Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Life is Short

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 452 posts

Re: Life is Short

#151

Post by vdnkh »

NhanH wrote: post #48
vdnkh wrote: post #42

I'm (only) 23 and I've felt this for a while. I've been trying to leave my small no-name company for a higher calibre job in NYC for a few months now. I guess I'm lucky because I know what I want - but I need to wade through extreme amounts of bullshit to get there. I'm very efficient with my time but if I made every second worthwhile, I'd go nuts. Sometimes BS time (videogames, the pub, etc) are necessary.

> I'm very efficient with my time but if I made every second worthwhile, I'd go nuts. Sometimes BS time (videogames, the pub, etc) are necessary. Be careful with equating "unproductive" and bullshit. Society at large only cares about your productivity, and there is always pressure for you to do "productive" thing that advances some imaginary life ladder. From your POV and benefits, all those productive things might a…

What's productive to me isn't always considered productive to society, but I do "objectively productive" things like exercising and personal projects.

Re: Life is Short

#152

Post by azakai »

> In middle school and high school, what the other kids think of you seems the most important thing in the world. But when you ask adults what they got wrong at that age, nearly all say they cared too much what other kids thought of them.

That doesn't mean they were wrong when they were kids.

On the one hand, we want to believe the adults because they have perspective and experience. They were those kids. But on the other hand, we should also believe the kids because they are actually living it.

Re: Life is Short

#153

Post by alexandercrohde »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #62

Summary: - Poses the hypothesis that "Life is short" - Proposes an 'objective' basis for this feeling: some of his most meaningful life events happen 8 or less times - Transitions that the shortness of life justifies avoiding "bullshit," while acknowledging that's a loaded term. - Proposes examples of "bullshit," traffic jams, unnecessary meetings, bureaucracy, and arguing online. - Suggests arguing online is an exam…

I'd be curious to understand the downvotes. I felt I gave this essay a very objective treatment.

Re: Life is Short

#154

Post by sigmaml »

xenadu02 wrote: post #6

I'm a more productive engineer now that I have small kids than I ever was before. I don't have time for bullshit. I don't build my own PCs, I buy Macs. I don't waste time building some over-architected nonsense on a side project, I ship the MVP. When I do take time away from my kids I maximize it by learning three or four new technologies, patterns, or libraries at once. When you realize how short time really is you…

> I don't have time for bullshit. I don't build my own PCs, I buy Macs.

It is sad - and disgusting - to see this degree of arrogance in bluntly categorising those who use (or build) PCs (and not Macs) as indulging in bullshit!

I am happy that you have found a useful computer in Mac. At the same time, though, please realise that hundreds of millions of computer users choose otherwise too. And, please do not conclude that they have time for bullshit just because of that!

Re: Life is Short

#155

Post by 55acdda48ab5 »

> Life is short, as everyone knows

I've never got this sentiment. Life is the longest thing anyone has ever done. Life is long, very long. I think back ten years ago and it seems like an age ago. It was. I'm early 30s and I feel like I've lived a long life; seen a lot and done a lot and had my kicks. That I've maybe got another full 60 years if I play my cards right is amazing to me. It seems like eons.

The only funny thing about time I've noticed is that as you age (and if you read) the past gets closer and closer. When I was a kid finding out people were born in the 1940s was amazing. SO long ago! Now Napoleon's reign seems very relevant and modern to me.

Re: Life is Short

#156

Post by woah »

noobermin wrote: post #112
alexashka wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is it sounds like Vonnegut was quite content to go for a stroll and chat up the sales clerk. This is in stark contrast with 'I wish I spent more time with person X'. When you live a simpler life, you have simpler pleasures. When you live a high-brow life, all of a sudden you grasp at experiences because you're not sure when the next one is going to come around the corner. Hence missing people, or feeli…

You can do both. I love seeing the blue sky and clouds and I love just walking outside even if a bike ride or bus ride would be faster. I also want to not be late for work, and have enough time to finish my errands. I want to have comfort and pay off my student loans and see Europe before I turn 35 (had to move the goal posts, unfortunately). It comes down to balancing things. Also, chatting with a sales clerk, reall…

You can fly to Europe round trip ~$700 or cheaper if you look around and are not particular about which city you start in. Why not see it now?

