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Thin desires are eating life
GMoromisato wrote 1 hour 5 min ago:
This is an interesting piece, and it resonates with me. I remember when
Guitar Hero came out and I shook my head at all the kids spending hours
mastering it instead of just picking up a guitar and practicing.
But maybe our dissatisfaction isn't about thin vs. thick desires, maybe
it's that we're exposed to a world (via the internet/social media) in
which everyone is more successful than us. Even/especially on Hacker
News, we're hit over the head with all the YC companies raising money,
hiring A-players, releasing world-changing products.
When the world makes you feel like a slacker, it's no wonder we value
thick desires. They become the lifeline to get out of our hole. If only
I knew calculus, I could work for SpaceX and launch rockets. If only I
understood gradient-descent, I could get hired by an AI company. If
only I took the time to bake my own bread, maybe I wouldn't feel like
such a loser.
This is a relatively new phenomenon, I think. Growing up in the 80s,
before the internet, we could only compare ourselves to our friends and
classmates. With such a small pool of people, we could always stand out
at something. Maybe we were in the top three at basketball, or maybe we
always got As in history, or maybe we were good at making girls laugh.
And even if there was nothing special about us, it didn't matter: there
was nothing special about anyone! We were happy to pursue thin desires
because we didn't need to be more than we were. If we worked hard, it
was to earn more money. If we practiced an instrument, it was because
we enjoyed it. No one ever worried about "what it all means". There's a
reason we called such philosophical musings "sophomoric".
And if you think about it, there's nothing special about "thick
desires" either. Yes, learning how to play piano changes us. But so
what? Why do want to be different? Is it to stand out? Is it to impress
others? Is it to be able to say, "I can play piano"? Maybe they are all
thin desires. Maybe it's all just a way to pass the time. Is learning
about all the Impressionists really any different than memorizing the
fire-type Pokemons?
I think having kids fundamentally changed my brain. Once you have kids
and get exposed to the firehose of emotions they elicit, everything
else becomes shallow. There is no 3 Michelin Star meal, no trek through
the rainforest, no mastery of unusual skills that brings me as much
pleasure as making my daughter laugh.
We used to know that. We used to know what it meant to live a good
life. But now it's a mystery.
andai wrote 3 hours 10 min ago:
>From the perspective of a frictionless global marketplace, all of this
is pure inefficiency.
The frictionless traps you in an infinite web of bullshit. We need more
friction at this point, not less.
A frictionless todo app affords cognitive bloat.
A frictionless communication medium affords noise.
Friction is natural and healthy and we heave deleted it.
andai wrote 3 hours 11 min ago:
I'm reminded of this video on the legal definition of chicken broth.
[1] >Noah has a good point. He says they're not making soup. They're
making savory taste solutions.
Tastes like chicken, but has virtually no actual substance. Same idea.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar7zddMDwcI
tonymet wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
Thick and thin in both cases, without purpose, is still hedonistic.
Learning calculus sounds more magnanimous than checking notifications,
but what's the purpose? She says you're better off after a year, but
in what way?
What if the person checking notifications is waiting on a delivery for
a soup kitchen. and the person learning calculus just wants to brag
about it or talk down to others because of their credentials?
The purpose matters more. You have to have a purpose. Both "thin" and
"thick" desires can be very meaningful with purpose. Even desiring a
donut with a lonely neighbor can be better than a year learning
calculus -- with the right purpose.
The issue with her approach is it assumes virtue in collecting diplomas
(or activities that lead to them) : learning math, languages , getting
a masters. It's still feeding the ego using this thick/thin
framework.
But if you don't have a purpose, that's just as vain as showing off
your car or your watch. It's just another embellishment.
conqrr wrote 3 hours 57 min ago:
Liked reading this piece.
Thin Desires, Shallow work, Chasing Glitter, Mindless optimization on
result, Non virtuous, Dopamine chasing. All are but the same. Burnout
is our body's response to it. Philosophers have said this for thousands
of years that they all lead to anything but happiness.
dangus wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
This article feels judgmental, off-putting, and condescending to me.
It is especially so because it chooses real examples to put down.
Why is the author’s philosophy the arbiter of what we are allowed to
enjoy? Why is basic shallow pleasure in life looked down upon?
It even feels condescending to people who have actual serious needs
like hunger and disease who may turn to some of these “vices” for
an escape. Meanwhile, thick desires are available for those privileged
with free time, energy, and money.
By the end of the article I almost felt like the author was trying to
evangelize a religion to me, in a really icky way.
djaouen wrote 6 hours 23 min ago:
Has no one considered the possibility that those with the intent of
learning new things still do learn, many times because of technology?
Sure, there are millions who doomscroll pointlessly, but the solution
to that is simple: put down the phone and read a book.
Moreover, the fact that I now have access to international publications
& journals, as well as the ability to learn foreign languages literally
at my fingertips, does not somehow deplete my human needs, any more
than reading a newspaper depleted the need to read long-form books did
a century ago.
highfrequency wrote 6 hours 33 min ago:
A useful angle: does doing this thing make me more able to enjoy it
over time (eg by increasing the subtlety and dimensionality of
perception), or less able to enjoy it over time (eg by
desensitization)?
This is the practical reason to favor “thick desires” over thin
ones: they slope upward over time.
adamhartenz wrote 7 hours 17 min ago:
Wow, this seems like a lot of folks first encounter with a lyrical
essay. I won't hold that against anyone. I have heard many things about
the American school system.
Writing like this is meant to be felt as much as evaluated. The
argument matters, but the cadence and emotional momentum matter just as
much. The author give you are chance to think about each point that is
being said. Our dopamine addicted brains can't deal with this well
anymore unfortunatly. Which is I guess why people feel uncomfortable,
and don't know why.
canyp wrote 1 hour 58 min ago:
It also reflects how very little some people have read.
justonceokay wrote 2 hours 28 min ago:
It’s uncomfortable for some people to experience an idea they
can’t fit in their head all at once
yunnpp wrote 7 hours 57 min ago:
I don't know who this Joan is, but this blog is a gold mine.
This other post on the infantilization of failure is very well-put:
[1]: https://www.joanwestenberg.com/uh-oh-the-infantilization-of-fa...
ryanjshaw wrote 8 hours 29 min ago:
Is reading HN a thick or thin desire? If you say thin: I say, what if
today I find an article about thick and thin desires that changes me?
lo_zamoyski wrote 9 hours 33 min ago:
Imperfections aside, the article is hitting on something quite real. If
only we had been studying the received wisdom of the ages instead of
warping it into dismissible caricatures and smearing it with black
legends, we would have learned about things like virtue and natural
law. We would have understood the nature of sin and immorality, and
conversely, the moral and the good life. We would have looked at the
vacuous and empty temptations of "the world" with contempt and disdain,
as vain things beneath human dignity.
Instead, we convinced ourselves that "morality" is a prison, that
"freedom" is the ability to do whatever we please, that "happiness" is
to be found in degrading and perverse gratification, worthless
trivialities, and illusion. We laughed at the straw men that we erected
of our forefathers to justify our depravity, calling them "prude" or
"square". We embraced meaninglessness and gave it the veneer of
intellectual respectability, because if life is meaningless, then what
does it matter that I "get off" or how I do so? And when
meaninglessness wore us down and left us empty and feeling like
rubbish, we convinced ourselves that we are gods, that we can pull
meaning out of a hat. "The mind is its own place, and in itself can
make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven!" we declare. The stronger
among us became practicing tyrants. "Submit to me and I will give you
your meaning! I am your god now!" In overtly brutal regimes, those who
didn't submit kept quiet or else perished making their refusal known.
So we consume and consume and consume. We consume to fill a void that
consumption cannot fill. We consume, because we are small souls
terrorized by the opinions of others in this race of material
acquisition. We worship consumption, destroying all that is human and
noble and good in the process. As the blog post notes, we are richer
than ever. And yet, having children is now deemed "too expensive".
Indeed, if consumption is your god - your ultimate imperative - then
children are indeed "too expensive". They will always be "too
expensive", as children eat into the resources that you could otherwise
be using to consume. They are competitors eating into your advantage!
And careerism? The means. The middle classes suffer from this one the
most, as the poor don't have careers and the rich don't need them. The
careerist toils endlessly and fritters away his life so that he can
consume, and consume, and consume...
And what about debt? Debt, especially at our scale, is the result of
not being able to live within our means, of consumption taken up a
notch. To "keep up", to "have" more than we can afford, we go into
debt, and the usurers are more than happy to oblige. No one saves
anymore, few really invest. We live in terror of losing our jobs,
because without them, that monster of debt will get us. It will come
for us, that is to say, it will come to collect those things that truly
belong to it but in terms of which we have defined ourselves. We are
lead back to careerism, to which debt chains us with relish and verve.
Everything is commercial. Everything is commoditized. Relationships are
no exception; they are now commodities as well. Sex is transactional, a
service, an infertile and sterile exchange of selfish gratification.
When a spouse is now deemed useless, when the voracious hunger returns
and torments us once again, demanding satisfaction, we reach for
divorce, and a whole industry stands ready to assist us in expediting
this process, for a price. People are disposable. People are things.
People are up for auction.
And when we prideful, slothful, lustful, gluttonous, greedy creatures
don't get what we want...envy and wrath rear their ugly heads to
complete the magnificent seven. Our idolatry of consumption is finally
crowned with hatred, fear, and despair.
Someone once asked: what is the difference between Christ and a
vampire? The answer: Christ sacrifices his blood for your good. The
vampire, on the other hand, sacrifices your blood for his good.
We are vampires.
peterbonney wrote 9 hours 50 min ago:
I like this piece. Doing hard things for the simple reason that they're
hard is good for the psyche. I truly believe that.
ggillas wrote 10 hours 40 min ago:
I've always liked this song from the Cure, we're hedonists on a
treadmill:
I'm always wanting more, anything I haven't got
Everything I want it all, and I just can't stop
Planning all my days away but never finding ways to stay
Or ever feel enough today, tomorrow must be more
Drink, more dreams, more bed, more drugs
More lust, more lies, more head, more love
Fear more fun, more pain, more flesh
More stars, more smiles, more colors, more sex
But however hard I want
I know deep down inside
I'll never really get more hope
Or any more time
Any more time
Any more time
I want the sun to fall in, I want lightning and thunder
Blood instead of rain, I want the world to make me wonder
I want to walk on water, take a trip to the moon
Give me all this, give me it soon
More drink, more dreams, more drugs
More lust, more lies, more love
But however hard I want
I know deep down inside
I'll never really get more hope
Or any more time
Any more time
Any more time
Any more time
pimlottc wrote 10 hours 28 min ago:
I'm reminded of the song Small Bill$ by Regina Spektor:
His destiny was just too big to spend / So he broke it into smaller
bills and change
By the time he'd try to buy the things he needed / He had spent it
all on loosies and weed and
He had spent it all on chips and Coca-Cola / He had spent it all on
chocolate and vanilla
He had spent it all and didn't even feel it / He had spent it all and
didn't even feel it
tekawade wrote 11 hours 5 min ago:
Resonates well with me. I was thinking same lately as many other
comments.
Random stranger on Reddit mentioned - *The art of frugal hedonism* [1]
This book is indeed eye opener. Though I am too deep to turn around
quickly without crashing I am well on may way and there is many more
miles to go. Hoping to take few of my friends with me too.
