Sorta surprised that this got so many up votes with the clickbaity title, which goes against norms around here

Otherwise th content seems good

I'm not talking about 10 year time horizons no

we know that's not what US executives were thinking because they don't think that long-term due to the incentives they face

The story of "they're doing something that's bad in the short term, but good in the long term, but only accidentally they're actually trying to do something good in the short term but failing" seems suspicious.

I know that the CEOs I know do plan in the long term.

I also know that the many of the worlds most famous consumer brands (Apple, Amazon. Tesla) have valuations that only make sense because people trust the CEOs to prioritize the long term and those future earnings are priced in.

And I also know that if you look at the spending budget of many of the top consumer tech companies, and the amount spent on longterm R&D and moon shots, it sure looks like they are spending on the long term.

I don't think that's the sophisticated argument for switching your in house app to the cloud. There's a recognition that because it's more efficient for developers, more and more talent will learn to use and infrastructure will be built on top of cloud solutions.

Which means your organization risks being bottlenecked on talent and infrastructure if you fall too far behind the adoption curve.

When magazines talked about, say, "microservices" or "the cloud" being the future, it actually made them happen. There are enough executives that are gullible or just want to be given something to talk about and work on that it established an environment where everyone wanted to get "microservices" or whatever on their resume for future job requirements, and it was self-sustaining.

Is the claim here that cloud computing and microservice architectures are less efficient and a mistake?

median rationalist at roughly MENSA level. This still feels wrong to me: if they’re so smart, where are the nobel laureates? The famous physicists? And why does arguing on Lesswrong make me feel like banging my head against the wall?

I think you'd have to consider both Scott Aaronson and Taylor Cowen to be rationalist adjacent, and both considered intellectual heavyweights

Dustin Moskovitz EA adjacent, again considered a heavyweight, but applied to business rather than academia

Then there's the second point, but unfortunately I haven't seen any evidence that someone being smart makes them pleasant to argue with (the contrary in fact)

The whole first part of the article is how this is wrong, due to the gaming of notable sources

One way that think about "forces beyond yourself" is pointing to what it feels like to operate from a right-hemisphere dominant mode, as defined by Ian McGilcrist.

The language is deliberately designed to evoke that mode - so while I'll get more specific here, know that to experience the thing I'm talking about you need to let go of the mind that wants this type of explanation in order to experience what I'm talking about.

When I'm talking about "Higher Forces" I'm talking about states of being that feel like something is moving through you - you're not a head controlling a body but rather you're first connecting to, then channeling, then becoming part of a larger universal force.

In my coaching work, I like to use Phil Stutz's idea of "Higher forces" like Infinite Love, Forward Motion, Self-Expression, etc, as they're particularly suited for the modern Western Mind.

Here's how Stutz defines the higher force of Self-Expression on his website:

"The Higher Force You’re Invoking: Self-Expression The force of Self-Expression allows us to reveal ourselves in a truthful, genuine way—without caring about others' approval. It speaks through us with unusual clarity and authority, but it also expresses itself nonverbally, like when an athlete is "in the zone." In adults, this force gets buried in the Shadow. Inner Authority, by connecting you to the Shadow, enables you to resurrect the force and have it flow through you."

Of course, religions also have names for these type of special states, calling them Muses, Jhanas, Direct Connection to God.

All of these states (while I can and do teach techniques, steps, and systems to invoke them) ultimately can only be accessed through surrender to the moment, faith in what's there, and letting go of a need for knowing.

It's precisely when handing your life to forces beyond yourself (not Gods, thats just handing your life over to someone else) that you can avoid giving your life over to others/society.

Souls is metaphorical of course, not some essential unchanging part of yourself - just a thing that actually matters, that moves you

In the early 2000s, we all thought the next productivity system would save us. If we could just follow Tim Ferriss's system and achieve a four-hour workweek, or adopt David Allen's "Getting Things Done" (GTD) methodology, everything would be better. We believed the grind would end.

In retrospect, this was our generation's first attempt at addressing the growing sacredness deficit disorder that was, and still is, ravaging our souls. It was a good distraction for a time—a psyop that convinced us that with the perfect productivity system, we could design the perfect lifestyle and achieve perfection.

However, the edges started to fray when put into action. Location-independent digital nomads turned out to be just as lonely as everyone else. The hyper-productive GTD enthusiasts still burned out.

For me, this era truly ended when Merlin Mann, the author of popular GTD innovations like the "hipster PDA" and "inbox zero," failed to publish his book. He had all the tools in the world and knew all the systems. But when it mattered—when it came to building something from his soul that would stand the test of time—it didn't make a difference.

Merlin wrote a beautiful essay about this failure called "Cranking" (https://43folders.com/2011/04/22/cranking). He mused on the sterile, machine-like crank that would move his father's bed when he could no longer walk. He compared this to the sterile, machine-like systems he used to get himself to write, not knowing what he was writing or why, just turning the crank.

No amount of cranking could reconnect him to the sacred. No system or steps could ensure that the book he was writing would touch your soul, or his. So instead of sending his book draft to the editor, he sent the essay.

Reading that essay did something to me, and I think it marked a shift that many others who grew up in the "productivity systems" era experienced. It's a shift that many caught up in the current crop of "protocols" from the likes of Andrew Huberman and Bryan Johnson will go through in the next few years—a realization that the sacred can't be reached through a set of steps, systems, lists, or protocols.

At best, those systems can point towards something that must be surrendered to in mystery and faith. No amount of cranking will ever get you there, and no productivity system will save you. Only through complete devotion or complete surrender to forces beyond yourself will you find it.