They really made my point much stronger and clear. In such a subjective and personal topic it can be really helpful to read what other people feel about it and their reasons. Thanks again and I look forward to more interesting such conversations

In particular, I found the following parts a bit dubious:
- what do you mean by ‘change the world’? Why are you considering methods to influence *absolutely everybody* to ‘change the world’ at the same time? Why is it necessary? Will this make society better (seriously?)?
- though it was more of a joke, you mentioned war, but surely you meant “mindset-o-cide” .
- I don’t see anything inherently wrong with the ’small guy’ mentality. In fact, you speak as though people can only think in one of two ways: big guy and small guy, and that they are mutually exclusive. I never see it this way.

What does it *REALLY* mean for everybody to have the ‘right’ to the big-guy mindset? This is what I don’t understand most about your post. You’ve painted a half-picture. So beautiful, so lovely- but in the following part, I’ll examine the other side- the consequences of constantly empowering people to their interests.

Sure, people have aspirations and dreams, and ideally, everybody’ll work at that at their compulsion, but in reality, a society *cannot* be built upon such shaky foundations. Somebody’s got to sweep the streets, cut the local grass, operate at the power station. Labourers must carry heavy loads, paperboys must distribute the entire van-full of papers by dusk. Don’t you tell me there exists people who genuinely want to do those jobs as an aspiration.

They’re permanent jobs, alright, but the staff turnover will be high; in other words, people are forced into those jobs, and leave them as quickly as they join. And no wonder: with a society like this, where money is so empowering, anyone sells their lifeforce (body, and mind, time, and soul) to a willing employer, like a mercenary would fight for a cause they need not believe in- they fight for money. Even just temporarily.

This is the result of the sad reality that not all aspirations can be achieved in simple steps. In maths, they’d call it a “non-trivial constraint satisfaction problem”, really.
Rome was not built in a day. Nor were all the roads that lead there.
Nor were they built by 5 year-olds fresh out of nursery with their candy money.
Nor were they built by teenagers aspiring to be a city planner.
Nor were they built by the 25 year-old working in the HR department in some office, who still aspires to be a city planner, but must pay rent, and bills and MOT, and cigarettes, and food…

And when your repeated stabs at ‘forming a trend’ or ‘making a company’ has failed enough times (with severe financial repercussions), you will not blame them for the small guy mentality.
Let’s face it, not everybody has good ideas, anyway. In business, there are winners, and there are losers. You tend to forget the losers, and assume they can get back on their feet. No- they’ve done what they wanted, they tried to change the world, but their world just collapsed on them.
You simply *can’t* keep doing things. Security is a very valuable thing.

Sometimes, standing there at a bus stop, and not ‘doing anything’, as it were, may save you from the rain that you’re currently sheltered from.

Otherwise, of course, run free through the grass and open sky- but definitely look out for the cliff. Or the man-eating Manu-Eetu tribe.

————— Pedro posted a reply… ————————
Great points!

About changing the world, what I’m basically saying is that people conform too easily. They conform to situations that they hate, and they try to do stuff around those situations to disguise them. That’s what I think is wrong with the “small guy” mentality. “Yeah things suck but whatever, it’s not like we can change it”, when in fact they might be able too. And the “big guys” can easily take advantage of this mentality and indeed make it even stronger and more widespread!. That’s mostly my point. I don’t criticize (at all) if someone is totally happy with roaming the world and growing their own food on every stop. At all, that’s amazing (even though really hard). But you won’t hear those people complaining about how much it sucks that they have to grow their food or whatever. It’s quite a strong stance to do that and they recognize the responsibility (either that or they were really high when they decided to do it…).

You do raise a very interesting point on “who will clean the streets etc…”. You give them a conotation of temporary and in my opinion that’s what they all should be. Unless there is someone who really likes those jobs. Again, they should be seen as means to an end and not the end. I don’t know whether this would be possible, it’s just my pure speculation.

I am also not saying that the end goal for everyone should be to start a company or change the world. But finding a way to fulfil your dreams, that qualifies.

——————— My reply… ————————-
Aye- for those whose dreams are still achievable (which is most of the time, we’re *that* fortunate), definitely, go for it, and start now =]

p.s. this way, everything’s well documented. W00T!

