Re: General advice beyond Org

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2018-05-21, at 20:07, Bob Newell <bobnewell@bobnewell.net> wrote:

> It's tempting to fall back on the clichéed idea that one goes from
> idealism to cynicism as one ages. But one does acquire some practical

No, one goes (or should go at least) from the naive idealism to the
reasonable idealism.

Also, maybe (just maybe) one goes from thinking about one's ideals in
the abstract way to gradually understanding that a lot of ideals are
about other people.

> knowledge, and learning when to compromise and when not to compromise
> is one example.

Yes.

> As I said far above in this thread and a few others have echoed, we
> need to pick our battles. Some battles aren't worth it, while others
> are mandatory. And that line varies as much by individual as it does
> by battle domain.

OTOH, there are also battles that are not "worth it" in purely pragmatic
sense, and they are indeed worth fighting in moral sense.  "There are
some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the
end may be dark", as Aragorn once put it.

> I mentioned that I worked in one environment that was completely
> locked down with absolutely zero deviation permitted. That made work
> very much more difficult, especially as it was just about pure
> Microsoft. But the job was good; it was worth doing, it paid well
> enough, it was challenging, and it wasn't something I would quit just
> so I could go somewhere else that embraced FOSS. That was more of a
> business decision than a moral one; I'm not RMS and while FOSS is
> important to me, it's not a hill to die on. Your own mileage may vary,
> and that's fine.
>
> If, on the other hand, the job required me to go out and kill all
> people of a certain race or religion, it would be an entirely
> different matter and no amount of pay or benefits would get me to do
> that. It's a deliberately ridiculous example made to illustrate the
> point that the "line" lies somewhere in-between. For most people it
> will be somewhere above pure idealism and somewhere below stark
> cynicism.

Ah, the joys of Darboux-style arguments! ;-)

But you're right.  Of course, in the usual case we are somewhere
in-between, and sometimes it is quite hard to decide what one should
do.

> Wow, we are SO off topic!

Are we?  I don't think so.

Best,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl