When children are young, parents and grandparents take care of them. When a spouse gets sick, the other takes care of them. When children are older, they take care of their parents and grandparents.
When people aren’t getting married and having children, things get very weird as far as caretaking goes (and other things) and no amount of pleading or social engineering can solve this.
>no amount of pleading or social engineering can solve this
Isn’t the institution of marriage itself a form of social engineering? I agree that trying to build new social institutions from whole cloth is a huge lift, but at the same time I don’t think it’s impossible to imagine alternative social arrangements that allow for the care of the elderly.
Marriage is the highest form of social engineering, it is an observed fact that it is the primary driver of the civilizing process in human history.
Its absence and the resultant breakdown is being observed in real-time, it should be no surprise that the degradation of society from its absence takes a long time to be felt and it will take a long time to repair this error.
When children are older, they take care of their parents and grandparents
Not around here; many parents and grandparents are put away into care homes. The tax code even penalizes multiple generations living together as many elderly benefits are conditional on total household income.
The beginning of the film "Threads" comments on the total interdependence of modern society. The rest of the film proceeds to show what happens when it is forcibly removed, and it's not a good outcome.
I mostly agree with the point, and I love the little soundbite from it - "care is infrastructure" - but I also can't help but to think there is something to the "society's version" of independence. It's actually the paragraph about care being not usually thought about as infrastructure, that made me think it needs to be said.
The difference between driving your own car vs. having a spouse/friend get groceries for you is precisely the direct involvement of another person, the dependence of relationship there. Yes, the car needs maintenance and roads and fuel/electricity, etc., we're all connected through network of relationships this way, but those relationships are indirect, they're mediated through things.
If I need something now[0], the car is there, fueled and ready, and so are roads and streetlights, and my watch tells me the store is open. I can make decisions myself, react to situations, and there are no other people I need to consider. There is no power relationships, no messy social stuff. My car won't be elsewhere because they had a sudden appointment, or be awkward to operate because my kid had an argument with its kid in the morning, etc.
To be clear: I'm not saying we should seek to distance ourselves from other people, and eschew deep, real relationships. But I am saying that the distance and things intermediating is actually a feature in many cases, and that kind of independence is valuable.
Why? I'm not sure. Two main factor I know are real, are:
- Social stuff is messy and exhausting, you don't want to invoke it every time you need to take trash out or fix a leak, if you can avoid it;
- Doing something yourself is often immediate, while asking for help (including hired help) takes much, much longer, so this kind of independence is worth it for time/focus savings
Just some thought. Again, I mostly agree with the author, and am grateful this article was posted here.
--
[0] - Figuratively, I don't actually drive myself.
> To be clear: I'm not saying we should seek to distance ourselves from other people, and eschew deep, real relationships. But I am saying that the distance and things intermediating is actually a feature in many cases, and that kind of independence is valuable.
> - Social stuff is messy and exhausting, you don't want to invoke it every time you need to take trash out or fix a leak, if you can avoid it;
> - Doing something yourself is often immediate, while asking for help (including hired help) takes much, much longer, so this kind of independence is worth it for time/focus savings
This is one of the cases where our impulses to reduce friction may ultimately be harmful, in this case especially for introverts. You solve all the "problems" like the ones you list, and then you find yourself isolated and alone without really meaning it.
I don't think people have the instincts to directly seek all the things they need (proof: if we did, almost everyone would be fit and no one would be fat). We're adapted to live in a particular environment, and features of that environment (especially in the past) would indirectly force us to get some of the things we don't have an instinct to directly seek, even if we didn't really like it at the time (e.g. if you have no option but to walk everywhere, you're going to be a lot fitter than most of us who can drive).
Is it worth it or not can be function of your income and your skill set obviously; So it it about your level of independence.
During covid era, I fixed someone else's toilet because her condo management was not picking up the phone. You assume that there is always someone that would respond and that is not always the case.
I will change the dishwasher that is leaking at the bottom my self and I am capable of figuring if say the dishwasher is fixable at a cost lower than buying a new one or not or is it just the hose that is leaking. If you can't diagnose it, do indeed call the plumber but make sure that you turn off the valve or you would damage to the walls and the floors below. Interdependence will not necessarily replace the ability to diagnose and figure what are necessary actions.
