Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#11

Post by incomingpain » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 4:46 PM UTC

Mine is called the Bible. Which is a greek word for "the books" but commonly understood to be "the holy scriptures'. I'm happy to include Quran and Book of Mormon and all gnostic gospels into this mix; it's not important for this discussion.

Pali canon are also a personal favourite. Tao te ching is similarly good.

I havent read the bhagavad gita or the upanishads, but I should do so.

The reality here is that there's a single uncaused God. Even the polytheistic Hindus believe there's only 1 uncaused God(Brahman). But this God is too complex for human understanding. The religions are all bad, very insufficient, explanations of the God with a cultural lens to help in that understanding.

Your importance of your operating manual is to get you to the point that you live at peace with your neighbours and even your enemies. Life is too short to have enemies. Which is then complex about how to avoid ending up with enemies because cultural differences can be the break. Which is the importance of multiple religions.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#12

Post by brudgers » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 5:02 PM UTC

Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations, and, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which, it seems, is the only way, these days, to get the jaded, video-sated public off their fucking arses and back in the sodding cinema. Family entertainment bollocks. What they want is filth: people doing things to each other with chainsaws during tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens, armed bands of theatre critics exterminating mutant goats-- Where's the fun in pictures? Oh, well, there we are. Here's the theme music. Goodnight.

   —Monty Python, 1983

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#13

Post by gnatman » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 8:17 PM UTC

there’s a bunch of them, but we haven’t agreed on which one is best, yet.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#14

Post by badpun » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 8:45 PM UTC

Plenty of philosophers wrote those. Maybe not in manual form per se.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#15

Post by bawis » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

yawpitch wrote: post #6

tantalor wrote: post #3

Here are a few well known ones off the top of my head: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran

Those aren’t operating manuals, and two of them basically sum up to “if the troubleshooting guide doesn’t work, wait till tech support is back in the office”. At least in the Vedas there’s a bit of a nod to “have you tried powering it off and on again?”.

Your "sum up" of one of them is massively wrong, try to learn more about them.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#16

Post by runjake » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 11:46 PM UTC

Well, first, there are a number of different operating manuals, as already mentioned in the comments.

But why is there not a single operating manual? Because the world is composed of vastly different cultures with their own values, norms, and religions and they have different ideas of how the best version of the self is defined.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#17

Post by yawpitch » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 10:18 AM UTC

bawis wrote: post #15

yawpitch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren’t operating manuals, and two of them basically sum up to “if the troubleshooting guide doesn’t work, wait till tech support is back in the office”. At least in the Vedas there’s a bit of a nod to “have you tried powering it off and on again?”.

Your "sum up" of one of them is massively wrong, try to learn more about them.

If you believe that then I’m certain I know more about all three than you do about any one.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#18

Post by mitchbob » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 11:22 AM UTC

Many colleges and universities have courses on The Good Life taught with different perspectives. Here's one - a YouTube version of the most popular course ever at Yale University - with a focus on psychology:

https://www.drlauriesantos.com/science-well-being

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#19

Post by ohman876 » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 1:14 PM UTC

I guess because various people believe different thing will happen to them when their life ends. The question is- which of those options (on what happens when life ends) is truly what's going to happen. Surely, if Bible is true you want to live such life so you are not ending up in hell, if Quran is true you do whatever it says to maximise the outcome, same for Hindu, Budha, and of course Atheism. I study this to have strong grounding on how to live, and there is scientiffic method to do this, though it requires time and effort.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no operating manual on how to live life?

#20

Post by whatamidoingyo » Fri, Oct 31, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #14

Plenty of philosophers wrote those. Maybe not in manual form per se.

I was thinking the same. Immediately, the "Enchiridion" of Epictetus came to mind. It's also called "The Manual", which is basically a guide to living life from a Stoic perspective. As others have wrote, there are lots of manuals. Maybe too many.