of the right way to start the career.
He didn't go to university, so it was kind of a big thing for me too, I think.
And although it sounds stupid, when I kind of left high school, I wasn't even consciously aware that there was another option for me, if that makes sense.
Oh sure, yeah, I understand. Of course, I knew there were other options, but they didn't even kind of enter my mind.
No, I remember dating a girl in my late teens and I said, well, I'm going to university.
Where are you going? And she's like, oh, I don't want to go to university.
And I was like, what?
What? Like, I don't want to have another meal.
I don't want to breathe. Like, it didn't make any sense, right?
So, I totally understand that perspective.
Did you ever see your father on his job site?
Because he managed construction, which can be a pretty aggressive place to be, right?
Yeah, not really.
He works usually kind of in the sticks and stuff, so I've, you know, visited his sites a couple of times, you know, for a weekend or whatever, but I never really saw him kind of doing his work.
Alright. And do either of your parents, when you were trying to figure something out, did your parents tend to let you figure it out with help, or did they tell you to do it this way or that way?
I've figured stuff out on my own for the most part, I guess.
I don't think I would have even approached my parents.
Why not? Well, my dad wasn't there most of the time and my mum wasn't really much help with anything like that.
And in what way was she not much help?
She doesn't seem to have the ability to reason through things and kind of follow a logical argument step by step or anything.
She just kind of...
She just goes off on some wild tangent.
Well, sure. But I mean, you could have helped her since you're a very logical fellow.
You could have helped her by saying, well, that's not quite logical.
Here's a way that you can be more methodical or logical in the way that you approach things, right?
You could have taught her that if she didn't have a strong ability to do that.
But of course, you didn't.
And I'm sure you had good reasons why.
But what were those reasons?
I try to many times to kind of do that.
And even every time I kind of talk to her and have a conversation, I try to kind of correct where she's just, you know, making stuff up basically.
And what resulted from that?
Frustration. She never, you know, she never got it.
What do you mean by she never got it?
She just wouldn't understand or would say, no, no, no, you know, what I'm saying is valid.
Or she's very into the things like, you know, you're not listening to, you know, the intention behind my words.
You've got to stop listening to what I'm saying and start listening to what I mean to say.
Right, don't listen to me.
Listen to the invisible elf on my head doing hand gestures, right?
Yeah, it was that kind of stuff.
Okay, so she was pretty good at screwing up your desire for her to be more rational, right?
Yeah. So she knew all the tricks, right, as far as that goes, to be able to fog and befuddle your desire for a more rational interaction, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And why do you think she did that?
What would have been the consequences of her admitting that she had some things to learn as far as rationality went?
Probably facing our own actions, maybe around raising me and my brother.
I mean, she's kind of one of these moral relativists and, you know, intention is more important than action and consequence and all this kind of stuff.
So I'm guessing it's something around that.
And was she that way with herself only or was she that way with you as well?
In other words, that everything was morally relative with you and you could do what you want as well.
Growing up, no, not really.
Okay, so tell me how she did not follow her own ideology with regards to you.
Or she, you know, told me what to do, or she tried to at least.
I kind of became a bit independent of her when I was, I guess, 13 or something.
I remember kind of sitting her down and saying, you know, I don't want you to be my mother anymore.
I want you to kind of, you know, retire from that, stop telling me what to do and stuff like that.
I'm sorry, how old were you when you said that?
I think I was around 13, just entering puberty, I think.
So she was bossy and a relativist?
Yeah. Okay, okay.
So there's a lot of hypocrisy in that, right?
Yeah. Anything goes for me, but you have to do X. Yeah, all the kind of relativist stuff didn't come out till afterwards, like after I'd grown up.
So, you know, we never spoke about any of that.
But, you know, in the conversations I've had with her in the last six months, all that kind of stuff's come out.
Well, sure, but it would have come out implicitly rather than explicitly, right?
In actions rather than words when you were younger, right?
Yeah, I guess so. Well, I don't want you to, sorry to be annoying, guessing doesn't know.
I don't know if that's right or wrong.
How would it have come out in terms of actions, the everything's relative for me and everything's absolute for you, how would that come out in actions when you were a child from your mom?
Well, she would basically do what she wanted and I couldn't, I had to, you know, do what she wanted me to do.
