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Why are Adults so busy?

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Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#431

Post by jdimov10 »

fit2rule wrote: post #79
jdimov10 wrote: post #13

The article doesn't really answer the question. It says adults are busy because they have too much stuff to do (duh..) But "why" is still a good question, and it remains unanswered. The answer is that, as we grow up, we tend to develop the belief that our well-being needs to be justified somehow. In other words, we start to believe that we are not by default worthy of living a good, joyful, care-free, abundant life..…

I think this is a wholly narcissistic point of view .. moreso, I believe that the reason adults are so busy is that they realize that none of the luxuries they've gained can be attained without the help of other people working for them and so in order to maintain a fair life, adults work just as hard as others need to - on average - in order to maintain civilized life. Where civilized life is defined in the regions b…

This is not a realisation, it's a belief. And it's a very boring one. I quite enjoy my narcissistic views and have absolutely no interest in trading them in for your moralism ("fairness", "equality", "justice" and other socialist bullshit). Live your own hell all you want, just don't inflict it on others. Since you're a believer in "fairness", I'll cut you a fair deal: I'll keep my luxuries to myself and you keep your "responsibilities" to yourself. Deal?

Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#432

Post by jdimov10 »

gjm11 wrote: post #88
branchless wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try explaining rent to kids. We have to pay to exist? We have to pay how much? And they are right! I don't have a problem doing nothing. I don't care what others think. But I have to work far more than necessary because of the labour skiming rentiers. They are living off my back. Edit: landlords of HN unite to downvote!

I am not a landlord, but I downvoted you for complaining about being downvoted.

What's the problem with complaining about being downvoted? So it's ok to downvote without explanation, but not acceptable to ask for one? HN mods are such wankers, it's pathetic.

Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#433

Post by branchless »

Programmatic wrote: post #420
branchless wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They often barely break even with mortgage payments, maintenance, dealing with deadbeat tenants, etc. Sure, once a house is paid off, they have a nice source of income So they get several hundred K for very little work that anyone could do. There is no risk with the central bank land ramping. In urban areas they are limiting supply, forcing up prices and taking labour. If someone does very little work and gets seve…

If it was free money, everybody would be doing it. If it has no downsides, what's stopping you?

I don't want to exploit working people. Weird, eh?

Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#434

Post by branchless »

randomdata wrote: post #430
branchless wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and the landlord creates nothing

The landlord either created the house, or the landlord created someone else of value and traded it for the house that someone else created. Houses don't appear out of thin air.

No they got it in the main on credit which they and the bank then use to share the labour of a working person.

Also the house is often worth far less than the land.

Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#435

Post by djsumdog »

retro64 wrote: post #291
anexprogrammer wrote: post #236

Well this is clearly written by someone without committments and children. Young adults used to be having children. With young kids around, the laundry and responsibility for dependents figures become hours daily, not weekly. When they're a bit older there's less cleaning but now you're running them around more and ensuring they meet their commitments. With more gadgets, chemicals and domestic appliances we've just i…

What used to be a trigger for inventing a game, building a den, or making something new with lego is far more filled with minutes on YT. This hurts to read because it really nails it. This very thing has been on my mind quite a bit lately after watching my older kids now as young adults. We managed to keep them away from much of this simply because we never thought it necessary, but apparently not to the extent I wis…

I find this with myself. I have articles I want to write and large lists of stuff on index cards on my wall that I want to create.

Every time I come to Hackernews or Slashdot or Reddit, I really should be going to my editor and writing or picking a card off the wall and finishing that thing I want to do.

Obviously, right now, I'm failing. :-P

Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#436

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

coldtea wrote: post #80
Pikago wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But "why" is still a good question, and it remains unanswered. Because maintenance takes time and it's not handled by your parents anymore.

And yet people in certain European countries and tons of other parts in the world with different work attitudes can have tons of free time, despite having children et al.

they have more free time in small towns because usually your grandparents and parents and in-laws live close by and will help with babysitting (often people these days are only children, so plenty of parents/grandparents available to help), cleaning and cooking, not to mention that in general you live within ~10 minutes commute of your workplace.

North America is a lot more "everybody fends for themselves" than Europe, I mean, here parents will charge rent to their kids and nobody bats an eye, so forget about free babysitting and/or your mom coming over to clean your place and leaving your fridge stocked with leftovers. Not to mention living in sprawly cities with huge commutes in general...

Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#437

Post by riboflava »

sapphireblue wrote: post #288
wolfgke wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder how much more free time we would have, if only 10% of workforce that currently does web/mobile/game apps (including myself) would apply their skills to automating their daily life with simple robots. The skills for building a robot are quite different from the skills for building "classical" software. For example for classical software one can do correctness proofs/analysis, while for robots one can only d…

>The skills for building a robot are quite different from the skills for building "classical" software. I'd object that on the contrary, arduino and http://www.espruino.com/ require mostly the same skills (plus some basic maker-tier hardware skills which are easy to gain). For example Espruino is programmed in javascript. I have bought ESP8266 boards for 3.5$ each and with espruino firmware that gives me a wifi-enabl…

As soon as you have to buy something that takes up physical space, the "skills", or maybe better put the "mindset", becomes quite different. I don't think I can explain it very well. In principle someone who can understand a flow diagram (which is, to only mildly exaggerate, all a circuit diagram is) and master the complexity of getting a web application published online should be able to do what you did with the $3.50 board. They almost certainly could do everything in a short amount of time at a workshop with all the hardware provided and a printout of instructions. But once they're home, without a similar set of instructions for "buy this here, do this, do that, to accomplish this" it's unlikely you're going to see much robotic/smart-home creativity even after a workshop. Meanwhile unlimited complexity and creation can be had in the web app realm without having to leave the comfort of your keyboard, or even having to buy anything.

I just remembered this post which I think helps better capture some of what I'm talking about: https://plusbryan.com/its-just-wood But I think there's something else besides avoiding things that are mysterious. I think it has something to do with the physicality of the thing. At least something else is needed to understand the weird reluctance with working with hardware that a lot of software-only people have, who differently from the general public (who can't even use their computers) are sharp enough to battle with mind blowing complexity and solving mysteries of bugs or how new languages or APIs work every day behind their screens.

Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#438

Post by Paul_S »

douche wrote: post #72
knorker wrote: post #57

Much of this doesn't apply to me, but mostly because I've been implicitly trying to avoid it. I don't do my taxes because I can buy an accountants time, but I can't buy more "time". It's another reason I don't want a huge collection of "stuff". "Stuff" takes your time. I don't have a car for this reason, and I live in a city that doesn't require one. But the article is motivating me to be more explicit about the thin…

This is my single biggest justification for not doing my own laundry. I've run experiments. If I take my laundry to a laundromat, run it through the washer, move it to the drier, (run it through the drier again because it isn't dry), fold and put it all away, it costs me about $12 in quarters. It also costs me two or three hours of time, where I'm pretty much stuck at the laundromat, unable to do anything really wort…

I don't understand it. We've had washing machines for decades in this country. Surely USA can afford them as well. You can get a used one for nothing. Literally.

Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#439

Post by dota_fanatic »

VLM wrote: post #235
kale wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing can prepare you for the "crap I can't do anything spontaneous now" like having children. I recently had to let tickets to a concert go (that I was really looking forward to) because the babysitter had a family emergency. And this is a deep confession that I've never really told anyone: I envy my divorced friends with kids. Every other week they (usually) are child free. And get to do things like mow grass, ha…

"I won't admit this out loud, though." You should give it a try, my wife and I get occasional nights and weekends off, its pretty nice. Also we live in an area with an active city parks and rec, and we have a childless date night with each other this very Friday night, I don't even know what parks and rec class my wife signed the kids up for (probably the fall kickball tournament, the Halloween party is next month).…

What you're describing and what the parent described seems very different to me. Not only does "every other week off" vs "occasional nights and weekends off" have an obvious quantitative difference, it has a very strong qualitative difference.

1 day off to every 5 on or 2 to 10 is a very different pattern than 7 to 7 consistently until they're grown and hopefully self-sustaining.

Re: Why are Adults so busy?

#440

Post by tropo »

johnward wrote: post #334

They only accounted for 40 hours for work. What professional today is only spending 40 hours working and/or increasing their skills related to work? Especially if you are on HN. 2 hours for dependents? I take it that doesn't mean children? Another thing I will never understand is how so many of my fellow American Males can watch basically every football game during the week. Who has time for that? I don't even have a…

In government, hours are often limited.

For federal contractors, any extra hours must be paid (not legal to work for free) so normally it's only 40, or perhaps 47 at a real sleazy place.

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