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Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

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241–250 of 305 posts

Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

#242
post #3

If cash wasn't a thing, I'd be all in on creating a system that lets you transfer your memories and brainpower into another body or a robot. I'll let you laugh at this like others, but I'm serious.

You will enjoy Netflix series Carbon. Exact same basis for the series.

Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

#243
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because doing it is hard to master, harder to execute, and way harder to be economically succesful at it.

So are a lot of things hard to master but execution is easy for most musical instruments. Just go and hire or buy one. I think this post is the opposite of being economically successful at things

Great, try it some day.

Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the US's strategic goal is to solve homelessness. In that between maintaining world dominance and solving homelessness, homelessness is way less important. Nations choose their sacrifices based on their priorities same as individuals.

Let’s assume that world dominance is the root priority. Your statement implies that solving homelessness wouldn’t be in service of world domination. That might be true, but there’s clearly a minimum effort here: an entirely homeless and starving population would disrupt production, military, research, global economic power in a way that would be detrimental to the goal of world domination. Further, if the population…

(Largely, but almost certainly not completely) solving homelessness would also require solving a massive amount of mental health issues. But I still think that fits your argument (one I happen to agree with). If you want your country to be stronger and more productive it seems like basic common sense to (attempt to) solve hunger, education, health, etc. issues, so your citizenry is more prosperous and productive. I can't think of any way in which the 'rising tide lifts all ships' doesn't at least somewhat benefit most citizens of a country, including those already in power.

But of course that requires a significant level of investment, which is generally the limiting factor, as people who build fortunes are generally disinclined to part with any portion of them. Even for those so inclined, it is hard to get people to agree on what the 'greater good' really is, much more so these days when vast amounts of information is thrown at us often seemingly only in service of dividing us.

Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

#245
I have loved programming for 30+ years and still do the occasional project to scrape/automate things I find frustrating, but I also have afk aspirations such as thru-hiking around the world starting with the tour du mont blanc and moving on to the pacific crest trail and the te araroa trail. Also giving back as a volunteer https://www.justserve.org/ seems a lot more appealing to me than spending my golden years behind a computer screen.

Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

#246
post #242
post #3

If cash wasn't a thing, I'd be all in on creating a system that lets you transfer your memories and brainpower into another body or a robot. I'll let you laugh at this like others, but I'm serious.

You will enjoy Netflix series Carbon. Exact same basis for the series.

Assuming you are referring to Altered Carbon, I would definitely suggest the books, too (or first, IMO).

Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

#247
post #196

I wouldn’t work towards anything. I’d shitpost online, read books, go to the coffeeshop, watch movies, go on walks, etc. Took 3 years off in my 20s to do exactly that and it was incredible. Best years of my life. Would drop everything and do it again in heartbeat if I could swing it financially.

you think it was worth it even though you could have been saving money during that time?

Lol, yes.

I guess it depends on what you think the point of money is.

If you think it’s like getting a high score in Donkey Kong, then you’ll be sad you didn’t max out your gains for 3 extra years. But if you think of money as something you need enough of and that’s it, then you’ll gladly take the 3 extra years of complete freedom.

I only need as much money as I need — not more.

Obviously there’s some risk/uncertainty there and I’m not against saving for the future so I do my best to be prepared. But I don’t see saving money as something that’s worth my time if it can be reasonably avoided.

Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

#248
post #76

This is me. Fortunate to be able to retire at 55, programming my whole life, I love my career even when particular jobs had their issues. So now I work on projects I want to work on, no commute, no 20-person meetings. I'm currently working with a team that's recreating the Prodigy online service servers in Elixir. Having a blast, and I have my next project already in mind, also in Elixir or some other BEAM language.…

Sounds amazing! Have you heard of/checked out Gleam which compiles to Erlang/JS?

Asking because if I was in your shoes, I'd spend all my time to invest in that ecosystem. I got a taste of it in my 3 month semester break where I was able to work on a lot of Gleam and Rust side projects. (Nothing to actually publish, but purely for fun and my own enjoyment).

Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

#250
I don't need to make money anymore. But the type of person you become to earn a lot of money, and the type of systems you surround yourself with to make that happen becomes increasingly difficult to break free from. So the only thing to do is to make even more money. Only you are strong enough to break the shackles.
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