And did she suggest that, or more than suggest, did she tell you to do what she wanted you to do?
Because, like, did she say, I want you to do this just because I want you to do this?
Or did she say, you ought to do this because it's good or right or better or nice or considerate or virtuous or whatever?
Definitely the argument from morality coming in there.
And what was her primary reference point with her argument for morality?
I guess around family loyalty and stuff like that.
I'm your mother and all that kind of stuff.
I'm your mother, therefore you should listen to me?
Yeah, and you should love me and you should respect me and you should go to these family gatherings because they're your family and they love you and all this kind of stuff.
Right, okay. So, specific obligations accrued to you as the result of being born into this cult, right?
Yeah. And what specific obligations accrued to her as the result of being born into or giving birth to someone in this cult?
None, really. Right.
So, this is pretty horrible, right?
Yeah. I remember my dad telling me when I was really young, I guess four, five, six, around that age, my mum was trying to convince my dad to sell the house, give her the money so she could go to America for something and him to quit his job and stay home and look after us.
So she kind of just wanted to run off and I guess there wasn't any obligation that she felt towards the family at all.
Yeah, it seems to me that she may have missed a few family gatherings if she had gone to America, right?
Yeah. Right, so you should go to family gatherings, but I can go to America, right?
Yeah. That's got to be enraging.
I mean, I'm angry she's not even my mom.
Yeah, I didn't realize...
I wasn't aware of kind of the America thing or anything until I was older, so I didn't feel that at the time, but...
Oh, you did. You did, you did, you did.
I mean, again, children are amazingly perceptive, and, you know, we should all hope to attain the wisdom we had when we were two, right?
Seriously. So, you may not have known it consciously or in terms of language later, but children...
Like a friend of mine was saying to me about his kids, right?
Like he was saying, you know, he says to his son, don't throw things, right?
And then he himself will wad up a piece of paper and toss it into the garbage, right?
And his son is two.
And what does his son say?
Well, you're throwing things.
So why can't I? Right.
Right. We are ethical machines from the day one, from day one.
We are constantly, we are so attuned to hypocrisy, right?
Because hypocrisy is very dangerous, right?
Yeah. So, look, here we have a situation where your mother says, my way is the best way, right?
Yeah. What I'm going to say has something to do with objective values.
Yeah. Yeah. And that is a template, so to speak, that you have as a human being, right?
Yeah. Now, does this remind you, for want of a better phrase, of the PHP versus ASP discussion?
Yeah, it does.
Go on! Oh, I guess I was...
Kind of very adamant about what I thought the objectively kind of best way to do things was, and I wasn't really open to, you know, other alternatives.
Well, yeah, because you didn't ask, right?
Yeah. Like, my way is the best way, because it's what I think is right, and it is objectively right, because I prefer to do it, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
And when we are like that or when we have that template, I don't think that's your natural personality at all, right?
But I think that this is some scar tissue that you have from your mom, right?
Which is that you have opinions that cannot be sustained in the face of curiosity.
And so you specifically avoid curiosity in order to maintain your opinions, right?
Which is not...
I don't think it's going to be very good for you in the long run.
Now, does your mother have a streak at all of being a know-it-all?
Yeah, she does actually.
I bet you she does, so tell me a little bit more about that.
She likes to kind of talk on rather advanced topics.
Sorry, I know where this is going, so go ahead and fill in the details.
Kind of like she's into the Deepak Chopra and stuff, and then she would like to talk about quantum physics and stuff like that.
Right. If you know what I mean, it's absolutely completely rubbish, but she likes kind of invoking...
A lot of her mystical beliefs, the way they seem to be sold these days is with a tiny drop of science content.
Yeah, it's like science obfuscation.
I'm going to use scientific terms to support the most nonsensical crap in the universe, right?
Yeah, you've got to watch, sorry to interrupt, but you've got to watch Richard Dawkins have a series on this where he actually confronts Deepak Chopra about his knowledge of quantum physics.
Yeah, I've seen that.
Oh, you have? Okay, so, you know.
It's just a metaphor, but it's all presented as if it's true.
Right. But yeah, so she likes to kind of talk on these kind of topics when she really doesn't know anything about them.
Well, and of course, she knows deep down that she doesn't know anything about them.