[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216874949
cynicalsecurity wrote 14 hours 35 min ago:
The irony is thick here. The author's railing against scalable thin
desires... by writing a scalable viral essay that delivers the
neurological reward of "deep insight".
ragazzina wrote 14 hours 52 min ago:
>The business model of most consumer technology is to identify some
thick desire, find the part of it that produces a neurological reward,
and then deliver that reward without the rest of the package.
I expected the author to have language learning as an example, but they
did not include it. I wonder where Duolingo fits in this, I see a new
language learning app every week.
beaker52 wrote 14 hours 43 min ago:
It feels like someone trying to kick the starter on a bike, but it
won’t start.
Europas wrote 14 hours 56 min ago:
My thick desire is unfortunate a 40h grind to pay bills.
If i would have money tomorrow, i would know immediadly what i would
do: Slowly and steadily renovate a old house, building a park/garden,
having greenhouses and doing pottery.
Having a workshop and doing everything thick.
I hope i can achieve this before i'm 45 because i have the slight
worry, that either AI will take over and my dreams break or i'm to
old/fragile/broken to enjoy that.
derekenos wrote 14 hours 59 min ago:
Reminds me of what Frithjof Bergmann called our "poverty of desire" in
his (excellent) book: New Work New Culture: Work We Want and a Culture
that Strengthens Us
almost_usual wrote 15 hours 24 min ago:
It comes down to dopamine and if there was friction involved to get
that dopamine.
megamix wrote 16 hours 8 min ago:
I appreciated the post, this is just not correct thought if you've
heard about Open source.
"The entire economy of software assumes that code should serve millions
to justify its existence."
Maybe she points to /tech industry/ and not /software/
Jolter wrote 14 hours 55 min ago:
Where is this ”economy of software” which is not part of the
”tech industry”?
wxce wrote 16 hours 15 min ago:
It was amusing to see a 'Sign Up' prompt right as the blog ended.
revinary wrote 17 hours 47 min ago:
"The desire to master a craft, to read slowly, [...]"
By the time I got to that part my reading had degraded to mere skimming
-
a perfectly placed reminder :-)
Here's another angle on the issue: As humans, we evolved these useful
litte machines of desire.
Desires to feed, mate, socialize attend and get attended to.
All of those came about because they had some utility, a purpose.
Over time we found ways to exploit those machines using substitutes.
- Sweets are a substitute for nourishing food.
- Porn feeds on our desire to mate.
- Social media overloads the fine-tuned machine meant to orient us in
the tribe.
I suspect a big part of capitalism is creating ever more efficient and
subtle ways to highjack these aspects of our humanity on a grand scale.
Damn.
Popeyes wrote 18 hours 17 min ago:
A post destined to be a self-help bestseller. I look forward to the If
Books Could Kill episode.
ensocode wrote 19 hours 17 min ago:
Nice to see that some people still feel the difference. I’m not sure
whether the next generations will experience it as strongly, having
grown up with much thinner lives. In my experience, deeper desires tend
to emerge outside the comfort zone — a place fewer and fewer people
seem willing to enter today.
bunnybomb2 wrote 20 hours 32 min ago:
Philosophy is so 2024.
BiteCode_dev wrote 20 hours 39 min ago:
Always fun when geeks discover basic philosphical concepts like it's a
new thing and not something greeks nailed 2000 years ago.
bunnybomb2 wrote 20 hours 27 min ago:
But its on substack.. so its way different.
And.
Its worded,
Like This.
#Deep
WhatsTheBigIdea wrote 20 hours 52 min ago:
I really like this article.
I bake bread. I have spent a good deal of time optimizing the recipe
for deliciousness but also for time efficiency. Proving in a warm oven
is a great tip. Also baking two loaves at a time!
All this nit picking about writing style is disappointing. I like that
this person got their ideas out there. They are good ideas. Legible
and easy to parse == good enough. I don't care about the writing style
any more than that and you shouldn't either. It is a waste of
everyone's time... yours especially.
It's very nice to hear about someone else who is interested in doing
hard things/real things. Seems like there ought to be a meet up or a
get together opportunity for people working on stuff like that.
Perhaps a get-together where everyone gives a 2-5 minute talk about
something they are working on then we all hang out for another hour or
two. Seems like alcohol might help get the wheels spinning?
I fully appreciate the need for a catchy headline with a hook (it got
me!) but I wonder if these ideas would be more powerful/useful if
expressed in positive language rather than doom speak? I guess doom
speak is the fashion these days and we all have to conform to the
dominant paradigm... at least a little around the edges.
Generally... Bravo. Nice piece. Nice ideas.
skeltoac wrote 4 hours 19 min ago:
The writing style is perfect.
It’s not just like that to be spaced out visually. It suggests
slowing down, taking your time, digesting each sentence. Not just
racing to the end so you can drop a thin take and keep scrolling.
It is a THICK PIECE.
Consume it that way. :)
cheschire wrote 8 hours 20 min ago:
It reminds of reading Tao Te Ching.
CGMthrowaway wrote 8 hours 53 min ago:
I asked my agent to rewrite this in a more traditional style, if it's
helpful to anyone:
A defining experience of our age is a paradoxical hunger: we crave
more even when we have an excess, and we crave less while more
accumulates around us. It is a vague hunger we often can’t
articulate, a deep sense of wanting something fundamental. This is
the essence of "thin desire": a craving for something undefinable and
ultimately unattainable, from a source with no interest in providing
it.
The distinction between "thick" and "thin" desires is simple: a thick
desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it, while a
thin desire does not. Consider the desire to understand calculus
versus the desire to check your notifications. The desire to learn
calculus is thick; it transforms the learner, revealing new patterns
in the world and expanding their capacity to care about new things.
The desire to check notifications is thin; afterward, you are the
same person you were five minutes before. A thick desire transforms
its host; a thin desire merely reproduces itself.
The business model of most modern consumer technology is to exploit
this distinction. It identifies a thick human desire, isolates the
part that produces a neurological reward, and then delivers that
sensation without the enriching substance. Social media offers the
feeling of connection without the obligations of friendship.
Pornography provides sexual satisfaction without the vulnerability of
partnership. Productivity apps can give a sense of accomplishment
without anything of substance being accomplished.
This thin version of desire is easier to deliver at scale, easier to
monetize, and far easier to make addictive, resulting in a cultural
diet of pure sensation. Yet, despite getting what we want with such
efficiency, we are not happier. Surveys consistently show rising
anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Perhaps we have become so
proficient at giving people what they want that we have prevented
them from wanting anything truly worthwhile.
Thick desires are inherently inconvenient. They cannot be satisfied
on demand and often take years to cultivate. Mastering a craft,
reading a book slowly, or becoming part of a genuine community
requires sustained effort. These pursuits embed us in webs of
obligation and make us dependent on specific people and places—all
of which is pure inefficiency from the perspective of a frictionless
global marketplace.
As a result, the infrastructure for thick desires—workshops,
apprenticeships, local congregations, front porches—has been
gradually dismantled. In its place, the infrastructure for thin
desires has become inescapable, residing in the pocket of nearly
every person. Grand programs to "rebuild community" often fail
because they try to apply the same logic of scale they hope to
escape. The thick life, however, doesn't scale. That is the entire
point.
The antidote, therefore, may not lie in large-scale movements but in
small, deliberate, and beautifully inefficient acts. Bake bread; the
yeast is indifferent to your schedule, and the process teaches a
patience that the attention economy has stripped away. Write a
physical letter and send it through the mail; it creates a connection
that exists outside the logic of engagement metrics. Code a software
tool for just one person; building something that will never be
monetized is a beautiful heresy against the assumption that all
creations must serve millions.
These individual acts will not reverse the great thinning of our
culture. But the thick life is worth pursuing anyway, on its own
terms. The person who bakes bread isn't trying to fix the world; they
are simply trying to spend an afternoon in a way that doesn’t leave
them feeling emptied out. They are remembering, one small act at a
time, what it feels like to want something that is actually worth
wanting.
canyp wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
To put it politely, nobody gives two shits about what "your agent"
said, in case you were wondering why this was downvoted to hell.
This reply adds nothing to the conversation, and it also doesn't
take a mastermind to figure they, too, can paste the post in
ChatGPT and get a summary out of it. Also, reading a summary
instead of the sources butchers the post entirely.
Hopefully you'll spare us the spam next time. Have a good day!
ludvigk wrote 8 hours 0 min ago:
Did you even read this yourself? You've turned something succinct
and readable into a tedious, impenetrable blob.
CGMthrowaway wrote 7 hours 50 min ago:
I read both of them. Different strokes I guess
arximboldi wrote 14 hours 25 min ago:
I really enjoyed the piece also, in spite of the off-putting writing
style.
It reminds me of the Epicurean hierarchy of desires, the genius
Epicurus had it figured out more then a couple of millenia ago: [1]
The thing about "apps for one" actually resonated with me quite a
bit.
The last year I've struggled finding freelance work and I've found
myself with more time (and less money) that I would like. I feel
guilty, because one side of me feels like I should have spent this
time to learn ML or to make an app that makes passive income. The
thing is: I have no interest in making "apps" to make money. I
wouldn't even know what app to make, because there is no quotidian
problem for which I think an app would make my life easier. On the
contrary, I don't have a smartphone and apps are making my life
harder, as we move towards a world where apps are expected for
everything. But instead, I have made a couple of games for my
girlfriend's birthdays, and I also made her web portfolio, all forms,
I guess, of "apps for one" made for love. Other than that, perhaps, I
enjoy tuning my Linux system (recently migrated from Xmonad to
Hyprland), a form of making, perhaps, an app for one, in the only
tech device that still feels like I can control instead of it trying
to control myself. Other than that, I use my time to go to the gym
and sometimes to paint or DJ or just party, even though I often spend
on Hacker News, Youtube, Wikipedia and other media way more time that
I would like to.
So all in all, I find it difficult to write code these days with the
joy of when I was younger, and it is hard to motivate myself if
there's no money involved, with the exception of those gestures of
love. It saddens me, because I believe it is such a powerful and
beautiful skill. But I just find the current state of world and how
"technology" is used to extract capital out of all human
relationships rather depressing. The current wave of "AI" only makes
the problem worse, and adds an dark sense of impending doom...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism
dmje wrote 22 hours 35 min ago:
Terrific piece. Love her writing, recommend following her RSS.
dmje wrote 6 hours 3 min ago:
HN, why downvote that, you’re just fucking weird sometimes
euroderf wrote 22 hours 48 min ago:
> How could this be, when we've gotten so good at giving people what
they want?
> Maybe because we've gotten good at giving people what they want in a
way that prevents them from wanting anything worth having.
This has a political interpretation too. Have you noticed that online
"petitions" have mostly disappeared lately ? Maybe this disappearance
is based on now-widespread recognition that the way to get the
attention and concern of the political establishment is to get out on
the streets and make some noise.
Online activity can _motivate_ protest, but it cannot really express
protest in a way that "matters". It's busy work. Keep the monkeys at
their typewriters.
Online is the equivalent of hanging a sign in your window; it does not
tell you whether your opinion is shared by most of your fellow
citizens. Thousands of likes versus the knowledge that social media
keeps each of us in our bubble, feeding us more.
But a monster rally in your city and elsewhere can tell you precisely
that your opinion is shared by most (or "sufficiently many") of your
fellow citizens. Pithy placards to the fore!
kelnos wrote 11 hours 8 min ago:
> the way to get the attention and concern of the political
establishment is to get out on the streets and make some noise.
Honestly I'm not even convinced this works so well anymore. (Not
saying it never does, but I think it's effectiveness has dropped.)
