I started this blog because I wanted to investigate what people will do for money and meaning in the near and far future. As I approached it obliquely, it may have gotten a bit muddled, but it remains my main concern. To understand where we are going, I needed to construct a model of where we are. I haven’t yet done that, but I have observations on what people like me and unlike me do for meaning today..
Travel
There are two types of meaning being derived from travel. Business travelers often complain about the demands of their job, and they likely genuinely mean it. But I witness and have succumbed to a small delight in the implied status of the fact that “I, personally, am physically needed somewhere else”. The other type of meaning is the one that certain people get from “seeing the world” or interacting with other cultures. This meaning is harder to describe and prove exists, but it’s become such a generic value that I suggest you try telling people at a social gathering that you “don’t like to travel”. You’ll like be looked at askance and interrogated. And will likely lose status in the average person’s eyes. You will have challenged a common mechanism of generating meaning.
My investigations
I flew more in 2017 than I ever have, including 3 trips to Europe and 26 flights total. I explored a fair number of European cities. It’s hard to estimate how much meaning these travels generated, but based on how frequently I talk about it (even if negatively), I would say some. I’ll now introduce a meaning scale from 1-10 of how much meaning it generated for me. This, of course, is approximate at best and will vary considerably by individual.
Meaning rating: 3
Exercise
Thinking about exercise as meaning producing activity is strange. But it’s hard to argue that Crossfitters, yogis and SoulCycle-ists don’t seem to form a part of their identity around exercise. Those specific activities are easy to pick on because they’re group activities that come with obnoxious life advice—but that’s the point, they’re exercise as meaning creation taken to its logical end—not bastardizations. Marathon training is a solitary activity, but anything you do for that many hours a week must be throwing off a lot of meaning.
My investigations
Over the last several years, I’ve run 3 miles a few times a week fairly consistently, but if I felt like I could get away with stopping, I would. On top of that I’m often invited/dragged to yoga, bootcamp style classes, and SoulCycle. I’ve always liked group exercise, but the group and meaning part always made me cringe.
Meaning rating: 1
Art
Strangely, the most predictable and most ancient “hobbyist” way of creating meaning—the production and consumption of art—seems to be on the wane. Or rather, new arts emerged and have taken the place of old arts. Whatever bizarre number of hours Americans watch tv/surf the internet surely count as arts consumption—and truly this is the golden age of TV and hot takes. I’m just not sure how much identity and meaning is drawn from those things compared to going to a metal show or sculpting things with your hands. It’s possible I’m just a Luddite on this topic—no doubt Youtube video hobbyists and internet bloggers would take issue with it.
My investigations
Over the past year, I’ve listened to more albums intentionally, read more fiction and way more non-fiction than any year prior. My film consumption declined. I went to some really amazing concerts. I’ve shared more book and music recommendations than in the past. Art consumption has always been a big identity driver for me, and I think that it grew this year. Art production has been mixed. I took fewer (zero) art classes this year. Conversely, I started writing, which has been ok.
Meaning rating: 6
Altruism
Doing good things for other people generates a warm glow and a sense of purpose. Donating money to earthquake victims, volunteering at a soup kitchen—these things make you feel meaningful. Unfortunately, generating meaning isn’t the same as generating utility most efficiently. Oftentimes meaning and effectiveness are at odds. People who derive a lot of meaning from altruism have been those who reject effective altruism the most in my experience. Their emotional investments are so high that they can’t accept that their work/time/money has been less meaningful than they feel it is.
My investigations
I volunteered at the Austin homeless shelter by running the computer lab. This mostly consisted of sitting around while the clients did what everyone does on the internet—read email, watched Youtube videos, scrolled through Facebook and occasionally applied for government assistance or jobs. I liked doing this, it generated meaning, it felt good to tell people about doing it. But it wasn’t very effective. I also have gotten very interested in effective altruism and have put some time into how best to implement effective giving into my life. The ideas, conversation and people around EA are very interesting and feel meaningful. Giving away 30% of my income anonymously on the internet…doesn’t feel meaningful, even if it would generate the most utility, which is why I give away dramatically less than that to GiveWell. The meaning-utility gap is likely the biggest problem EAs have to overcome.
Meaning rating: 2
Tribe
Tribe is a catchall for both a community you are in dialogue with (think a church congregation) and an identity group that you consider yourself a part of (the Democratic Party). People clearly generate a lot of meaning from both, but I would argue that communities generate a lot more. This is likely because you are a participant rather than an audience member. I see a lot of shifts from community to identity group that go unnoticed because both generate a tribal feeling that occludes your changing role in the tribe.
My investigations
I struggle with being a member of a tribe, so this was really challenging to investigate. This attitude is probably what makes it easier for everyone to join identity groups—I always vote straight ticket Democrat (unless, this being Texas, the real race is between the GOP and Libertarians), but I doubt I could be in dialogue with the party if I tried. The only big community investigation was my attendance of a Rationalist MegaMeetup in New York. It was essentially a bunch of folks interested in rationality staying in a giant house and talking about stuff. Oh, and Scott Alexander was there. I went with some friends from Austin, so that made it reasonably easy. I really enjoyed meeting a lot of smart, interesting folks doing cool work, but for the most part, I didn’t like the community aspect. I know the whole point is to create an in-group, but that was exactly what I didn’t like.
Meaning rating: 2
Work
It is perhaps unfair to split out work from tribe. At least for people, like me, who work for tribal organizations. What most people think of as meaning being generated from work is the productive use of time to make the world a better place (for some business or person). In companies, this means taking your individual skills and combining them with those of other talented individuals and doing something neither of you could do alone. This productive part of work has not started to generate more meaning than it has in the past. It has just always been a huge meaning machine.
Conversely, as other communities have shifted into identity groups, (and perhaps as art has declined in its generic meaning rating) the relative value of productive work has risen. And organizations have responded to the generic decline in meaning by increasing the community, and thus tribal, aspects of their workplaces. I can’t say if this is good or bad.
My investigations
For the past 4 years, I’ve worked for a strange, Swedish consulting firm that helps Fortune 500 companies do something really hard. We help people change how they think and act at work. On average, I think BTS helps organizations and increases global GDP at the margin. The productive work I do is to help explain this work to clients and shape new offerings. But it’s the community aspects of the company that drive such high meaning.
Meaning rating: 6
Family
Family is difficult because almost everyone has one and almost everyone would say they derive a lot of meaning from it. So I will try to look at what people really do. A large majority of people have children, which is a very concrete action and from which most people say they derive a lot of meaning. Given the time and resource expenditures, they seem to be telling the truth. Conversely, very few people live in multigenerational households caring for aging parents or other relatives. Part of this is increase in healthy lifespan, but part of it must be that they deem it to not be worth it. Perhaps people derive more meaning from family they produce than other family.
My investigations
I did not have a child. But I am quite close to my mother and siblings—we all talk on the phone at least once a week. I didn’t change anything this year that would generate meaning.
Meaning rating: 8 (see the first sentence of family section)
Meaning and Yield Curves
I’ve begun to think about meaning as a sort of capital stock that an individual can grow or shrink via investing time in different meaning generating activities. For instance, my returns to time from art would be higher than my returns to time spent exercising, and thus my stock of meaning would go up.
A potential flaw in this logic is you seem to attribute more meaning to things as the time spent on that thing increases. It’s likely that there is a class of meaning activities that have positive yields that increase as you spend time on them, and others that hit diminishing margin returns (exercise, for me).
There are, of course, also activities that have neutral or even negative yields depending on duration.