And about thinking successful people were just lucky, it’s also their fault. Nowadays we don’t have a culture of hard work. Even the ones that make it through hard work claim that it was luck (I’ve seen it on TV). So for me, the way to change this is to work hard and change the people we can around us. And if we’re successful, we thank the hard work so that everyone stops thinking its all just luck, and start doing something too.

I really like this bit:
They look at entrepreneurs and successful people and think “That guy got lucky”, or “I’m not smart enough” or “I can’t do that”. I say, why not? WHY do you insist that you aren’t smart enough? Give it a shot, give your best, use yourself as best as you can, explore whatever you see interests you most… but explore! Don’t just wait for stuff to go raining on your forehead, your dreams are more important than that.
I so agree with you! If you want something, you have to pull it towards you, rather than point your finger at someone else and say, “they just got lucky”.

And I can understand the big guy/ small guy mentality you are talking about. However, I don’t think it is the big guy who is keeping the small guy down. I think it’s mostly the small guys’ mindset – that they can’t cause anything. I know a lot of people who are like, “I don’t want that, I just want a simple life. My friends, good and a roof, that’s all I need. I’ll die one day anyway.” They just have a different conversation about what’s possible.

Oh, and I don’t think that a working life is necessarily monotonous – especially for people like brains like you! I think there are many interesting jobs out there – Google or any of the high-tech companies, research-based companies, etc. Again, I think the “boring job” picture is the same mentality as the “he’s luckier than me” mentality.

I like how you end by saying that everyone can play a part in change by just putting whatever they want out there on the internet – whatever it is. Basically, just doing something, instead of sitting on your arse, is what changes the world.

I like! Good job, Pedro! Thanks for posting!

Marita

I like this song – it’s got a feel-good vibe to it. Will definitely keep an ear out for them to study to.

I didn’t realize you were reviewing an album of the artist of the song you sent to me the other day! – I went to the link you posted and wondered why the first song sounded so familiar!

I’ll look into them somemore…

I still encourage on topic comments of course

Also, if the “attack” doesn’t stop, I’ll obviously have to again have the comments on an approval basis… which I didn’t want to do because it makes things less interactive.

I think I’ll try to travel around a bit more though, before deciding where I want to stay. I want to check out how stuff is done in other places to make a more informed decision.

Keep it up!

Her 1st single: http://ihatewheat.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/02-the-story.mp3

You really impressed me back in September when I saw you creating bidings effortlessly for anything you laid eyes upon, in Lisp. Keep up!

Excelente comentário, resumiu muito bem a conversa toda que tivemos (:. Concordo com tudo o que disseste, a língua é assim porque nós a fizemos assim, e de certo modo limita-nos a evolução, restringe-nos ao modo de pensar que absorvemos, mesmo inconscientemente.

PS’s: Escrevo em inglês porque considero que é uma língua mais internacional. Se existissem tradutores automáticos que fizessem um trabalho impecável podes ter a certeza que metia um, nem que tivesse de escrever numa linguagem universal menos ambígua… Durante uns tempos tive um plugin para o wordpress que deixava escrever em várias línguas… mas sou demasiado preguiçoso para fazer a tradução manual dos posts todos… aliás, estou a pensar mudar o formato do blog para um formato mais apropriado ao meu estilo de posts muito espaçados…
No entanto, este post pode mesmo ser em português porque será o público alvo(?)

PS: Devias recomeçar o teu blog . Tens jeito para a coisa!

Primeiro, queria dizer-te que não me parece que tenhas divagado muito. Sério que não.
O texto está fluido como as palavras, e na minha opinião é assim que se sente melhor.