> Social stuff is messy and exhausting, you don't want to invoke it every time you need to take trash out or fix a leak, if you can avoid it;
I think it's a lot less exhausting when it's a skill you use often. The problem is that modern society and technology allow us to solve 99% of our problems alone so those social muscles are deeply atrophied for many people.
I find the article to be morally upright and goodfeeling nonsense being used as a cudgel to redefine independence as dependence rather than acknowledging that the two factors coexist in different concentrations depending on class.
Independence is not infrastructural support, it is *choice*. You may depend on a housekeeper, but I depend on my own body to clean. That housekeeper doesn't get to say "I'm too busy to do my job"; not many times, at least. Because wealth means you get a new housekeeper, while poverty means you get a single aging body.
In the context of a world with AI increasingly being positioned to become a mediator of reality and access, I find the article distasteful and dishonest.
Just for the record - it's not a class thing; the colonial cultures stem from the Viking culture (largely) which favoured independence over interdependence.
Most other cultures favour interdependence - Asia, rather famously, doesn't have a pension/superannuation program (in general) because their cultures are heavily geared toward elderly living with their children and grandchildren.
How is that not pseudo science. Colonialism and Vikings would be separated hundreds of years and long distances. And there are no indication Vikings were less dependent on each other than in other iron age cultures.
This is an AI-generated essay about AI. And I know what the rebuttal is going to be, but I'm getting older and it's really hard for me to keep up with all the AI essays on HN. To streamline the concept of online engagement, maybe I could have AI read and respond?...
As you engage with this blog post, let me ask you this: is that the future you want? Where HN is just an Clawdbook-style playground for agents? Or do you favor a future where AI generates an infinite number of blog posts, but we're expending human resources to read them and engage? If it doesn't matter if there's human effort behind it, what's the end game for online communities?
> Independence, as our culture usually defines it, means completing a task without help.
This isn’t true. A business owner completes tasks with the help of employees, but unless he is indebted to a lender, he is still ordinarily thought of as being independent. Independence is a spectrum, and people who require that the world be re-engineered so that they can access it are generally on the lower end of that spectrum.
> The difference between their dependence and mine is not that mine exists. It is that mine is visible. […] A person who drives to the grocery store is considered independent, although the car depends on fuel, roads, mechanics, insurance, and a global manufacturing network. A person who orders groceries because they cannot walk through the store may be considered dependent.
The author is conflating two kinds of dependence. Lots of people rely on food delivery. If a food delivery system breaks down, it could be an existential threat to both parties, the difference is that the able-bodied will tend to have a greater level of optionality in how they respond to this kind of breakdown.
Someone suffering from kidney failure is obviously more dependent on the supply chain than someone who is not suffering from kidney failure. There is a debate to be had about how much this gradation matters if both categories of people are still mortally dependent on a system; am I independent if I can cross the street by myself but don’t know how to grow enough food to feed myself?
You talk about still different things, like resilience.
The idea, a business owner must be "independent" refers to them being financially independent regarding their income streams relative to "dependent" employees.
That doesn't necessarily hold true in all cases, it's an over-generalization to begin with. But it also is independent from your "lower end of the spectrum": you can be disabled and own a business. And demands of disabled people aren't worth less?
So, (in)dependence is context-dependent. Hence your spectrum. But the author's point is, it's not the same as (it's independent from) autonomy.
Shaping society based on vaguely defined/understood concepts leads to undesirable outcomes.
> This isn’t true. A business owner completes tasks with the help of employees, but unless he is indebted to a lender, he is still ordinarily thought of as being independent. Independence is a spectrum, and people who require that the world be re-engineered so that they can access it are generally on the lower end of that spectrum.
This concept is a myth - the "self made" isn't any such thing
Interested to see the conversation here on HN. Tech independence and the idea of owning the systems and machines we operate are topics that frequently surface among enthusiasts. Yet, independence may not be the best way to describe it. Does autonomy fit the bill, satisfying a sense of self-direction while also reaping the benefits of our interdependence at large?