Yeah. Right?
And the reason we know that is the moment you start to question her, she becomes irritated, right?
Yeah. And then she claims even more superior knowledge or changes the topic or it gets more foggy or complains about your tone or like all the stupid dance that stupid people do when they are bullshitting you, right?
Yeah. And, of course, this is particularly teeth-gritting for you because you actually know something about these topics, right?
Yeah. So that's got to be really annoying, right?
Yeah. Right.
And she shows no curiosity about your skepticism, right?
She doesn't sort of ask you, well, tell me what it is that you find problematic with these beliefs so that I can learn, if not the truth, at least how you feel, right?
No, not at all.
In fact, imagining her doing that would be mostly incomprehensible, right?
Yeah, it'd be pretty bizarre.
Right. Now, she is not just a know-it-all, but kind of an insufferable know-it-all, right?
Yeah, I guess so. And what I mean by that is annoying, right?
It's annoying when she talks about these sorts of things.
Now, why is it annoying?
Is it just because she doesn't know?
Or is it also because she is inflicting it upon you, and not just that she's wrong, but you're also not allowed to say anything, right?
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Right, right.
And so the fact that she's wrong, the fact that she's kind of a know-it-all, and the fact that she is not curious about your thoughts or your decisions kind of coalesces into a negative experience overall, right?
Yeah. Now, for you, I would submit, just based on my limited experience with, you know, all the caveats in the world as I normally have...
I think that to a very tiny degree, I experienced my interaction with you at the level of technology the same way that you experience your interaction with your mom about everything.
And again, just to a small, to a very small degree, right?
Yep. And the reason that I say that, of course, is you said, oh, you should rewrite the database, you should redo the board, you should use PHP, ASP sucks, all this kind of stuff, right?
Yeah. That's kind of insufferable, right?
Yeah, I guess so. And I don't mean that you're a bad guy.
I think you're a great guy, right?
I'm talking about this particular dark spot in your world where you were taught that when you know stuff and you believe it to just be correct, then you just inflict it on other people without curiosity, right?
Yeah. Because the...
The reality, of course, of making technological decisions is that it's not about the technology, right?
It's about the productivity.
Yeah. Right?
So, I mean, the reason that you would choose ASP is because, I mean, the reason I chose ASP is because my knowledge from the age of 12 onwards, or I guess 11 onwards, is in Visual Basic, right? Yep.
And I know how to set up a Windows server and how to create a website and program this sort of stuff in Visual Basic.
So I can pull that off like the interface that allows you to navigate through the categories of podcasts.
It took me precisely one day to program, right?
Yeah. Whereas if I had tried to figure out how to set up PHP, how to access a database in PHP, how to close a database in PHP, like all of that stuff, right?
How long would it have taken me?
Probably at least a week.
Well, at least, right?
At least. And I would be starting from a situation of no knowledge whatsoever, right?
But it would be an unknown amount of time that it would have taken me To do it, right?
I would never have been able to say, I will be for sure done it, have done it in a week, right?
Yeah. Because I don't even know how to install PHP on a Windows server, right?
So I have to start with all of that, and you know that stuff's not that easy, you know, that's not like a click and reboot, right?
Actually, it is. Yeah, okay.
But even if it's been my experience that that usually is not how it works, at least, you know, in my sort of working with Python and stuff like that, it just doesn't seem to be that easy.
And then I'd have to figure out the language that, you know, I basically have to hunt all over the internet or buy books or, you know, find that kind of stuff, right?
So it would take me an indeterminate amount of time.
When it comes to the board, right, I mean, I would have to not just...
Transfer the board software, but I would also have to transfer the board data, right?
Yep. So I would have to migrate all of the user settings, the number of user posts, the icons, the avatars, the whole security setup that I've got for premium donators and so on?
Yep. And how long do you think that would take, given that I neither know the community server database nor the new database?
Um... Well, for you, you wouldn't know how long it would take, but for me, it would probably take two or three days.
Without knowledge of either database structure?
I guess you'd know the knowledge of the destination database structure, right?
Well, for the board software that I was talking about, there's all the tools to kind of do it, so most of it would be automatic in that regard.
Oh, there's tools to migrate, free tools to migrate database from CS to something else?