To me, it seems the main way to achieve political change is with
money. More money than I have, unfortunately.
haritha-j wrote 16 hours 57 min ago:
Looking at all the anti immigration protests, I kind of wish these
people only had thin desires.
terrib1e wrote 23 hours 19 min ago:
Thin desires are just weak wills.
honkycat wrote 23 hours 25 min ago:
reads like an edgy high-schooler jerking off at how much better they
are than everyone else.
Its like reading Rick Rubin from a loser whose opinions I don't value
at all.
ursAxZA wrote 1 day ago:
Ironically, consuming essays about “thin desires” often becomes a
thin desire itself.
dzink wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, and…
The thin is nowadays engineered to be addictive, so weaning off of it
may be hard. Going cold turkey during a vacation or completely ditching
devices for a while may help.
Yes, but… The call to hipsterdom (doing something precisely because
it doesn’t scale) may not be necessary - if a person has successfully
weened themselves of the pacifier of cheap dopamine they should use all
of that spare brain power to create things other people who are still
addicted can use to get out of the quicksand of social media. Or to
make things that will help the world - scaling is up to the creator. No
merit to sealing off away from the world. Improve the world.
block_dagger wrote 1 day ago:
Why the short paragraphs?
They are hard to read.
See: this post.
yial wrote 1 day ago:
I’ve heard of
“Idiot wisdom” and “wise wisdom”.
Idiot wisdom - is generic platitudes that sound nice, but aren’t
actionable.
Wise wisdom- might not always sound nice, but is actionable.
My ego likes this article, if I believe that I pursue thick desires.
But some part of me thinks (and perhaps due to the written style ).
That this is idiot wisdom.
Another commenter mentioned it ties to Tanha in Buddhism.
I don’t know. But- off to read some Shunryu Suzuki….
tokai wrote 16 hours 38 min ago:
Most definitely idiot wisdom. All the comments here lauding it, are
pointing out first how they feel good about the text. That it
resonates, that they like it. The importance of the content was that
they felt good reading, not that they learned something.
VonTum wrote 17 hours 24 min ago:
What would be an example of "Wise wisdom"?
stanfordkid wrote 1 day ago:
What’s the point of this article — everyone knows desiring heroin
is different from wanting to become an Olympic swimmer.
workfromspace wrote 1 day ago:
This reminds me of the definiton by Lionel Robbins:
> Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a
relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.
Or the simpler version I remember:
> Economics is about allocating limited natural resources to
unlimited human desire.
thisoneisreal wrote 1 day ago:
My framing for this is "mass production of stimuli." Before
industrialization, the number of things grabbing your attention at any
given moment wasn't super high. But once you had mass production, and
especially the innovation of extrinsic advertising (associating
psychological properties not intrinsic to the product being advertised
itself), we were all suddenly awash in stimulating signals. But like
this article notes, those stimuli go mostly unfulfilled by the action
we take (buying the thing, opening the app), and so we all have this
low level background noise of frustration and dissatisfaction.
EDIT: Some later posts mentioned it, but philosophers and religions
have contemplated this stuff for centuries. Nevertheless I do think
it's an exacerbated problem in the modern world due to technology and
scale.
profsummergig wrote 1 day ago:
Since the article mentioned enjoyment of calculus,
Anyone got content suggestions or a syllabus I can use to learn to
"enjoy" calculus?
I understand the basics, what it is for, chain rule, power rule,
product rule... but still, no joy.
scotty79 wrote 1 day ago:
So hard drugs are a thick desire?
After all who says change is always a good thing? When you are doing
well maybe it's better to stick to thin desires?
adamwong246 wrote 1 day ago:
Get a motorcycle.
Learn to ride it.
Learn to fix it.
Obtain joy.
coldtea wrote 1 day ago:
Reads like AI slop.
adamwong246 wrote 1 day ago:
Everything is slop now.
renewiltord wrote 1 day ago:
What the fuck is this LinkedIn tier garbage. God help us.
gynecologist wrote 1 day ago:
2.5/10
teleforce wrote 1 day ago:
>A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it.
>A thin desire is one that doesn't.
TL;DR
Thanks OP for enriching my thin vocabulary today, pun intended.
makk wrote 1 day ago:
“Circling this territory for decades.” Try millennia. The world is
filled with hungry ghosts. Ask a Buddhist.
pseudosavant wrote 1 day ago:
This post really resonated with me, and some lack of fulfilment I've
been working through lately. It seems a lot of commenters felt the need
to bikeshed it instead of just trying to understand the point being
made.
JohnMakin wrote 1 day ago:
> We're hungry for more, but we have more than we need.
I do not have more than I need. Very much the opposite - despite making
a decent living, I cannot afford the bulk of my medical care that makes
my life a lot more comfortable and extends my lifespan. making ends
meet is sometimes difficult.
> We're hungry for less, while more accumulates and multiplies.
See above.
> We're hungry and we don't have words to articulate why.
I can articulate why, and a lot of it has to do with the protestant
work ethic hell we've decided runs the entire world.
> We're hungry, and we're lacking and we're wanting.
Ok, finally I agree.
> We are living with a near-universal thin desire: wanting something
that cannot actually be gotten, that we can't define, from a source
that has no interest in providing it.
I am pretty sure what I am wanting - security, healthcare, housing,
food, reliable work/career can be defined, and can be gotten.
> The person who checks their notifications is, afterward, exactly the
same person who wanted to check their notifications five minutes ago.
Trivial counterexample and one that has happened to me - "Your father
has had no pulse for 30 minutes, you need to get to the ER
immediately." Definitely wasn't the same person 5 minutes after that.
Or even, "Your role has been made redundant, please return your
equipment to IT staff." Can probably think of many others.
This seems like fluffery that ultimately isn't saying much or anything
at all really. Of course, in an economy full of thin fulfillment supply
(such as the examples given in the writing here - porn, social media,
etc.) and lacking in thick fulfillment (loneliness epidemic, bad
economy if you're not on the tippy top of it, etc.), people will reach
for thin ones. You can't wish or grind or hustle your way out of some
of this, it is systemic, and in that, I agree with the conclusion here.
I just don't believe it really accomplishes much of anything. There are
those of us alive who aren't really even that old that remember the
world when it was not this way.
singlow wrote 1 day ago:
Everything is about X, because I can redefine X to mean anything.
xg15 wrote 1 day ago:
> Social media gives you the feeling of social connection without the
obligations of actual friendship.
Pornography gives you sexual satisfaction without the vulnerability of
partnership.
It feels weird how after a very good explanation of why thick desires
are in the end more rewarding, she focuses on the (ostensible)
negatives here, like some sort of obligatory tax or payment that you're
evading by focusing on "thin" desire.
Formulated like this, the obvious retort would be "yeah, so what? - why
should I bother with obligation and vulnerability if I can have the
same rewards without them?"
Of course everyone who has 100 online friends but no one to go to a
party with knows why this is bullshit - but it's not following from
this paragraph.
Maybe a better way would be to explain that the "negatives" are in fact
positives: e.g. The obligation is what lets one build upon a friendship
- both for you and your friends - but you do have to explain it, you
can't just take it for granted.
themafia wrote 1 day ago:
> The defining experience of our age seems to be hunger.
> We're hungry for more, but we have more than we need.
You're describing consumer manipulation not an actual attribute of
population.
> And so the infrastructure for thick desires has been gradually
dismantled.
You're describing the consequences of inflation and manipulated market
outcomes not actual desires of participants.
> The thick life doesn't scale.
This is almost entirely why we invented cities and society and put up
with their consequences in our lives.
> So: bake bread.
So: stop making me pay taxes.
Maybe it's just me. I get easily irritated when I detect casual
misanthropy dressed up as a "think piece."
nicbou wrote 1 day ago:
Thin desires are mental snacking. Thick desires are a full meal.
I find it hard because thick desires require a lot more activation
energy before it becomes pleasant.
nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote 1 day ago:
Coffee is for closers
moultano wrote 1 day ago:
I wrote this following a similar line of thought, but with the root
problem being a collective action problem around community rather than
an internal psychological tradeoff between short and long term. [1] I
certainly think hijacking our short term rewards is a big part of it,
but in addition, that hijacking prevents people from putting in the
effort that make collective alternatives competitive.
[1]: https://moultano.wordpress.com/2025/12/09/the-dead-weight-loss...
delichon wrote 1 day ago:
Desires to consume (create) are thin (thick).
Thin: A desire to enjoy a book, video game, movie, musical
performance, new technology, love, ...
Thick: A desire to make any of the above.
The cure for Dementors isn't chocolate, it's becoming a tiny god of
creation. Meaning is in making.
moffkalast wrote 9 hours 45 min ago:
I can attest that it helps, if I couldn't be creative on a daily
basis I'd be completely depressed instead of just moody and
melancholic.
famahar wrote 23 hours 24 min ago:
I think there's thin consumption and thick. Reality TV and
YouTube/Tik-tok shorts being thin. Slow cinema or a documentary being
thick. One is primarily entertainment that is easy to digest and acts
more as a way to fill the time and quiet thoughts. The other requires
deep engagement and confrontation with new ideas and a build up of
contemplation through deep prolonged focus.
The first mode of consumption is understandably popular given the
amount of noise in the world that distracts us. So many people are
trapped in dopamine holes. It's mental withdrawal to try to attempt a
sudden switch to thick consumption. They are so opposite of each
other.
ericmcer wrote 1 day ago:
It's more like Thin is when the consumption is one directional. Like
when you browse social media it is one directional. Social media goes
towards you and you just experience it, everything is dumbed down
into bites that require 0 effort or cognition to consume.
When you read a challenging book it is bi-directional. You will get
out of it what you put in and it will be indecipherable if you just
let it wash over you mindlessly. So I disagree about creation, I
think the effort is what is important.
kevinsync wrote 1 day ago:
I'd argue that there's probably a disproportionate ratio of
thin:thick, and that the majority of creators have to consume
significantly more than they create to find their perspective, voice,
purpose and inspiration for their creations. And those that created
that which was consumed, consumed that which was created to feed
their fire as well.
It's the whole thing about writers and comedians can't craft anything
without having first lived, observed, contemplated and been
confounded by orders of magnitude more than their output represents.
bccdee wrote 1 day ago:
True to an extent. But why would you want to create (e.g.) a movie if
you don't think watching movies is worthwhile in and of itself?
You're putting effort into creating something that you don't think is
truly valuable. To a person with this mindset, the desire to create
is cynical—they're only making movies in pursuit of extrinsic
rewards such as money, fame, or success. If watching movies is thin
to them, then making movies is also thin.
Conversely, an authentic filmmaker is someone who values movies in
and of themselves; therefore, the authentic desire to create a movie
must be downstream of a passion for watching movies. I don't think
you'll find many artistically inclined filmmakers who would denigrate
the act of watching movies as "thin." It's the thickness they feel in
the experience of watching movies which inspired them to devote
themselves to making movies in the first place.
dominicrose wrote 16 hours 48 min ago:
The article's definition: "A thick desire is one that changes you
in the process of pursuing it."
This definition is compatible with watching some films and not
others.
I think Alan Watts said something like that his job was that you no
longer needed him. This implies that consuming his work would be
thick until it wouldn't.
haritha-j wrote 16 hours 59 min ago:
I think, perhaps because the creation is the goal in itself, not
the consumption by others. Because it is the change/improvement
that the author mentions that we seek.
bccdee wrote 7 hours 48 min ago:
I think that leans toward a mistaken veneration of productivity.