I think that's closer. There is no full independence, it cannot exist in civilization. But the degree of control and autonomy varies, and arguably is the important stuff.
And I feel this is actually aligned with the "invisible" independence vs. "visible" one, because asking someone for help is invoking social mechanisms, with all their complexity and messiness, and basically giving up autonomy on the task.
There's a very poor political movement that I have a strong distaste for (libertarianism) which preaches pure autonomy, but almost always fails because we need to put our resources together to build infrastructure.
We don't live in a utopia where we can behave with impunity - humans need to regulate, cooperate, and manage resources
while it is true that interdependence has always been there. But there are different levels. Can a person unclog the sink and toilet without calling the plumber. Can a person change the flush mechanism without calling a plumber. Can they change the bathroom fixtures without calling a contractor; Can they renovate the kitchen without hiring contractors. Can a person fix the lawn without calling professionals. Can they trim the bushes in backyard without hiring someone. Can they clear the snow themselves or would they need to hire a person. Can they wash their own car without going to car wash. Can they cook without ordering food. Can they clean without hiring cleaning people. Can the paint the wall without calling painters. Can fix the fallen button of the jacket without help. Can they cut their nails without going to a nail salon. Can they cut their own hair; Can they call their bank to figure who is billing them without using an Ai agent and cancel services they don't use. Can they invest without hiring professionals. Can they do their homework without using Ai. Can they learn how to swim without a teacher.
So there are many levels and many are more independent than others. There is a huge cost difference between one who is less interdependent and one who is very interdependent.
If you can make $100/hr and can pay a contractor $30/hr to do something, why should you do it yourself (especially if you work full time and would rather use your free time for something else)?
If the skill is quick to learn, does it make sense to pre-learn it (and maintain the skill!), or just have the resources on hand to learn it if necessary?
I think this is presupposing that your skills are fixed and if anything happens you're stuck with always being dependent on others even if it's a really bad deal for you. That's not the case for most of these
A lot of these skills generalize way beyond the immediate problem. I don't have a "fix the faucet" skill, I don't even think in these terms - more in terms of "operate wrench", "operate set of screwdrivers", "understand how water faucet works", "understand how plumbing works" (at high level), and these skills let me diagnose and fix many problems myself, most of them not even related to water faucet. Etc.
Other considerations:
- Sometimes you need a solution NOW. Household infra tends to break down on Saturdays and Sundays a lot for some reason.
- Sometimes it's not even about efficiency. Like, we got ourselves an allotment garden recently. Per your $100/hr vs. $30/hr math, I could and should just hire a bunch of contractors to clean it up and set it up for us. But for me, this defeats the point of getting that garden in the first place.
- Some work is too small for a contractor with necessary skills to come, unless you let them bill you for 10x the work. I had to learn how to patch holes in ceiling myself, because the price for getting the 4m x 5cm hole fixed was the same as for renovating the whole ceiling.
EDIT:
Also what 'lotsofpulp said - sometimes you want the outcome to have a very particular shape or quality level, and to guarantee it, you'd need to micromanage the contractor so badly, that in many cases it's easier to do it yourself.
If you are capable of doing it yourself, but choose to hire somebody else to do it, then you are not dependent. If you are not capable of doing it yourself and must have somebody else do it for you, then you are dependent.
Finding someone who will take your money is easy. Finding that they can actually be trusted to do the work correctly, on budget and on a compatible schedule may or may not take more time than actually doing the thing itself.
Also, if you do not bother to learn at all, you have no way to verify that the work is actually done correctly. People will absolutely take advantage of your ignorance.
> you have no way to verify that the work is actually done correctly. People will absolutely take advantage of your ignorance.
Is that avoidable? Learning it yourself doesn't scale to more complex things. I can't go through medical school just to verify that my doctor's recommendations are good
There is a lot of your time involved in hiring someone else even if not active labor. And potentially stress in finding a contractor who will do a good job and the right job.
Doing it yourself can be rewarding and potentially much quicker. Why not do it yourself if you're able ( and assuming its not one of those things a pro could do in 1/10th the time).
