51–60 of 116 posts
First you want it so that you could do whatever it is that you really want to do. Then when you have eventually got the money, you're likely to be in a position where money is no longer the priority—but rather the priority is what you really want to do. Sure, you take the money, you have the money, and you value the money's worth but it's not the thing that's driving you.
I stopped reading at "wage-slave". Let's not use language that implies that working for a wage is slavery. Slavery is always forced on you, you have no choice but to work, not because you need to eat, but because the man with the whip says so. It's offensive to compare the situation of a slave and someone who earns a salary. Slavery is force, not from nature, but from another human being, if you can't see the the dis…
Hierarchy of needs: air, food, shelter. If you live in the USA and want food and shelter, you cannot get it without paying the man taxes. Even if you own your own land, you must pay taxes on it. The counter argument (that one could be a homeless person), is no more useful than pointing out that a slave could choose to die: yes a hard choice, but a choice non the less. So the creation of a tax system, whereby a person…
I stopped reading at "wage-slave". Let's not use language that implies that working for a wage is slavery. Slavery is always forced on you, you have no choice but to work, not because you need to eat, but because the man with the whip says so. It's offensive to compare the situation of a slave and someone who earns a salary. Slavery is force, not from nature, but from another human being, if you can't see the the dis…
Maybe 'wage-indentured-servitude' would be more to your liking, since indentured servants made a (more clear-cut) choice to enter into the life they have?
This comparison goes the whole way back to Aristotle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
To answer the authors question. Absolutely sell out, if your first success buys you the freedom to fail a thousand more times it is worth selling. He said those that would sell out are those that don't already have FU money, that they aren't in the club. Those founders that hold out might already have that FU money and are free to risk holding out. Each founder in those cases can't be compared. A man asked me to foll…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hierarchy of needs: air, food, shelter. If you live in the USA and want food and shelter, you cannot get it without paying the man taxes. Even if you own your own land, you must pay taxes on it. The counter argument (that one could be a homeless person), is no more useful than pointing out that a slave could choose to die: yes a hard choice, but a choice non the less. So the creation of a tax system, whereby a person…
You can leave anytime though. Slaves can't.
There's an illusion of choice, but choosing to work between McDonalds and Burger King isn't really a choice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you can tell people you work with or work for to fuck off. As said. A disgrace.
In some circumstances - if you're being exploited - it's the appropriate response.
Exploited to me smacks of child labor and indentured servitude. I highly doubt there are child laborers and true slaves reading HN. But they do exist, and in larger numbers than you probably thought possible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Current_situation
That's more than the population of many countries.
the reality is you’re doomed if you’re even asking yourself the question. You know what I think? I think people who tell themselves ‘if I make $X million, then I’ll stop working and do what I want’ never make that $X million. I'm not sure the OP has grasped the complete psychology of FU money. Surely the value of FU money is not to allow one to stop working, it is in the emotional pay-off for the security it represen…
In the world of high-stakes poker, it is commonly understood that the only way to make a million dollars playing poker is not to want to make a million dollars. If you care about the money, your lizard brain takes over and stops you from taking the risks you need to take. As soon as you see the chips on the table as dollar bills, you're finished. Practically the definition of greatness in poker is the ability to play…
I have to say, I nearly threw this article across the proverbial room after reading the second paragraph: > Before that point, you’re just adding frosting on the lifestyle cake of your wage-slave existence. Beyond that point, you can forget about aspirational consumer buying of 48-inch flat-panel TVs. You suddenly confront the most existential questions in human life: what do I do with my life? What’s a good life? No…
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds. Bob Marley EDIT: Based on a speech by Marcus Garvey
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What technology worker spends all day worrying about survival? It's not hard to save up a couple years living expenses on a software engineer salary, and it's not hard to find another job (or even found a successful company) if you have a couple years to do it.
Many people with wage-based jobs adjust their lifestyle so that they're always living, roughly, paycheck to paycheck. Also, I tried to get across that I mean survival in the sense of "What do I need to do in the short and long term to make sure I can get by?"
PS: IMO, unless you have children there is little stopping the average developer from retiring at 45.