You don't have to make something to enrich your life. It's also
valuable to connect with the things other people make, or with
the world around you.
clowncubs wrote 1 day ago:
This resonates. I work in web dev, and a little over 2 years ago I hit
a wall. Everything was a screen. All day at work, at home, on the go.
Everything felt hallow and unrewarding. I'm an introvert, so outside of
my family, I didn't have many relationships. Of course, I was
depressed. I began working on it by going to therapy and then one day I
decided to try sculpting.
This changed everything. I found I was pretty good at it. It felt good
because it was tangible, and it required me to learn and probe and
practice. I kept at it. This grew in ways I couldn't imagine.
Now, I make collectible resin maquettes and busts and I even started
making latex halloween masks. It's been a crazy journey to where I am
now, with so much more ahead. I've met people and interact with people
in ways I didn't just a short time ago. It's changed my life. It's
thick. All of it.
yuni_aigc wrote 42 min ago:
I can totally relate—I’m also a web dev and spend all day in
front of screens. Lately I’ve been feeling really stuck and weighed
down, and honestly I’m not sure how to start changing things.
Reading your story gives me a little hope, though.
kafkaesque wrote 7 hours 19 min ago:
I can relate! Someone who is very dear to me suggested we go to a
one-day pottery class and the idea had never entered my mind. I
actually ended up loving it. We're both introverts, as well, and she
enjoys doing things that don't require other people (she likes to
surf, as well). There's something about doing something physical by
yourself (that isn't exercising) that's creative that I really like,
but before the class, I hadn't realized it.
I actually play instruments, as well, but this feels totally
different and almost stimulates a different part of my brain. I was
much more relaxed doing pottery and I saw instant results that I
could track whether I was doing something right or wrong (even though
the "right" and "wrong" was driven by my own personal idea of them).
Do you think you'll end up sharing any of your pieces to the public?
clowncubs wrote 6 hours 7 min ago:
That's awesome, and I can understand what you are saying. The
immediacy of the medium is very satisfying in a way that digital
immediacy for me is not. Mind/body connection or something like
that.
Yes, I have shared my pieces! On social media of course
(instagram/facebook/youtube), personal website, and at events. One
part of this journey was a kind of audacious idea - I decided one
day, after about a year and half into this, to make an LLC. I
figured I could try and get this hobby to pay for itself as it
isn't exactly cheap when you start getting into molding and casting
the pieces. That and I was getting great responses from people. A
part of me just went with a feeling ("I bet I could do that") and
this whole thing has taken on a life of its own. I've just started
going to local events recently (a punk flea market, a comic-con,
and a Krampus Con) and I've sold some of my work, have connected
with new people, and made some good connections. It's a wonderful
feeling and the response from people has been nothing but soul
fuel.
brailsafe wrote 8 hours 57 min ago:
> I even started making latex halloween masks.
Bit of a tangent: I don't really subscribe to the introvert/extrovert
divide personally, but do eventually hit a wall with socializing, and
am happy to explicitly isolate myself in my own world or with a
smaller group for extended periods of recharge. Unfortunately, I've
committed to attending my good friend's costume NYE party, and have
betrayed myself somewhat because... I'm just tired of costumes, he's
a very theatrical film person and I'm... a web dev, who's just never
really had an affinity for dressing up in that way—even less so
since it's been a socially packed autumn. I'm considering bailing,
but I feel like that would be a bit of a fail.
I think as a nerd, I'd need to make it a challenge and a small hobby
like you have, but I also am trying to quit YouTube. Can you picture
yourself in my situation? Any tips on finding a seed of interest?
lanyard-textile wrote 5 hours 34 min ago:
1. If you have that urge to go, it is probably for a good reason,
agreed :) Wouldn't call it a fail though if you didn't end up
going. We all require balance.
2. Parties are for getting together, costumes are just a dress
code. They'd love your company even if you didn't dress up --
that's why they invited you after all. So don't stress over it. You
can come in something silly or minimal fuss.
brailsafe wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
> They'd love your company even if you didn't dress up
This is generally true and reassuring, and but in this case I
have to put at least something reasonable together since I
half-assed it last time lol. I'll probably just try and attend
every third costume party in the future
clowncubs wrote 8 hours 20 min ago:
This is a bit longwinded, so apologies: I tried sculpting because I
saw a video on YouTube where this guy, I think he goes by
Craftyart, or Craftyarts - he had a speed video where he sculpted,
cast, and painted a version of the Joker, but it was Willem DaFoe.
It was incredible, and it just gave me an itch. I watched it and
wanted to do that, to make that.
For me, I'd often have these ideas of things I wanted to try, or
do, or challenge myself with, and then for some inexplicable reason
I'd never do them. In this instance, I told myself to get off my
ass and just give it a try. It may have helped that I was in
therapy at the time and making efforts to address a lifetime of
issues. It has lent a certain proactiveness to my being. For me,
addressing my mental health is a driving factor in having made any
of this possible.
Finding a seed of interest: if you mean directly with making a
costume, I don't know. If you're not interested in costumes, I
don't think it is something you can force. Overall though I think
anything that causes that itch, that pull, maybe even a sense of
yearning "to do" is enough to get you going on a path. I had a
feeling when watching the video that reminded me of what I felt
when I was a kid and I would see something and I'd get excited to
do the same.
I don't know that any of this would have come together for me had I
not been on a journey to improve my mental health, and making
efforts to find something that connected with me. Something outside
of a screen. But in the end, what I connected with was surprising.
It looks like it makes sense in hindsight, but at that time, it
felt like it came out of left field.
Hopefully there are some tips somewhere in this mess of words. If
not, my apologies for wasting your time.
brailsafe wrote 4 hours 54 min ago:
> For me, I'd often have these ideas of things I wanted to try,
or do, or challenge myself with, and then for some inexplicable
reason I'd never do them.
I think without a mentor or point of reference for why or how
you'd go about doing something like that, it's just a completely
abstract domain, much like software is to anyone who hasn't spent
a lifetime coding or figuring out how computers work. The mental
health work and the video by Craftyarts seem like the perfect
timely combination to allow for peeling back those layers,
literally and figuratively, further allowing curiosity to be
actionable.
I've been doing that a bit with electronics, and a recent example
that seems similarly daunting for me would be watching the end to
end process of building a custom keyboard pcb. At first it seems
like an immense rabbit hole, but dedicating a bit of money and
time incrementally is insanely rewarding in aggregate, moreso the
further away from your mainline discipline it is. I tend to avoid
these until I have a specific challenge in mind.
The seed of interest question was framed poorly, but it was
related specifically to the latex mask subject, and I guess I was
just curious if there were any adjacent ideas that might be worth
exploring, since you do seem to have an interest in vaguely
related areas
clowncubs wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
Adjacent ideas: 3d printing - I think it is cool but I'm not
into it myself because it would require more time for me in
front of a screen and working with digital tools. But, there
are a lot of things to be explored here. One idea is digitally
scanning a analog sculpture and then 3D printing the mold for
it. This would be huge as you could make very complex molds and
they'd be essentially perfect. And then when your mold broke
down you could just print another one. No need to work from a
master sculpt.
I have a friend who made me 3D printed keychains for swag at
events. He embedded NFC chips in the keychain and this links to
a linktree on my website. Coming up with cool swag like this
could be something to explore. People found them really cool
and it was a relatively simple thing to do. I'm sure there are
some wild things 3D printing could be applied to for things
like this.
WesleyJohnson wrote 9 hours 11 min ago:
Any tips or resources on how to get started? I drew a lot of comics
as a kid/teen, and I've done 3d modeling as a hobbyist. But using
physical media for sculpting has always seemed daunting.
clowncubs wrote 8 hours 43 min ago:
I started by buying some Sculpey clay, some armature wire, and a
6-inch wooden base. This and an assortment of tools. Then I found
an online 3d model I could turn in all directions. And then, I just
tried to sculpt it. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. From there
I looked for video instruction on YouTube. There are a ton of
sculpting videos out there. Books: there is a great book by the
Shiflett Brothers that was very helpful to me (Clay Sculpting with
the Shiflett Brothers). They also have a great sculpting forum on
Facebook. Eventually I signed up for the Stan Winston School of
Character Arts. This has been incredibly helpful for the direction
I am going.
So, I started small, and then built from there. I only bought
materials and tools when my journey necessitated them so I could
refrain from getting ahead of myself. I think this is valuable, as
it is easy for me to get carried away in the beginning of anything
new, and go whole-hog only to find later that my interest lay
elsewhere. I wanted to prove to myself that my purchases were for a
reason and meaningful to where I was at, at that moment.
I have kept a blog of my learning experiences, trying to give back
as I can. I don't want to break the forum rules, but if you want I
can send you links to my site. It has my work and the blog has
outlines of what I have done, steps, resources, etc. I hope it is
helpful to someone out there going along this path.
pjerem wrote 18 hours 45 min ago:
Oh that's cool ! Bravo !
I lived exactly the same thing also two years ago.
What changed everything to me was, impulsively, enrolling myself to a
rollerblading course in a skate park. I was 34, overweight (still am)
and never did anything like this (I never did barely any sport at all
tbh). Oh boy was this transformative.
I'm still in the course every week and like you, it feels good
because it's tangible : not in the material way like sculpting but
rather by doing things with my body (and my brain) I would'nt believe
I could do at all even when I was younger. That's an amazing feeling
after decades of watching things on screens (yes, I know how that
sounds pathetic, but that's my story).
NegativeK wrote 1 day ago:
I've taken somewhat of a parallel path.
I set foot in a shop for the first time at a hackerspace 11 or 12
years ago and eventually feel deep into machining. I spent huge
swaths of my days there, and when I wasn't, I was reading about
machining. Books, because there were few Youtubers doing it and the
forums are thin. It's not a popular hobby and a lot of the
professionals and hobbyists aren't computer savvy.
I focused on it to the detriment of other things. Friends commented
last year on how absorbed I became and how much I was absorbing.
Puttering around on a computer fell away, since it wasn't that
relevant to the hobby. It wasn't necessary to use the aging laptop in
my free time; I could read PDFs on my phone or old, used books.
But you're not looking at your phone often, because your hands are
dirty. Or busy. Or there's a significant safety concern from lapsed
attention. Or when doing related types of metal working, weld spatter
might land on a face up phone and take chunks out of the glass. Or
maybe a steel chip scratches the screen.
Eventually I drifted away from machining for another hobby, but I've
come back to it now that I have space in my garage -- this time with
more balance. I'm not out until after midnight on work nights.
Instead, I'm up before dawn, working with my hands for an hour or two
before work. After work, I spend time on learning things somewhat
relevant to my career. On the weekends, I'll spend a few hours each
day.
The machining isn't ever useful. I made a nylon washer on my lathe
once for a dog harness -- I think that's the only item I've made
that's not for the hobby itself. But it's tangible. The projects are
incredibly slow, and no undo button means a small mistake can result
in hours work thrown in the recycling. I spent maybe eight hours over
the past four days making a tiny brass rod (as well as other, failed
versions) to repair an older clockwork mechanism. A used replacement
would've been relatively cheap on Ebay, but that's never the point.
atentaten wrote 2 hours 33 min ago:
What is the other hobby?
NegativeK wrote 2 hours 26 min ago:
It was climbing, but that one I've fully walked away from.
2b3a51 wrote 8 hours 44 min ago:
If (and I mean only if it would be interesting to you, no other
reason and no implied 'ought') you wanted, I'm pretty sure that
there are people out there who would like to return things like
telescope mountings, old focusers, mechanical devices of all kinds
to a working state. Over here in the UK, people volunteer at steam
engine workshops and even in jewellery workshops to restore things.