You have to make the extra $100 per hour to pay the $30. So the employer has to agree to hire you for more hours. Don't forget you have to find unpaid time to find a person who would do the job.
Well regardless of how it works for me, people's incomes are not function of spending or consumption; so income is not a variable that can be adjusted typically against spending.
An independent electrician can take on an extra job to make more income, or less work if they don't need it. Is that not a variable that can be adjusted?
I agree that most people aren't in that situation and they're dependent on a specific employer giving them work, but it's not an impossible situation.
Sure if they can wing it, of course they should do it. Technicians are the best in evaluating the required amount of work that is needed for sure and they have large circle of contacts too.
Right on. Finding the person who do it right is harder than doing it yourself. If they are any good, they will charge a lot or quit in time and find a better paying job.
A lot of things have no total ordering, independence level including.
If a person A can unclog the sink and person B can trim the hedges, they are not comparable to each other; however both of them are less independent that person C who can do both.
This ordering requires defining the scope, and the narrower the scope, the easier it is to compare people. If you only look at "maintain the rented city apartment" and "live in rural house" in isolation, it's pretty easy to rank people by independence. But if you say that _either_ of those counts as "independence", the things get much harder to qualify. But either way, there will be people who can't do anything, people who can do everything, and a large mass of "uncomparable" people in the middle.
OK, I love this questions. For me, the hedges I could ignore for quite a few months. But I want the darn sink unclogged immediately. Which, I guess, is why I've made quite a mess a time or two.
Depends on the place and how expensive is the plumber. Around where I live, cutting bushes can be very expensive and so are plumbers. It all depends on the amount of labor and cost per hour.. Both are expensive.
well you don't call a plumber to unclog a sink, you'd call a "handyman" or someone like that. You call a plumber when you need a new feed off of a buried gas line. I think you have to factor in the expertise needed which will drive cost per unit time.
You are right; I have never called anyone to know who to call.. LOL. I have an allergy to finding people to do minor stuff which is work itself harder than the work that needs to be done. There are people in gig economy that do that stuff too.
It's the same k-shaped tug of war and general grift as ever.
A good design is an accessible design, but those with the means to pay for good design are increasingly being funneled into buying more bespoke products that prioritize materials and aesthetics over functionality. When the damn thing doesn't really work as expected, it's a waste. You don't even need to cram it full of quickly obsoleted gadgetry to pull this off. It doesn't really matter if it's durable and looks amazing when it's useless. Whatever gets you to buy another one anyway.
The only people happy with this situation are those who sell us overpriced junk. They're laughing all the way to the bank.
If we want more accessibility, we need to be making better designed products with mass appeal. We're well into a postmodern world where cost can be adjusted for any price point without sacrificing the design. Their trick is to introduce deliberate subtle flaws into products to keep you buying. It needs to stop. We need standards.
Anything we do to stop enshittification at this point is like fixing a sinking ship with duct tape. You're working against human nature, it's not going to happen.
When people aren’t getting married and having children, things get very weird as far as caretaking goes (and other things) and no amount of pleading or social engineering can solve this.
Isn’t the institution of marriage itself a form of social engineering? I agree that trying to build new social institutions from whole cloth is a huge lift, but at the same time I don’t think it’s impossible to imagine alternative social arrangements that allow for the care of the elderly.
Its absence and the resultant breakdown is being observed in real-time, it should be no surprise that the degradation of society from its absence takes a long time to be felt and it will take a long time to repair this error.
Not around here; many parents and grandparents are put away into care homes. The tax code even penalizes multiple generations living together as many elderly benefits are conditional on total household income.
The difference between driving your own car vs. having a spouse/friend get groceries for you is precisely the direct involvement of another person, the dependence of relationship there. Yes, the car needs maintenance and roads and fuel/electricity, etc., we're all connected through network of relationships this way, but those relationships are indirect, they're mediated through things.
If I need something now[0], the car is there, fueled and ready, and so are roads and streetlights, and my watch tells me the store is open. I can make decisions myself, react to situations, and there are no other people I need to consider. There is no power relationships, no messy social stuff. My car won't be elsewhere because they had a sudden appointment, or be awkward to operate because my kid had an argument with its kid in the morning, etc.
To be clear: I'm not saying we should seek to distance ourselves from other people, and eschew deep, real relationships. But I am saying that the distance and things intermediating is actually a feature in many cases, and that kind of independence is valuable.
Why? I'm not sure. Two main factor I know are real, are:
- Social stuff is messy and exhausting, you don't want to invoke it every time you need to take trash out or fix a leak, if you can avoid it;
- Doing something yourself is often immediate, while asking for help (including hired help) takes much, much longer, so this kind of independence is worth it for time/focus savings
Just some thought. Again, I mostly agree with the author, and am grateful this article was posted here.
--
[0] - Figuratively, I don't actually drive myself.
> - Social stuff is messy and exhausting, you don't want to invoke it every time you need to take trash out or fix a leak, if you can avoid it;
> - Doing something yourself is often immediate, while asking for help (including hired help) takes much, much longer, so this kind of independence is worth it for time/focus savings
This is one of the cases where our impulses to reduce friction may ultimately be harmful, in this case especially for introverts. You solve all the "problems" like the ones you list, and then you find yourself isolated and alone without really meaning it.
I don't think people have the instincts to directly seek all the things they need (proof: if we did, almost everyone would be fit and no one would be fat). We're adapted to live in a particular environment, and features of that environment (especially in the past) would indirectly force us to get some of the things we don't have an instinct to directly seek, even if we didn't really like it at the time (e.g. if you have no option but to walk everywhere, you're going to be a lot fitter than most of us who can drive).
During covid era, I fixed someone else's toilet because her condo management was not picking up the phone. You assume that there is always someone that would respond and that is not always the case.
I will change the dishwasher that is leaking at the bottom my self and I am capable of figuring if say the dishwasher is fixable at a cost lower than buying a new one or not or is it just the hose that is leaking. If you can't diagnose it, do indeed call the plumber but make sure that you turn off the valve or you would damage to the walls and the floors below. Interdependence will not necessarily replace the ability to diagnose and figure what are necessary actions.
I think it's a lot less exhausting when it's a skill you use often. The problem is that modern society and technology allow us to solve 99% of our problems alone so those social muscles are deeply atrophied for many people.
Independence is not infrastructural support, it is *choice*. You may depend on a housekeeper, but I depend on my own body to clean. That housekeeper doesn't get to say "I'm too busy to do my job"; not many times, at least. Because wealth means you get a new housekeeper, while poverty means you get a single aging body.
In the context of a world with AI increasingly being positioned to become a mediator of reality and access, I find the article distasteful and dishonest.
Most other cultures favour interdependence - Asia, rather famously, doesn't have a pension/superannuation program (in general) because their cultures are heavily geared toward elderly living with their children and grandchildren.
As you engage with this blog post, let me ask you this: is that the future you want? Where HN is just an Clawdbook-style playground for agents? Or do you favor a future where AI generates an infinite number of blog posts, but we're expending human resources to read them and engage? If it doesn't matter if there's human effort behind it, what's the end game for online communities?
This isn’t true. A business owner completes tasks with the help of employees, but unless he is indebted to a lender, he is still ordinarily thought of as being independent. Independence is a spectrum, and people who require that the world be re-engineered so that they can access it are generally on the lower end of that spectrum.
> The difference between their dependence and mine is not that mine exists. It is that mine is visible. […] A person who drives to the grocery store is considered independent, although the car depends on fuel, roads, mechanics, insurance, and a global manufacturing network. A person who orders groceries because they cannot walk through the store may be considered dependent.
The author is conflating two kinds of dependence. Lots of people rely on food delivery. If a food delivery system breaks down, it could be an existential threat to both parties, the difference is that the able-bodied will tend to have a greater level of optionality in how they respond to this kind of breakdown.
Someone suffering from kidney failure is obviously more dependent on the supply chain than someone who is not suffering from kidney failure. There is a debate to be had about how much this gradation matters if both categories of people are still mortally dependent on a system; am I independent if I can cross the street by myself but don’t know how to grow enough food to feed myself?
