Dr. Cat Hicks in Elk: "Let's all go to church and recite the..."

imho, the machinery of myth-making is actually very easy to understand in this industry and it's not about burnout lol

Let's all go to church and recite the litany of the grind factory, lmfao. Let's spread our gospel to the children, no it's because they're "hardcore," not because they're tractable!! For sure the actions of a culture that has a strong handle on the human mind haha

August 7, 2025 at 4:08:47 PM

I can't tell you all what to do with this whole thing you've built here but I CAN teach you to understand it and in my experience that really defangs it

Knowledge workers having a good time and treating each other kindly and being inclusive about the future is actually so profoundly terrifying to the machine that they have to construct the most elaborate mental prison possible to convince you you can't be that way

They are working against your own psychology but they're doing a good job at it! They're exploiting the parts of you that respond to threat, and they're dangling always conditional belonging in front of you to convince you that you have to cling to groups and leaders and Technical Superstars that you secretly hate looking up to. The only way past this is seeing through it.

Replying to someone

Indeed