And they get a supply of interesting items to make...
NegativeK wrote 2 hours 19 min ago:
I don't know if that's a thing here in the states, but I'll keep
it in mind! It probably wouldn't be hard to advertise via the
local (different) hackerspace.
But I'll probably have to get through my backlog of current tasks
and projects before I wanted to take on other peoples'. And I may
have literally set up a wiki to track those projects...
movedx wrote 1 day ago:
Very cool.
I started using my IT and data management skills on film sets to
provide data security around the footage. It’s been a breath of
fresh air to use advanced concepts in a field that’s very hands on
and a big team effort. A lot of communication and working together.
It’s been great.
agumonkey wrote 1 day ago:
Kudos on your evolution. But this gets me thinking, remember when
computing didn't felt "thin" ? even screen had a different feel. I
don't know if it's our brain getting used and losing a kind of magic
filter.
Anyway, I should probably imitate you, every time I see some people
crafting real things I have a little blip of envy.
4gotunameagain wrote 19 hours 43 min ago:
It was before the invasion of late stage capitalism in computing,
creating the attention economy.
Computing was a thing by geeks, for geeks. It was revolutionary. It
was fun. Now it's the lowest common denominator. Instagram.
agumonkey wrote 19 hours 18 min ago:
the small culture aspect is something i think about too, it was
the outcome of a certain group of people liking a similar idea
and way of doing things. now it's diluted in all of the social
issues (privacy, fame, short term attention)
black_knight wrote 20 hours 25 min ago:
I still get that feeling sometimes, even after 25 years with
computers at home. But it is so dependent on what I do. I get this
feeling when I create stuff on my own terms, like making a game or
a website. I also get this feeling when discovering other
people’s personal creations online.
clowncubs wrote 1 day ago:
It definitely felt different to me in the beginning years. I've
been at the web thing for about 12 years now. In the beginning,
while it was often very difficult, there was an excitement and
freshness. It could have simply been because we were moving to web
2.0, CSS and all of its "magic".
While making stuff is only a side thing, it makes the grind during
the week tolerable. I feel like I have something meaningful in my
life (outside of my family) and it has given me purpose. I'm
grateful for it. And it is so damn fun!
ianstormtaylor wrote 1 day ago:
I can't help but feel that this article was written in a format that is
the textual equivalent of thin desires…
Every sentence is separated into its own paragraph, like each one is
supposed to be revelatory (or maybe tweet-worthy). It's pretty common
design knowledge that if you try to emphasize everything, you end up
emphasizing nothing. The result is that reading the article feels
choppy, and weirdly unsatisfying, since the larger arc of each point is
constantly being interrupted.
Why choose such an antithetical form, to what is otherwise an important
and deep message?
The only answer that comes to mind is that the author's livelihood, or
at least their internal gauge of success, is tied to manipulating
readers' thin desires.
andai wrote 3 hours 8 min ago:
So that the people with the most rotted brains -- those caught fully
in the thick of thin things! -- stand a chance of reading it.
Source: I talk to zoomers. (Some of them couldn't make it through an
article of this length...)
viraptor wrote 16 hours 20 min ago:
It matches the way she speaks in the videos.
I don't mind that.
It's a vibe.
megamix wrote 16 hours 27 min ago:
Sure, but can you at least appreciate the underlying meaning (soul)
of the text?
HPsquared wrote 18 hours 39 min ago:
"Thin Paragraphs"
dynamite-ready wrote 19 hours 24 min ago:
That's not always the intention behind that style of writing.
Often, when I'm communicating with someone who is either dyslexic, or
uses English as a second (or even third or fourth) language, then I
make an effort to shorten sentences, and almost make bullet points of
them.
It's actually a good exercise for the person writing too. Less can
indeed be more.
Kholin wrote 23 hours 23 min ago:
It's like some kind of meta writing, the writing style is proving
what it's talking about.
poemxo wrote 1 day ago:
Your need to quip about the article's presentation instead of its
meaning is a thin desire.
peanut-walrus wrote 14 hours 54 min ago:
Presentation and context are important to understand the meaning of
a text.
testermelon wrote 1 day ago:
In my perspective, this is a style of writing that emphasizes the
poetic side of speech. The thin paragraphs you see is a result of a
rhythmic decision to make it short burst.
More than anything it seems to make sense to read it out loud in a
theatrical performance.
reincarnate0x14 wrote 1 day ago:
It's almost like anti-poetry.
Voklen wrote 1 day ago:
I quite like that this is a more unique writing style and in fact
would encourage people to write "unusually".
chairmansteve wrote 1 day ago:
Still.... the message has value.
mplewis wrote 22 hours 50 min ago:
Not really.
oggadog wrote 1 day ago:
I immediately stopped reading after I saw the format. Absolutely hate
this linkedin style 'everything is deep' posting. It's crap
neuralkoi wrote 1 day ago:
It's not just you. I've read this person's stuff before. Every
sentence comes off as if they are presenting the results of a major
epiphany.
You can write things which sound pretty. It's the equivalent of wordy
sugar. It's much harder to to write things you've learned from life
experience or thought deeply about.
Subject your beliefs to the Socratic method. If they've survived your
own criticism to the fullest extent and can be validated by your own
lived experience, then maybe they've got an inkling of truth and
they're worth writing about.
velcrovan wrote 1 day ago:
Robin Sloan has called this “ventilated prose”, a phrase I
love. (I seem to recall “aerated prose” having also been
deployed)
See, e.g., the end of
[1]: https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/platform-reality/
JKCalhoun wrote 1 day ago:
Rarified prose…
ghostie_plz wrote 1 day ago:
I agree with the general sentiment of your comment, but not this:
> then maybe they've got an inkling of truth and they're worth
writing about.
Ideas don't have to be infallible to be worth writing about. It's a
slippery slope to not writing at all.
tessierashpool9 wrote 19 hours 6 min ago:
"inkling of truth" != "infallible"
#strawmanning
lionkor wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah, this feels very much like one of those sites with random quotes
that seem deep but aren't, like wisdom.spark.pink.
tobyjsullivan wrote 1 day ago:
Reading, I knew someone would comment on it. I actually prefer the
style - maybe because my attention span is shot. But I think it’s
more because the author made sure each sentence was content heavy. No
verbose paragraphs. And paragraphs made of dense sentences are
themselves dense and become harder to read.
Reflect on the structure of your own comment. I suspect you were not
intentionally trying to be ironic.
Edit: revisiting the article, I’ll allow that the author may have
over-done it in some parts. But I think the bias was in the right
direction.
0928374082 wrote 20 hours 26 min ago:
> "my attention span is shot"
Maybe you like being restricted to reading in the ad-copy register,
in which case go ahead and make virtue of vice, but otherwise: this
lack is well within your power to remedy.
markburns wrote 22 hours 5 min ago:
> Reflect on the structure of your own comment
Could you clarify, are you comparing the parent comment to the
article?
unyttigfjelltol wrote 23 hours 40 min ago:
The prose is self-consciously different, makes the reader work a
little harder. One can almost feel a literary water ripple or
pebble garden, stillness and simplicity.
Consider an analogy: the writer knows that a reader readily digests
concepts in C++ and purposely pivots to something obscure like
Pony. The reader says "this is inconvenient, I need to change my
process to digest your work" and the author says "that's the
point."
mplewis wrote 22 hours 50 min ago:
ok, but there's nothing there. The point of this piece is empty
calories.
ssl-3 wrote 22 hours 35 min ago:
I thought the point was about baking bread?
I've never baked a loaf of bread.
I've never baked anything more complex than a pre-packaged
cornbread mix, or a frozen pizza.
Baking has always been someone else's problem.
But having now skimmed through this bit of weirdly-formatted
writing, I might give it a shot.
(Oh, and of that formatting: It reminds me a bit of what
suck.com looked like in the mid-late 1990s. I still have the
sticker they sent me stuck to a thing ~30 years later, but the
suck-branded Gold Circle Coin condom they sent with it got
mangled pretty bad in the mail.)
2b3a51 wrote 7 hours 21 min ago:
I started baking bread because I had a bag of plain flour
(i.e. not bread flour, only 9% protein) sitting in the
cupboard and approaching its sell-by date. So I made 'ships
biscuits', and one thing led to another.
So a bag of what in the UK is called 'strong white flour'
(i.e. protein around 12%, I think it is 'all purpose' in US)
and a sachet of instant yeast and some salt. Followed the
instructions on the bread bag and it worked sort of, a bit
solid but edible and it toasted nice.
Then you just iterate. Lots of stuff out on the Web. I use
supermarket flour and the dried active yeast and the
ingredients are 10x cheaper than even a basic bought loaf.
And mixing and baking is fun.
Sourdough is OK but you then have a pet to look after...
ssl-3 wrote 6 hours 7 min ago:
I noticed last night that I have two bags of "all-purpose"
flour taking up space.
Perhaps the time has come.
aoeusnth1 wrote 1 day ago:
In what way were the sentences content heavy? It's quite
repetitive, and often the meaning of a section of it will be split
into individual fragments.
I get it.
One sentence pragraphs feel punchy.
It feels like you're writing copy for an Apple ad.
..but it only works when it's in another medium, in a shorter
format. In this form, it's just exhausting.
ablob wrote 1 day ago:
A paragraph is a feature designed to help the reader understand the
writer's intentions.
If it is used all the time, just like here, then it ceases to be
helpful in marking breaks in trains of thought; or anything for
that matter.
Consider the following excerpt of the post:
The thick life doesn't scale.
That's the whole point.
So: bake bread.
There is absolutely no information there that would warrant three
full stops. I also don't know the author nearly well enough to
consider pondering its meaning: To my eyes there is only a need to
stop and ponder at most once. It is essentially just noise.
There is something to be gained from the text, but it is overblown
in size due to what appears to be a lack of time or skill of the
author.
PS: If some context is missing in the excerpt: Well to bad that
there is no natural marker signifying that a train of thought has
concluded (or started).
datastoat wrote 1 day ago:
Wouldn’t it be handy if the browser could intelligently join
this author’s sentences into paragraphs?! (in connection to the
thread about Mozilla putting AI in the browser)
wlesieutre wrote 22 hours 4 min ago:
Heck just skip the website and ask the AI to make some text for
you to read
eCa wrote 22 hours 26 min ago:
No, I want to read it (or not) the way the writer intended.
aeve890 wrote 1 day ago:
>The only answer that comes to mind is that the author's livelihood,
or at least their internal gauge of success, is tied to manipulating
readers' thin desires.
From the about page:
>Free subscribers get previews of these essays and occasional full
posts. Paid subscribers get all essays, the most useful ideas,
conversations, and community access.
So maybe you're right.
fallinditch wrote 1 day ago:
This type of layout - short or 1 sentence paragraphs - has been
around since the early days of the web.
An early proponent was the BBC news website, and you can see they
still adopt this style.
The BBC found that breaking up text in this way made it easier to
read on a web page.
nostrademons wrote 1 day ago:
News is the ultimate in thin writing, by definition.
I think the article would've been improved by varying sentence
structure and paragraph length. There is a time and place for
short paragraphs, and they do make things easier to read. However,
the whole point the article is making is that many things that are
worth doing are not easy, and many things that are easy are not
worth doing. It's explicitly advocating for people to engage with
the world around them, even if that means they have to face the
possibility of changing themselves.