Segundo, quanto ás ideias… bem, como te disse em conversa, a língua é como um organismo vivo. Vive da vida que tem, neste caso, da vida que lhe dão. A língua vive e transforma-se, ainda que devagarinho e sem se fazer sentir…
Para mim a nossa língua, o Português, é algo tão incrivelmente belo, como complexo. Por isso, não sendo eu linguista, é-me difícil ter uma opinião, muito esclarecida e fundamentada. No entanto, tenho sempre opinião, que é minha e por isso, tão valida como qualquer outra.
Assim, na minha opinião, a nossa língua pode de certa forma influenciar a nossa forma, enquanto povo falante, de sentir e estar, connosco e com os outros. Talvez os sons “fechados” não ajudem um pensamento e estar mais positivos. Talvez porque uma das primeiras aquisições cognitivas que fazemos, seja de facto a língua materna, sendo que dessa forma, aparentemente, é como se o nosso cérebro ficasse formatado a uma determinada linguagem, que vai fazer com que interpretemos o nosso mundo interno e externo através de palavras, que formarão pensamentos, ideias e sonhos.
Mas, simultaneamente me questiono… não seremos nós que fazemos a língua? Não somos nós com os nossos seres, que alteramos esse organismo vivo?
Se assim for, parece-me que sem dúvida que os factores históricos, apresentam aqui um papel importantissímo na forma como nos representamos intelectualmente enquanto povo, país, pátria, língua. Porque me parece que todos estes conceitos constituem cada um de nós enquanto individuo singular, enquanto cidadão, mesmo quando não pensamos nisso. Ou sobretudo quando não pensamos nisso.
Nesta forma, e se procurarmos uma abordagem mais psicanalítica, talvez encontremos desde o inicio da nossa história como país, algumas pistas para o nosso fado presente. Factos como os descobrimentos (ou será mais correcto os achamentos?) ou a forma como fizemos as nossas revoluções, na minha opinião, insuflam-nos o ego, mas em seguida, habitualmente não conseguimos dar continuidade aos sonhos pelos quais lutamos, e acabamos por ficar a caminho de lado nenhum…

Honestamente, penso que no nosso “estado de coisas” actual a nível politico, social, económico, emocional, ainda é fortemente influenciado e/ou condicionado pela forma como a ditadura salazarista agiu em Portugal. As suas consequências e condicionantes psicológicas ainda se fazem sentir hoje, e estão de tal forma enraizadas em cada um de nós, culturalmente e moralmente, que pouca ou nenhuma consciência temos desse facto.
Enfim…

De qualquer forma, acho que é uma muito boa ideia queres ir “lá para fora”, ou melhor, ires lá fora, veres outras coisas, conheceres outras e mais pessoas, outras e mais formas de pensar, de sentir, de estar, de sonhar…
Assim como as línguas, Nós estamos vivos, e é bom que queiramos aprender outras formas, para possivelmente nos transformarmos, e sem deixarmos de ser nós mesmos, crescermos e resultarmos num outro nós.

Dizem que só sonhamos na língua que dominamos por completo e sentimos como intrinsecamente nossa. Sendo que o sonho é algo do que de mais intimo, interno e inconsciente que temos…. Viaja, vive, experiencia, aprende, transforma e Cresce!!! A nossa viajem é a Vida! Que a tua seja o que quiseres e fizeres dela.

Beijinhos

Mafalda

ps: esta não é, de facto, uma questão facíl. Por isso, não me parece que exista apenas uma resposta. Talvez existam tantas respostas como portugueses. Seja como for, como nunca nada é linear… “tudo está relacionado”, provavelmente mais do que poderemos alguma vez perceber.
ps2: enfim… demorou mas foi. lol. E ainda dizias tu que tinhas divagado… pois sim!
ps3: não sendo este um assunto facil, e tendo eu andado a pensar nisto… exprimi-me como consegui… com um testamento, e em Português!!!
ps4: já agora… porque não escreves em Português?
ps5: ok, chega de ps’s. =P

Yeah, maybe I got a bit too excited with the ‘everyone’s. I don’t think literally everyone will get all “hacky” and make stuff.
But I think it is patent that the hacking community is getting more social acceptance and is becoming a lot more open to outsiders. And those in the outside who like it will increase the community, leading to a lot more projects.

I agree that the moneymaking giants will always want to be seen as the mainstream cool guys and will lead people to believe that they indeed are. But in my opinion as more and more people get to see how liberating it is to be “free”, the more will coolness turn into freedom, slowly but steadily .

That’s an interesting point of view and very epic-y, I must say. Although I share your enthusiasm, I don’t think that the “hacking era” will ever exist. At least, not “mainstreamingly”.

The free and morally right will always exist as an alternative. But the corporative and closed will always ensure those options stay as alternatives. Money can buy everything. Even people’s opinions.