Re: Life is Short

#157

Post by xiaoma »

sjg007 wrote: post #145
xiaoma wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't have a "bully pulpit" because he's hyper rich. He's been writing fantastic essays that have been widely shared for much longer than YC has existed (including one responsible for modern spam filters which made email usable again 16 years ago). Also, I think the last 2 essays pretty much nailed it. If you found them "laughably wrong", it was likely due to the assumptions you brought with you to reading them,…

The Bayesian spam thing was already known before the essay. Essayists should expect critiques. His argument was that technology is the creator of inequality and it can't be stopped. That startups (and stock options) capture a lot of that wealth is a side effect. This is the capitalist thesis. It's not quite Randian but it's close enough that it comes across as one dimensional. In his defense he said we should focus o…

>"His argument was that technology is the creator of inequality and it can't be stopped."

Not quite. The argument was that technology is a lever that multiplies the differences in productivity between us, not that it is the creator of it.

>"That startups (and stock options) capture a lot of that wealth is a side effect."

Businesses generally capture this wealth. PG has argued in many essays that start-ups are a great path for the most productive of workers to capture the value of their contributions rather than cede them to existing business areas.

>However the counter to the capitalist thesis the most direct way to address inequality is taxation

But is this really what we want? Do we want to broadly discourage all wealth creation at the same time? Or would it make more sense to focus on the non-productive drivers of inequality, rent-seeking behavior etc?

The essay suggested (quite accurately) that actual taxation rate doesn't change much due to tax avoidance issues. Even now, we have what appears to be a very progressive system on the surface. But due to its complexity and many, many loopholes, those with more income pay a lower rate than average in practice. Simply declaring a top tax rate of 90% wouldn't stop this and hasn't in the past.

Re: Life is Short

#158

Post by fao_ »

siddboots wrote: post #75
numlocked wrote: post #67

And for a completely different perspective, we have Kurt Vonnegut: [Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope] “Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a…

Another very different perspective, from Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life": "So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so our life is amply long for him…

These need not be conflicting viewpoints, it depends on how much value you ascribe to certain activities, and how much joy (intellectual or otherwise) you get out of it.

Sometimes meandering in the manner of Vonnegut means your mind has chance to work on other things in the background, and as a result of this it gives you inspiration, etc.

Slightly on topic: Something I realised lately is that a lot of the activities I do are nothing but stress relief. So to have time to do things I want to do (studying, etc) I attempt to limit stress as much as possible, and not add more stress to the pile by accosting myself for the occasional daydream, etc.

Re: Life is Short

#160

Post by giaour »

xiaoma wrote: post #122
drhayes9 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From PG's essay "Economic Inequality": "Most people who get rich tend to be fairly driven. Whatever their other flaws, laziness is usually not one of them... Variation in productivity is far from the only source of economic inequality, but it is the irreducible core of it, in the sense that you'll have that left when you eliminate all other sources." This feels like the heart of that particular essay and displays a r…

How is the idea that variation in productivity leads to a variation in income a "breathtaking misunderstanding of poverty"? It's absolutely true that variation in productivity leads to a variation in income and it's also true technology acts as a lever and is increasing the variation in productivity between people. At no point did PG say anything like what you claim it "sounds like" he is saying. The essay was an arg…

Keeping in mind that PG is a venture capitalist -- as in, a financier -- how should we apply your interpretation of his essay to PG himself? His current job is incubating companies and then collecting returns, so are you saying that PG was arguing that he is the problem?

Edit: s/rents/returns/

Post reply on HN