Long-form paragraphs are exactly that: harder to read, but they
invite you to grapple with the material that's being written.
Nevermark wrote 1 day ago:
Interspersed single sentence and denser paragraphs, seem to get
the most bang out of both.
My reply was prompted by both the substance and style of your
comment. :)
xiaomai wrote 1 day ago:
I think it makes sense to write like this if you're intended audience
is already used to consuming "thin" desire media.
bee_rider wrote 22 hours 28 min ago:
Hah, that’s a good point. It’s always interesting to see
somebody find a clever little bit of redemption for a widely
disliked aspect in an article—nice.
ianstormtaylor wrote 1 day ago:
I agree with you to a degree. I considered that as a reason as
well, and "meeting people where they are" in communication design
is something I think about a lot.
But if using an approachable format to deliver an alternative
message was the strategy, I think we'd see a few places where the
author tried to stretch the format slightly, to give a few core
ideas more chance to resonate. In which case it could have been a
masterful use of an antithetical format, to prove and point and
enrich the message.
Instead, since the entire post conforms, it feels much more like an
internalized autopilot, or purposefully manipulative technique.
nicbou wrote 1 day ago:
It sounds like a Ted Talk with unnecessarily long poses to let
sentences sink in. For some reason I just can't digest this sort of
writing.
OGEnthusiast wrote 1 day ago:
Possibly AI-generated?
levocardia wrote 1 day ago:
Same reaction - I could immediately tell this person had learned to
write on Twitter (or Linkedin), not real meaty writing. I had an
English professor who wrote "FORM = CONTENT" on the chalkboard; this
article would send him into a fury.
wagwang wrote 1 day ago:
Also the ideas are just reframing the old maxim of "its not the
destination, its the journey".
nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote 1 day ago:
It is that but more than that. There are companies trying to profit
by selling instant gratificaton.
wagwang wrote 1 day ago:
i have meaner names, but lets just call it nod along content
peanut-walrus wrote 1 day ago:
Is the message deep and important or was the article attempting to
manipulate you into thinking it is?
luxuryballs wrote 1 day ago:
I really don’t like this new feeling of not knowing if what I’m
reading is from a person or a machine but I can’t quantify why it
bothers me. I wonder if it will be a temporary thing like in 5 years
nobody will ever care again even though the chance of it being a
machine might be higher.
mapontosevenths wrote 1 day ago:
When I was young my parents were scared that the MTV generation
couldn't focus long enough to watch the "real news".
Not long ago I feared that twitters short form content was
shortening peoples attention spans so much that they would stop
being able to appreciate nuance at all... Then came TikTok.
I don't know what comes next, but I promise you it will be worse.
Either way, it's a race to the bottom and we're not there yet.
Maybe it will be Max Headroom's blipverts?
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekg45ub8bsk
memonkey wrote 1 day ago:
Didn't really come off as design-y or antithetical form and
definitely not manipulating lol, maybe a little poetic or artsy
fartsy. Agree that it's important and deep.
godelski wrote 1 day ago:
Same. It looks like the author is playing with poetry to me.
They're clearly playing with the stanza with the similar lines and
the contrasting lines. Yeah, it's amateur, but who cares? It tracks
with the message.
If anything I think the GP's comment is an example of a thin
desire. Being nitpicky/petty to justify internalizing and actually
reading the post. There's no lines to read between here, it's plain
as day. We are addicted to dismissing things because it's
gratifying and easy. It's trivial to find errors or complaints
about anything, but it's difficult to actually critique. I'd argue
in our thin desires we've conflated the two. It's cargo cult
intellectualism. Complaints look similar to critiques in form but
they lack the substance, the depth.
micromacrofoot wrote 1 day ago:
It's basically the sort of rot writing that proliferates on linkedin
throwaway_2494 wrote 1 day ago:
I disagree. I feel there is a genuine insight at the core of it.
coldtea wrote 1 day ago:
A genuine insight turned into a cartoon self-help scam-artist
LinkedIn inspirational quote cliche version of itself...
PaulHoule wrote 1 day ago:
I think that LinkedIn writing style is so infectious that people
who do have something to say wind up getting sucked into it and
wind up dodging tomatoes in the comment section as a result.
tayo42 wrote 1 day ago:
>wind up dodging tomatoes in the comment section as a result.
Pretty sure the first rule of writing on the internet is ignore
the comments section
PaulHoule wrote 1 day ago:
There’s the prolific curmudgeon with a tomato cannon backed
by a whole tomato farm and then there’s what you get when
people thought your blog post was written by A.I. Ignore the
first.
teekert wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah me too. Lately LI is like:
CMSs are done!
Let that sink in!
Some dude trew away his CMS and vibe coded some markdown based
static stuff that does the same.
No harddrive was wiped this particular time.
The world is different now, reply in comments if you agree. Reply
“airhead” for my 3 slides which are even more insightful than
this post.
DarmokJalad1701 wrote 1 day ago:
> The yeast doesn't care about your schedule.
> The dough will rise when it rises, indifferent to your optimization.
Joke's on them! I run my oven until the temperature inside is ~100F -
about a minute or so. Then I turn it off and set the dough in there
along with some water (for humidity). It rises super fast compared to
my kitchen which is ~65F in the winter and the bread is just as
flavorful. Definitely not indifferent to my optimization.
tekne wrote 8 hours 0 min ago:
People tend to assume optimization means thin. Probably because you
are usually optimised, by others, into thin-ness. To be optimized is
passive.
But I think optimising yourself, or the world, hopefully in a
positive way, is one of the thickest things you can do.
globular-toast wrote 20 hours 51 min ago:
My mother used to put the dough in a warm place. When I tried making
bread I did the same. The bread was always disappointing, having a
taste and texture more like "baked dough" than something I'd consider
worth eating.
I discovered later that the length of time it spends rising matters.
Room temperature (15-19 degrees Celsius) is optimal and will take a
couple of hours for the first rise and less than an hour for the
second. It is of course necessary to keep the dough away from any
drafts. I keep it wrapped in a blanket or towel.
35 degrees Celsius is far too warm and won't give it enough time to
develop the flavour and texture of good bread.
ssl-3 wrote 22 hours 0 min ago:
I don't bake, but I once installed an off-the-shelf PID controller
into my kitchen oven[1] and this gave me some insights on things that
are normally kind of inconvenient to observe (what, with the bright
always-on LED display glaring at me at all times while I was in the
kitchen with a constant report of what temperature in there was).
Like: The oven light. It's an incandescent bulb, which is also to
say that it's waaaay better at being a heater than it is at being a
source of light.
I found that leaving the light switched on in the oven, and the oven
door closed, kept the temperature right around 100F. It varied a bit
depending on ambient, but never by more than a few degrees.
---
[1]: It was an old Frigidaire-built electric range that someone gave
me for free. It worked, until one day when I switched it on at a
sensible temperature setting and put a frozen pizza in there. The
temperature control then failed, and it failed stuck in the on
position. The pizza was very badly burned and looked pretty crispy
when I came back to it a short time later.
And when I tried to retrieve the pizza, the hotpad in my hand was
converted directly from fabric into smoke as soon as it touched the
pan.
While I lamented about the lost pizza and the expense of buying new
replacement parts for an old freebie oven, a friend suggested using a
PID controller and an SSR instead.
So I did exactly that: I bought the parts (including ceramic wire
nuts and fiberglass-insulated wire), cut a square hole in the panel
with a grinder and a deathwheel for the new controls, mounted an SSR
in a recess on the back with an enormous heatsink, and it all went
together splendidly. I put the new bits in series with the old bits,
so it was never any less-safe than it had become on its own accord.
I miss that oven sometimes. It was actually kind of fun learning how
to tune the PID, and to be able to reliably get a consistent
temperature from it.
The oven-light discovery was just an accident; if I actually wanted
100F for some reason, I'd have just set the PID box to that
temperature.
fn-mote wrote 1 day ago:
> the bread is just as flavorful
“Thin bread.”
No sourdough enthusiast or artisanal bread baker would agree. You
even get a different metabolic pathway active at higher temps.
Try the “low and slow” method, rise then let it sit a day in the
fridge, see if it’s really the same taste.
DarmokJalad1701 wrote 9 hours 39 min ago:
Maybe it depends on the yeast? I use commercial yeast and not a
sourdough culture. The one I have ("Red Star Yeast") rises just
fine with the method and the result tastes great!
esperent wrote 1 day ago:
I run a sourdough bakery with my partner, as it happens. Although
I'm not a baker, coming from a mathematics background I'm the one
most focused on process and quality control. We don't use any
commercial yeast so I've picked a few things related to targeting
different flavors using the same starter.
We use different temperature profiles during proofing for different
products (we have fancy proofing fridges where we set temperature
profiles over a 12 to 36 hour period depending on the product). Low
and slow is good for certain types of bread, or pizza base. But not
so much for a brioche or croissant dough.
I personally love slow fermented, heavy rye based sourdough, but
lots of our customers don't and the bread we sell most is a classic
white sourdough fermented comparatively quickly at higher
temperature for a lighter and less sour taste. It's still very slow
fermentation compared to commercial yeast, of course.
The proofing temperature profile for this bread isn't as simple as
"start warm and gradually cool down" (i.e. the warm oven method),
but that is a reasonable approximation for a home baker.
IceCoffe wrote 1 day ago:
Im just learning this is a thing, tell me more, how long do you leave
it in there? Any ratio's you use?
DarmokJalad1701 wrote 1 day ago:
Depends on the method/recipe. Most of the recipes I follow have at
least two rising steps, following by another one after the dough is
shaped into its final loaf (or whatever shape you want). Each one
would be about an hour and half or so. It could be done with a
single rise as well, but two rises tends to give more flavor. If
you don't want it right away, a slow overnight rise in the fridge
is also pretty good.
"No-knead" recipes usually involve 20-30 minute cadence of
"fold-and-stretch" followed by a rise to allow the gluten to
develop naturally without kneading. Usually about four times.
godelski wrote 1 day ago:
Baking is weird. You first should start by following instructions
to the letter. Then once you get it you'll be able to break all the
rules.
The bread rises because of the yeast bacteria eats sugar and expels
carbon dioxide. So ask yourself, what does yeast like? Probably not
hard to guess that it's a warm, moist environment with plenty of
sugar. Too cold and they're slow moving. Too hot and they burn up.
But the goldilocks zone is that of most bacteria, a hot summer day
in the tropics.
How long to rise? That's more a question of how fluffy you want the
bread and how fast the bacteria eats the sugar.
Follow instructions while you're learning but think about things
like this while practicing and you'll get your answers pretty
quickly. The problem is no one can actually give you a direct
answer because there's variance. Besides, the more important skill
is to learn to generalize and get the intuition for it. So pay
attention to how sticky the dough is, how fluffy, how it stretches,
and all the other little things. Think about it during and after.
If you do this I promise you'll get your answer very quickly
kjkjadksj wrote 1 day ago:
Yeast is fungus not bacteria. In lab setting it tends to be
incubated at 30c, a little cooler compared to most bacteria at
37c.
lukevp wrote 1 day ago:
Yep, some ovens (like mine) even have a Proof setting that keeps it
at 100 degrees F automatically, for as long as you want. We make a
lot of bread is how I know this
dmoy wrote 1 day ago:
How long to leave in depends on the dough, but you can get a quick
rise in like less than an hour in the right temperature.
Definitely don't leave it too long. I routinely forget and then it
rises too much and eventually collapses when you go to bake it.