Yeah. And it would allow, like it has the same feature set in terms of being able to set up security levels and all that kind of stuff and custom file downloads and so on?
Yep. Okay.
Well, I must tell you that you certainly could be right, but, you know, pulling out my 20 years in IT situation, I don't think that it would be two to three days.
Myself, I mean, that's just sort of my, this stuff always takes longer, there's always something that is harder to do than you think, and it's just my experience, right?
It'd be one of those situations where you get 99% done in the first 5% of the time.
Right, right, right.
So you'd probably get almost everything done within a day and then you'd be trailing off, getting all the little custom bits done.
It would take longer. Right.
So, all I'm saying is that there would be some negative consequences, and then, of course, it would be migrated into a language that I was not familiar with, right, and into a database structure that I was not familiar with.
So, I'm just saying, like, this is not an argument for or against, right?
This is just saying that the reasons that I made the decisions was just that I could get everything done in a very short and measurable amount of time based on...
You know, 25 years of working with the same language and similar technologies.
And the differentiator is the existing investment that I have in the knowledge that I possess, right?
I mean, obviously, if I was going to be a PHP programmer, then I would make that investment to transfer the knowledge, right?
But for me, when I can just sort of zoom in and make tweaks to this, that, and the other, and know exactly what to do, that to me is just productive, right?
Because the purpose of FDR is not to use one technology or another, but to...
people from a philosophical standpoint, right?
Yeah.
So, and again, you could be totally right about the technology, right?
But the thing that I found sort of interesting and a little very surprising for me, but now that we're talking about Jumam, there is something I think that I have a little bit more understanding of and sympathy for, which is that, I mean, you produced a document and you were talking about, you know, hey, it should just be this way.
And there's no other conceivable way that it would be sensible to do it any other way, right?
Yeah. And my experience, again, it's just my experience, was that it was kind of dismissive and I did not feel particularly respected, if that makes sense, in that interaction.
Yeah, that makes sense. Sort of like Thor, right?
You're like the Greek god on the mountaintop hurling down the technological judgments, right?
Yeah. Just a little.
I mean, again, I'm not saying you were turned into a total jerk or anything.
I'm just saying that was sort of my experience, right?
It's like, it should just be this way.
Underlings and anybody who makes a different decision is either a slave to Bill Gates or an idiot.
You choose, right? Yeah.
Yeah, no, you're right.
I was a lot like that.
And so my concern is that if you're not aware that...
And look, your technological expertise and intelligence is considerable.
So you're not like your mom in that way, right?
Because you really do know your shit when it comes to technology, right?
So you're not like your mom blathering on about quantum physics, right?
Yeah. But technology has a...
A trap, like wisdom, or more like philosophy, right?
So people can either use philosophy to enlighten themselves and others and get to the truth no matter how painful, or they can study philosophy in order to trip up other people and create the appearance of being right.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
Right, so technology has a similar pitfall.
Like once you become a specialist in something, your pitfall is, or anybody's pitfall, mine included, right, is that you say, I know and you don't know.
And you have made decisions that don't agree with me and therefore they're in error, right?
Yeah. Now, that's not who you are in any other area that I've seen you in, except in technology, right?
Yeah. So, you're yourself everywhere and then you're a little bit like your mom in technology.
So, I think that if that's not particularly conscious for you, then I think that when you go into an environment where you're using or manipulating or coding or suggesting or whatever technology, I think you need to be conscious of the fact that it is an area of risk for you, right? In terms of being a bit of an insufferable know-it-all, if you don't mind me saying.
And Lord knows we all do it everywhere from time to time.
And so I think that with your job, I think that you may...
Like, when you were sitting at your desk before you had your dissociation episode...
Did you feel that you had continuity from, say, Free Domain Radio, like from the philosophical conversation that has been so interesting to you for the past number of months?
Or did you feel like a different person, or it was a totally different environment?
At first, I definitely felt like I had continuity because I saw getting the job as You know, kind of a major step towards getting over things and achieving freedom because I'd get, you know, financial independence and stuff like that through it.
So, I guess maybe in the past I would have seen a job as something important in itself, but when I went into it this time I kind of saw it as basically a tool to achieve freedom, if that makes sense.
It certainly does.
It certainly does. Because, and the reason I'm asking this is that when you and I were talking technology, or you and Greg were talking technology, you can't have felt like the same person as you were when we would talk philosophy or psychology.