The idea, a business owner must be "independent" refers to them being financially independent regarding their income streams relative to "dependent" employees.
That doesn't necessarily hold true in all cases, it's an over-generalization to begin with. But it also is independent from your "lower end of the spectrum": you can be disabled and own a business. And demands of disabled people aren't worth less?
So, (in)dependence is context-dependent. Hence your spectrum. But the author's point is, it's not the same as (it's independent from) autonomy.
Shaping society based on vaguely defined/understood concepts leads to undesirable outcomes.
This concept is a myth - the "self made" isn't any such thing
And I feel this is actually aligned with the "invisible" independence vs. "visible" one, because asking someone for help is invoking social mechanisms, with all their complexity and messiness, and basically giving up autonomy on the task.
We don't live in a utopia where we can behave with impunity - humans need to regulate, cooperate, and manage resources
So there are many levels and many are more independent than others. There is a huge cost difference between one who is less interdependent and one who is very interdependent.
If the skill is quick to learn, does it make sense to pre-learn it (and maintain the skill!), or just have the resources on hand to learn it if necessary?
I think this is presupposing that your skills are fixed and if anything happens you're stuck with always being dependent on others even if it's a really bad deal for you. That's not the case for most of these
Other considerations:
- Sometimes you need a solution NOW. Household infra tends to break down on Saturdays and Sundays a lot for some reason.
- Sometimes it's not even about efficiency. Like, we got ourselves an allotment garden recently. Per your $100/hr vs. $30/hr math, I could and should just hire a bunch of contractors to clean it up and set it up for us. But for me, this defeats the point of getting that garden in the first place.
- Some work is too small for a contractor with necessary skills to come, unless you let them bill you for 10x the work. I had to learn how to patch holes in ceiling myself, because the price for getting the 4m x 5cm hole fixed was the same as for renovating the whole ceiling.
EDIT:
Also what 'lotsofpulp said - sometimes you want the outcome to have a very particular shape or quality level, and to guarantee it, you'd need to micromanage the contractor so badly, that in many cases it's easier to do it yourself.
Also, if you do not bother to learn at all, you have no way to verify that the work is actually done correctly. People will absolutely take advantage of your ignorance.
Is that avoidable? Learning it yourself doesn't scale to more complex things. I can't go through medical school just to verify that my doctor's recommendations are good
Doing it yourself can be rewarding and potentially much quicker. Why not do it yourself if you're able ( and assuming its not one of those things a pro could do in 1/10th the time).
This sounds like you're dependent on your one employer for work. That might be the most important thing to become independent of!
I agree that most people aren't in that situation and they're dependent on a specific employer giving them work, but it's not an impossible situation.
I like to do things myself or learn how to when I cannot sufficiently predict the quality of the service I will get or if the damage can be too great.
This ordering requires defining the scope, and the narrower the scope, the easier it is to compare people. If you only look at "maintain the rented city apartment" and "live in rural house" in isolation, it's pretty easy to rank people by independence. But if you say that _either_ of those counts as "independence", the things get much harder to qualify. But either way, there will be people who can't do anything, people who can do everything, and a large mass of "uncomparable" people in the middle.
well you don't call a plumber to unclog a sink, you'd call a "handyman" or someone like that. You call a plumber when you need a new feed off of a buried gas line. I think you have to factor in the expertise needed which will drive cost per unit time.
And efficient functional systems.
I collaborate with systems all day now.
A good design is an accessible design, but those with the means to pay for good design are increasingly being funneled into buying more bespoke products that prioritize materials and aesthetics over functionality. When the damn thing doesn't really work as expected, it's a waste. You don't even need to cram it full of quickly obsoleted gadgetry to pull this off. It doesn't really matter if it's durable and looks amazing when it's useless. Whatever gets you to buy another one anyway.
The only people happy with this situation are those who sell us overpriced junk. They're laughing all the way to the bank.
If we want more accessibility, we need to be making better designed products with mass appeal. We're well into a postmodern world where cost can be adjusted for any price point without sacrificing the design. Their trick is to introduce deliberate subtle flaws into products to keep you buying. It needs to stop. We need standards.