I use like 65% or maybe 70% hydration for bread, little more for
whole wheat. Like 25:1 sugar (or less?), 100:1 salt, 100:1 yeast.
High protein flour if you can.
For just basic bread, no sourdough, not a sandwich loaf, etc.
jmathai wrote 1 day ago:
I found this trick for store bought pizza dough as well. Instead of
leaving out for 20 minutes, a warm oven helps it start rising a bit
and results in a much better final product!
assemblyman wrote 1 day ago:
Even with thick desires, I sometimes find myself day-dreaming about the
state when I have mastered a skill or understood a topic deeply. At the
same time, I know from experience that the process never ends. Even
when one does master a skill, one is deeply aware of what one doesn't
know or understand or what one is not good at within that domain.
What helps me is to focus on today. If I can spend even an hour on a
topic and get lost in it or even get frustrated by it, it is time
well-spent. I was going to say "it is progress" instead of "time
well-spent" but even that's a trap. Progress implies moving forward in
a preferred direction. While I can't say I don't want to make progress,
I am training myself to care less about it. It is really the time spent
engaging that's most valuable (at least to me).
dtjohnnyb wrote 19 hours 24 min ago:
David Epstein calls this "desirable difficulty" in the book Range.
Interestingly he recently discussed how using LLMs tends to remove
this desirable difficulty: [1] This means that the results (both of
the task and of the learning by the student) are lower if the student
uses an LLM first, but slightly improves if they use it second
[1]: https://davidepstein.substack.com/p/a-risk-of-cognitive-conv...
godelski wrote 1 day ago:
If you didn't daydream like that would you have the motivation to
pursue it? Are not those daydreams your kind encouraging you? "Look
how great it'll be, this is why you'll put in the hard work now". You
can get trapped in the dreams, of course, but they're useful too
nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote 1 day ago:
Oh yeah decades in I still feel I know f-all about programming.
Doesn't help the field keeps expanding expintentially. E.g. I look
most things up. I am basicially a slow LLM!
bigfishrunning wrote 1 day ago:
You're kind of the opposite of a slow LLM. LLMs don't look anything
up, they enthusiastically assert that they're correct. They have no
desire to know anything.
CamperBob2 wrote 9 hours 8 min ago:
LLMs don't look anything up, they enthusiastically assert that
they're correct.
Says someone who lectures on how LLMs worked two years ago.
neom wrote 1 day ago:
You might find this interesting: [1] and
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up%C4%81d%C4%81na
[2]: https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/bhavatanha
sans_souse wrote 1 day ago:
Excellent piece, easy to read and I agree on most until this part:
'The surveys all point the same direction: rising anxiety, rising
depression, rising rates of loneliness even as we've never been
more connected.
How could this be, when we've gotten so good at giving people what
they want?
Maybe because we've gotten good at giving people what they want in
a way that prevents them from wanting anything worth having'
As much as it is true we are technologically more connected than ever,
I would argue that much was taken away in parallel to what was given.
The capabilities came to fruit but at the same time the governance and
politics thinned out much of our desires at their core; ie now we're
being told we want more and more because it's been determined we can't
have certain things.
switchbak wrote 1 day ago:
I don't see governance and politics as being the primary movers in
what I seek out.
My experience is more: I find myself spinning my tires watching yet
another youtube video instead of calmly deciding on a worthy
investment of a deep pursuit.
No government has forced that on me, that's mostly a corporate entity
and platform making (automated, ML mediated) decisions on what I
should consume. Of course governments are involved when deciding what
I shouldn't be exposed to, but that's a different matter.
We all have a limited reserve of energy, of attention and willpower.
When you spend it on shallow desires, you have expended it and
tacitly made a choice to not invest in a more meaningful path. If I
were to summarize the time I've spent sitting on my ass watching
YouTube the last N years, it's really quite depressing (even if it
does sometimes provide some very real value).
impute wrote 1 day ago:
Why is every sentence also a paragraph?
micromacrofoot wrote 1 day ago:
when you write like this
people think it's more profound
than it really is
IAmBroom wrote 1 day ago:
the last haiku line
should be about nature, so:
flies are really gross.
nakedneuron wrote 1 day ago:
for what it is worth
sometimes it does seem to work
your mileage may vary
apsurd wrote 1 day ago:
I find myself doing this for anything "work related" like slack. It's
definitely a thing on Linkedin posts.
The idea is it's like TikTok for text. Short self-contained visual
"things" that keep grabbing back your fading attention. I don't like
it, but I like that I think about why it is and that, in a
"professional" environment, it somehow (sadly) makes sense.
SchemaLoad wrote 1 day ago:
I've only ever seen this style as a satire of hustle bros. So I
assume it must be a real thing originally.
nicbou wrote 1 day ago:
When I come across this sort of writing I skip it. If the writer
can't be bothered to organise their ideas I won't do it for them. I
find that writing style oddly grating.
skeeter2020 wrote 1 day ago:
In a post about how thin, superficial (and yes, lazy) things are
destroying the value of your life, sigh...
mattbettinson wrote 1 day ago:
Maybe it will reach the people most in need of it that way
adim86 wrote 1 day ago:
I think this article is really true, and I think a consequence is that
people are really hungry for thick desires these days but they cannot
put a finger on it. They notice themselves not growing, they get the
dopamine hit they were looking for but it feel like empty calories.
As a software engineer, I decided to build an app about side quests.
Reading this article I realized I could not put a finger on what I was
getting at either, but I just knew I hadd to add wholesome activities
that were not part of my life into my life and I kinda built this app
for myself (initially for a hackathon) and just shared it with friends.
Hopefully it's useful to someone else on here (nasty self promotion):
[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sidequests-hq/id6751321255
cammil wrote 21 hours 31 min ago:
It bothered me that you called your self promotion nasty. Not sure
why. You made something, i see no harm in sharing it.
keybored wrote 1 day ago:
Thick hustle.
bgnn wrote 1 day ago:
Great piece!
Made me reflect on my own persuasion of thin desires and my struggle to
control them.
It also made me see that my hobbies and my career are actually about
following my thick desires. I'm in tech, yes. But I chose, among all
the possibilities, to be an analog circuit designer. The analog part is
what makes it a long hard skill to master, and my day job feels like
constant learning from my interactions woth the world. I can't imagine
doing anything which isn't interacting with the actual physical world!
RyJones wrote 1 day ago:
I send postcards when I travel. I love doing it.
[1]: https://findingfavorites.podbean.com/e/ry-jones-postcards/
skeeter2020 wrote 1 day ago:
I'm an Engineering Manager. I print out certificates for people on
(and beyond) my teams, referencing something they accomplished (big
or small), add one of the "boy scout badges" I bought in bulk from
AliExpress (and then retroactively created & reference a set of
values based on the iconography) and mail out "Engineering Merit
Badges" to our remote employees. Maybe a few think it's dumb but the
vast majority love it. The collector-types try to earn the entire set
(I made one of the badges really hard to get because of this), while
physically getting mail really seems to resonate with anyone under
35. A few people more distant from my teams (i.e. different
departments) DID seems supsicious at first when I asked for their
home address, and my boss wondered how I spent several hundred
dollars in postage last year, but I try and send out at least a dozen
a month while still keeping them meaningful. It's actually a bit of
work (of course I wrote software to help manage and create
everything) but I love it too.
RyJones wrote 15 hours 54 min ago:
One my convoys from Tallinn to Kyiv, I make little dog tags [1] and
coins to hand out to drivers and staff. For work, I used to make
poker chips: [2] and coins: [3] . When we did coins, I would custom
engrave them for TSC/TOC/TAC members and people in the community I
knew I would meet at events. [4] See also gift boxes
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYSqxFiEeps
[2]: https://github.com/ryjones/recognition/blob/main/chips.md
[3]: https://github.com/ryjones/recognition/blob/main/coins.md
[4]: https://youtu.be/0LXsauB5Qao
[5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21uGljlJVoI
keybored wrote 1 day ago:
You are creating content[1] that is insightful. To everyone. Equally
known.
We all cheer. We know this. Then we move on.
A catchy title. A novel enough term. That will hook them.
We all read. We all smile. The daily grind.
This insight is not original to me.
[1] It’s just content now
Not essays
Not music
Content
robinhood wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks. It's exactly what I thought, but written in a funny way. I'm
so sick of this way of writing, which is actually tuned to appeal to
the broadest audience possible and follow every guide on "how to
write efficiently".
Twixes wrote 1 day ago:
Halfway the this post, I realized checking the HN front page was merely
a thin desire – so I'm off to read a book. Farewell!
cammil wrote 21 hours 36 min ago:
Just thought this as i glanced your post. See you later!
xg15 wrote 1 day ago:
I have bad news for you - you're not even just "checking" HN, you're
simulating social interaction by writing comments for no one in
particular.
ericmcer wrote 1 day ago:
jokes on you I read this and am replying. But yeah it is an
unhealthy way to scratch the itch.
skeeter2020 wrote 1 day ago:
Like relationships I don't think it's either/or but rather
prioritize. Make the book a priority, and make sure you do it, then
go ahead and read/comment on HN. The extra
knowledge/perspectives/experiences will make your contributions more
valuable for everyone.
xpe wrote 1 day ago:
From "How to know what you really want" by Luke Burgis [1]:
> There are two kinds of desire, thin and thick. Thick desires are like
layers of rock that have been built up throughout the course of our
lives. These are desires that can be shaped and cultivated through
models like our parents and people that we admire as children. But at
some level, they’re related to the core of who we are. They can be
related to perennial human truths: beauty, goodness, human dignity.
> Thin desires are highly mimetic (imitative) and ephemeral desires.
They’re the things that can be here today, gone tomorrow. Thin
desires are subject to the winds of mimetic change, because they’re
not rooted in a layer of ourselves that’s been built up over time.
They are like a layer of leaves that’s sitting on top of layers of
rock. Those thin desires are blown away with a light gust of wind. A
new model comes into our life; the old desires are gone. All of a
sudden we want something else.
Comparing the above conceptualizations with the ones offered by
Westenberg (OP) could consume hundreds or thousands of words -- more
than I want to spend at the moment -- but I will say this: both sets
feel wrong, by which I mean they trigger my early warning detectors.
I'm not asking anyone else to trust my intuition. But you should trust
yours. Intuition is usually a good starting point, at least.
With intuition alone -- without writing a full analysis -- we can see
the above quoted explanations/definitions are highly complected. [2]
Also, in my view, the offered metaphors don't carve reality at the
joints. [3] When I put ~20 minutes of concentrated thinking into the
problem, here are some of the constituent parts of "desire" that I can
unpack. (These are only fleetingly glossed over in the article.) In no
particular order, to what degree are desires:
- conscious?
- intentional?
- intentionally trained and reinforced?
- authentic?
- ones we want to have?
- situational?
- pattern-matched responses?
- evolutionarily-selected?
- socially constructed? (imitative, mimetic)
- moral? (positive, neutral, negative)
- permanent, durable, lasting?
- self-reinforcing?
This is complex!
Over-simplication can be a disservice. Adding another metaphor reminds
me of the "N+1 standards" problem. [4] Maybe the new metaphor helps,
maybe not. Either way, now we have more to sift through.
[1] [2] [3] [4]:
[1]: https://bigthink.com/series/explain-it-like-im-smart/mimetic-d...
[2]: https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hick...
[3]: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/303819/what-do-the...
[4]: https://xkcd.com/927/
snarf21 wrote 1 day ago:
I find it ironic that this perspective is being shared in such a "thin"
way.