Because you were acting in a very opposite kind of way.
Yeah. So, I would say that in order for you to be more comfortable and to feel more efficacious in terms of succeeding in a technology position, I think you need to be aware of that flip, right?
Because if you're not aware of it, then it's going to happen to you, if that makes sense.
That may have been something of what happened when you were sitting at the computer, right?
Okay, yeah. So if you're aware of when you kind of flip over into know-it-all kind of guy, like handing down judgments from on high kind of guy, and non-curious guy, which is not your natural personality, if you're aware of that flip, then...
I think you can, obviously, you can manage it, like all the bad habits that we all have from our goddamn families, right?
I mean, you can then look at that and manage that, right?
But if you're not aware of it, then it's probably not going to be something that is going to be possible for you to manage, right?
Because it remains completely unconscious.
Yeah. Because I bet you, this is the last thing that I'll say, and then if you have anything to add, feel free, right?
But I bet you when your mom would be babbling on about all this bullshit, I bet you you dissociated then too, right?
Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.
I mean, you had to. Yeah, I just kind of ignored her until she stopped talking.
Right. You go to Happyland, right?
Which is apparently populated entirely by PHP. But you go to Happyland, right?
Yeah. Or like, you know, you zone out from, because, you know, when you've got some crazy person babbling a bunch of nonsense that's insulting to you in your face, we all tend to dissociate, right?
I mean, that's healthy. Yeah, yeah.
So my, you know, this is a theory that is hanging by six million tiny threads, right?
So, you know, you can take it or leave it as you see fit.
But if technology turns you into your mom, then you're going to dissociate from yourself and from technology in the same way that you dissociated from your mom.
Okay, yeah, that does seem to make sense.
Although, the only thing I would wonder about is, um, I guess if, you know, I had the kind of personality flip around you, which was around, you know, the certain technologies and stuff, but when I kind of selected this job to go for,
I kind of made sure everything was kind of how I liked it, so I wasn't, um, I wasn't really faced with a situation where I was doing something that would be competing with what I thought was right, if that makes sense. So I'm not sure what would have triggered the flip.
Well, I don't know either, because I don't know what would have triggered it, or even if this is the right theory.
But I would say that your objection of, well, I know that I can be a bit of a pompous guy around technology, so I chose technology that I liked, that's not confronting being a pompous guy around technology, right?
Yeah. That's making a decision based on avoiding knowing that, right?
That reinforces that.
It doesn't eliminate it, if that makes sense.
Yeah, definitely. You know, it's like saying, well, I'm not a racist because I chose not to work with any blacks.
Yeah. Right?
That doesn't solve the problem of racism.
That actually is more evidence of it, right?
Yeah. Because, I mean, you have incredible stuff to offer technologically.
I mean, you're brilliant with technology and this and that, right?
So I think if you can just try and find a way to peel that stuff from your mom back away from it, right, then I think that you will get much more pleasure and be less likely to go into a food trigger, right?
Because what happened for you in terms of the dissociation was obviously very powerful and therefore must be rooted in your early childhood experience, right?
You didn't just feel a little weird, right?
You really spaced out, right?
So that's got to be... A defense mechanism that in particular was developed with your mom.
So there must have been some influence of your mom that was floating around in your mind to cause that dissociation.
And again, the only thing that I could, I mean, absent any particular confrontation on that day at work, then that's the only thing that I could see that would be a possible trigger.
But again, you know, sort of introspection will help you, I think, with that if there's value in the theory.
Yeah, it certainly does make a lot of sense.
And was there anything else that you wanted to add about that?
Was this a useful call for you?
Definitely. I guess I wasn't consciously aware of how I kind of flipped in regards to technology and stuff.
So having that brought to light is definitely a very useful something that I can be conscious of in the future.
Right, and I say this with all, you know, do affection for you as a human being, and also with, you know, like, whenever I see people possessed by evil parents, like, I want to bring out the holy water, and that's sort of my thought with regards to this, right?
Yeah. Oh, thank you very much.
Oh, my pleasure.
I'll give you a copy of this, and you can have a listen and let me know what you think.
All right, thank you. All right, thanks, man.
Keep in touch. Yep, thanks.
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