There are some insightful observations but the whole thick/thin
perspective just doesn't resonate with me. As an old man (shakes fist
at clouds), we have stopped prioritizing people. It is all about
building and maintaining relationships and we've gotten lazy. And
maintaining relationships is a lot of work and without it we do feel
more isolated. So we try to fill that void with things that don't
require effort like buying crap we don't need on Amazon and chasing
likes on social media. We aren't happy so we try to be busy so we don't
notice so much.
We saw a bit of a teeny correction during covid when people starting
going outdoors and baking bread and cooking home cooked meals. But now
everyone is back to working from home in their pajamas and tell
themselves how happy they are with all the time they save not driving
but skip over the lack of adult interaction (both good and bad).
But the problem is easily solved for each of us by things as simple as
hobbies and volunteering and organizations (church, civic, etc.)
Personally, I design board games and have friends over to test them and
go to board game conferences. We've built a group that still test and
communicate online but are happiest when we get to hang out and play
games and go for dinner. There is no shortage of these opportunities
but you have to get off the couch and join in. It is a place where you
will make new friends and find happiness but you have to decide it is
worth it.
skeeter2020 wrote 1 day ago:
>> And maintaining relationships is a lot of work
this is really true, and I'm hopeful that people will prioritize
fewer, deeper relationships because it's so much work. I feels like
networking in all the superficial ways has allowed people to (believe
they) have way more relationships than is healthy or even possible. I
don't know what the upper limit is (likely different for every
individual) but it's way less than 500 professional connections on
linkedin, or thousands of personal connections. For deep, meaningful,
valuable - and rewarding! - relationships it's probably less than
ten. If you're not prepared to let the rest just atrophy and even
disappear, you're not going to be happy.
snarf21 wrote 1 day ago:
In my experience, it is mostly like 3-5 very close friends and
about a dozen "good" friends. One thing I hear from so many people
is the mindset of "well, they didn't call me back" and turn it into
score keeping. Not all relationships are going to be equitable but
they all require investment or they wither.
morellt wrote 1 day ago:
Completely agree!
The moment after leaving an event/party/service I always feel a
greater sense of purpose, contentness, or at the very least, less
pessimistic about the state of the world
xpe wrote 1 day ago:
> A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it.
>
> A thin desire is one that doesn't.
>
> ...
>
> The person who checks their notifications is [a thin desire],
> afterward, exactly the same person who wanted to check their
> notifications five minutes ago.
[I added the brackets]
The author, I think, would label the desire for sugary drinks as a thin
desire. However, that desire tends towards unfavorable consequences:
mood swings, poor dental hygiene, weight gain. Thus it undermines one's
body. This "changes you" -- for the worse, yielding a contradiction. If
the preceding logical analysis is sound, the article's terms or
argument are flawed.
renerick wrote 1 day ago:
You said it yourself - "sugary drinks... tend towards unfavorable
consequences". The change happens as the outcome of the desire, not
"in the process of the pursuing it".
rpdillon wrote 1 day ago:
The wording was very careful to say the pursuit of the desire changes
you. That's very different than obtaining the desire changing you.
It's not a real remedy for your comment because we could probably
come up with an example where the pursuit of the desire changes you
in a bad way. For example, if you're a heroin addict and you're
breaking into homes to steal things so that you can buy drugs. But I
think it does help narrow the scope enough that the intent behind the
statement becomes more clear.
xpe wrote 1 day ago:
I appreciate your clarity, thanks.
There is something really interesting about people (which I think
I'm borrowing from Atomic Habits by James Clear): Every time you
take an action in service of a goal, it helps prove to yourself, a
little at a time, that part of your identity involves pursuing that
goal. For example, each time I spew out a journal entry or cobble
together a blog post, it reinforces the belief "I am a writer."
With this in mind, it suggests a theory: doing the thing itself
changes you. After some suitable time delay, perhaps. (This is how
exercise adaptation works at least.)
But connecting this together still feels muddled. What is the
difference between doing the thing and the consequences of doing
the thing? The difference feels ... undefined? Maybe even
arbitrary? All of this triggers my "inconsistency detectors"
suggesting more thinking needs to be done.
Maybe the difference is that some actions provide certain emotional
states while we're doing them: satisfaction, flow, meaning -- and
this is what people mean by the first part ("doing the thing").
Maybe we can define consequences as the things that happen after we
stop acting. Like the royalty checks that hypothetically will clog
up my mailbox one day.
coffeecoders wrote 1 day ago:
Us software engineers assume value comes from serving more people,
faster, with less friction. But many of the things that actually make
life feel coherent such as learning a craft, maintaining friendships
and building tools for one person, only work because they’re slow and
specific.
Tech doesn't give us the wrong desires but the easier versions of the
right ones, and those end up hollow.
jimbokun wrote 1 day ago:
There’s nothing especially novel in here but she says it beautifully
and succinctly.
9Mfhf34U wrote 1 day ago:
This is the second time I'm finding out Joan's moved her RSS feed
without announcing it...
jamiedumont wrote 1 day ago:
I’ve noticed a lot of changes on the site recently, which I believe
is powered by Ghost which makes messing around with feed links a more
advanced (for lack of a better word) tweak than many platforms as you
download/upload a routes file. I’m a 10+ year developer and have
found myself chasing route changes in Ghost with trial and error.
phito wrote 1 day ago:
Very nicely written. I've been slowly removing thin desires from my
life. It's hard to do at first, but what I've noticed is once I am free
from them, I do not miss them at all. Almost like I was under a spell.
drdaeman wrote 1 day ago:
I'm not sure it makes sense to classify desires as "good" or "bad"
desires, or "thick" and "thin" (or however we may want to label it).
One can make such a binary distinction, but it could be just as much
as harmful as it could be helpful. There's always a nuance, a hidden
variable that makes the whole thing moot.
If there's anything meaningfully binary, I think it's only an
internal conflict between one's self-perception (who-I-think-I-am)
and one's ideal/goal self-image (who-I-want-to-be) past some
arbitrary threshold. Not transforming and not changing is not an
issue until there's a desire to transform and become someone else
that one has, but that isn't happening (or they don't see it) and
that desire is strong or goes for a while and causes some
non-negligible grief or stress or something that is not in one's own
best interests.
Sure, in stressful modern-day environments, we're especially biased
towards more immediate gratification than postponed one. Especially
if the postponed one may never happen - modern times are crazy
unpredictable. But naively suggesting to dismiss "thin" desires and
pursue "thick" ones is dismissive of rest. I mean, people go to
beaches and spend literal week doing absolutely nothing. Or binge
watch giant series. Or just play games for the sake of it, all day
long. And no one has to hate themselves afterwards - all we really
need to do is to periodically pause and ask "would it be best to do
something else now?" and ponder over that question for a little bit
rather than dismiss it with immediate "no I want more".
And there should be a realization brief 5-minute "rest" to check some
feeds is unlikely to give any meaningful rest. A non-rest
masquerading as resting may be a thing to watch out, but I doubt
there's any criteria, except for doing a retrospective observation
and questioning oneself "does it satisfy my goals/needs, or am I just
wasting my time on this needlessly?".
YMMV, but if there's some meaningful conclusion to be taken out of
the article it should be more along the lines of "budget your time
mindfully of its value and your long-term goals" than some desire
classification model. I'm afraid this "thin vs thick desire" concept
unnecessarily obscures the core idea, possibly to the extent it can
become sort of a red herring.
Whenever a letter is written on paper or only exists in a digital
form shouldn't matter, after all. Neither should a format of resting
matter, be it making bread or watching reels, as long as it actually
provides rest.
Just my thoughts. I can be wrong about it all.
phito wrote 22 hours 5 min ago:
I agree, I would define those *thin desires" as whatever I'm
engaging in a lot automatically, but if I were to pause and ask
myself "do I really want to do this? Is this beneficial to me or am
I being exploited?", part of me would say no. My "thin desires"
might not be someone else's. We each have to take the time to ask
ourselves these questions in order to figure it out.
jfindper wrote 1 day ago:
What are some examples of thin desires you've removed?
NegativeK wrote 1 day ago:
I've slowly pushed away the classic attention manipulating
applications -- basically anything that will find new content to
keep you engaged. Tiktok feels like the maximalist example, but
other similar apps, social media text feeds, and parts of Youtube
(though, I've so aggressively tuned Youtube that it has a very
limited content base to show me.)
TV isn't for TV's sake; it's for relaxing a little with someone I
care about.
I can read longer form news articles and not need to stay abreast
of what's happening daily.
I've found that I'll eventually grow bored and annoyed with things
meant to steal attention, at which point I'll excise them from my
life. It just might take an unfortunate while to get there.
ozymandias8 wrote 1 day ago:
I would watch YouTube for an hour before bed. It got to the point
where I needed it to fall asleep, usually with it playing in the
background.
Replaced it with reading books and now I just read until I'm sleep
enough, usually when I realize I have to reread sentences
repeatedly.
After about a week I had no desire to scroll my YouTube feed for
videos. I didn't block YouTube or anything, I still watch videos
from creators I follow, but I no longer instinctively reach for it
to pass time.
jfindper wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for sharing, that's something I can probably draw some
inspiration from. I never really thought about how often I reach
to youtube to kill time, including putting something on when
heading to sleep.
kalx wrote 1 day ago:
I second this. Almost like I was under a spell.
mtalantikite wrote 1 day ago:
This is a core concept of Buddhism, called tanha, and has been
contemplated for a couple thousand years at least:
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81
cammil wrote 21 hours 38 min ago:
Tanha is about wholesome and unwholesome desires, ie those that lead
to or dont lead to liberation. Its not about desires that do or do
not change you, as this article is categorizing it.
mtalantikite wrote 9 hours 16 min ago:
Do wholesome desires, like practicing the dharma, not change you?
Do unwholesome desires, like staying stuck in your addictions, not
trap you?
My point is that desire is something that is deeply explored in all
three major schools of Buddhism. In the Vajrayana to the point that
we take the most difficult of our base desires as paths of
practice, like seen in karmamudra.
beaker52 wrote 14 hours 47 min ago:
One could argue that staying in one place unchanged, in a space
barred with thin desires, is akin to being imprisoned. And that
following newly cultivated thick desires out of one’s thin prison
sounds just like liberation to me.
rochak wrote 22 hours 30 min ago:
Doesn’t “tanha” mean “by yourself” in Hindi?
mtalantikite wrote 9 hours 10 min ago:
I don't speak Hindi unfortunately, but it's definitely on my list
of languages to study (after Bangla)!
It looks like the Hindi tanha comes from Classical Persian [1],
whereas the Pali tanha comes from Sanskrit [2] [1]
[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%B9...
[2]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81
francisofascii wrote 1 day ago:
This also sounds like one of the core themes of Augustinian
philosophy. The idea of the "restless heart" in that we are never
satisfied with earthly wants and desires.
agumonkey wrote 1 day ago:
Everything new is old :)
moffkalast wrote 9 hours 51 min ago:
Try having an original thought after 110 billion humans have
already lived entire lives thinking.
dddw wrote 1 day ago:
Interesting. Looked fornthe simple English version, alas.
carabiner wrote 1 day ago:
This is the concept of hungry ghost from buddhism:
[1]: https://www.lionsroar.com/buddhism/hungry-ghosts/
nullorempty wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for this.
hyperhello wrote 1 day ago:
“Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the
darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.” T.S.
Eliot
amosj wrote 1 day ago:
Well written, this has given a concrete description to a vague notion
that has been in my mind for a while
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