Why Life Can’t Be Simpler • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#101

Post by xmprt » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:11 AM UTC

WetMinister wrote: post #99

superasn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what drives me crazy? All these people talking about how great technology is and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time if nobody uses it? It just turns into more busy work, right? You never hear somebody say, "Well, with the time I’ve saved by using my Word Processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out.” (Jesse)

Also applies to the very tired ”work smarter, not harder” saying: it never means working less with the time you gain but actually means ”work smarter so you can work even more”

At some point, you stop working though right? And all that smart work probably earned you enough money to retire early compared to someone working a dead end job.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#102

Post by throwayws » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:11 AM UTC

pritovido wrote: post #90

toper-centage wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is simple* * YMMV. You might need to live in a developed world that assures you won't be left to die, that is not at war, that you can find a way to sustain yourself, and that you're not involved in any accidents that drastically change your otherwise simple life.

I have been in countries at war, like Congo, and life there was the simplest thing you could have. In fact, all the complexity appears when there is peace. People do not save or study or anything secondary when there is war. Are you going to study when you don't know where your family is? When your mother or sister or daughter has been raped and you have to protect her for being raped or killed? When they go after yo…

> You make a simple mistake(like looking weak, with no friends or too smart) and you die, it was as simple as that.

Dying is simple, life living is harder.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#103

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:22 AM UTC

WetMinister wrote: post #99

superasn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what drives me crazy? All these people talking about how great technology is and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time if nobody uses it? It just turns into more busy work, right? You never hear somebody say, "Well, with the time I’ve saved by using my Word Processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out.” (Jesse)

Also applies to the very tired ”work smarter, not harder” saying: it never means working less with the time you gain but actually means ”work smarter so you can work even more”

That depends on your career goals and your attitude towards the concept of "buffer time", though.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#104

Post by dan00 » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:23 AM UTC

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #58

mStreamTeam wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is funny because the most unhappy and anxious people I know are cat owners.

I remember talking to a coworker friend of mine who was a cat owner. She said that she didn't understand dogs. They just loved you unconditionally all the time no matter what. So I guess she liked the life with the cat where it was just randomly mean or not interested in her sometimes. Kind of illustrated things to me.

> So I guess she liked the life with the cat where it was just randomly mean or not interested in her sometimes.

If you think your cat is randomly mean to you, then you really don't understand your cat, you don't correctly read the clues it signalizes to you.

If I'm e.g. petting my cat and don't stop if she starts wagging her tail, which pretty much means she's overexcited, then she will scratch me to make it more clear to me.

To expect that your cat is all the time interested in you also seems honestly quite a bit narcissistic.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#105

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:23 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #97

superasn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what drives me crazy? All these people talking about how great technology is and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time if nobody uses it? It just turns into more busy work, right? You never hear somebody say, "Well, with the time I’ve saved by using my Word Processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out.” (Jesse)

I am getting "smart" technology fatigue. I want old fashion technology, mechanical, analog. Whiteboard, Pen and Pencil, Dump TV.

Yeah, "smart" is just a marketing buzzword.

It's not an intrinsic property of technology, either. It's just businesses that want to take advantage of you in new and more abusive ways. Don't let them.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#106

Post by dan00 » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #63

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gotta earn it with a cat. Dogs are for people that need the reassurance of the unconditional love Cats are for people who have the kind of levels of self-confidence that makes the unconditional love of a dog both suffocatingly annoying and suspicious.

Depends on the dog. Get a terrier. Best of both worlds. You have to earn their love, and they're as prickly as cats sometimes. But you can also take them hiking, skiing, biking, or just chilling by a campfire growling at hypothetical bears in the dark forest at night.

> Get a terrier. Best of both worlds. You have to earn their love, and they're as prickly as cats sometimes.

Yes, might be really the case. I'm pretty much a cat person and when I'm thinking about getting a dog, then terriers are pretty much on top of the list.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#107

Post by onion2k » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

superasn wrote: post #81

carabiner wrote: post #15

I see this all around me. People are fixated on careers, hobbies (FOMO), spread thin by family obligations and errands. The truth is, happiness does not derive from these things. This "busyness" is an invention. Life is simple, and happiness actually derives from having cats.

You know what drives me crazy? All these people talking about how great technology is and how it saves all this time. But what good is saved time if nobody uses it? It just turns into more busy work, right? You never hear somebody say, "Well, with the time I’ve saved by using my Word Processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out.” (Jesse)

The problem with everything that 'saves time' is that it doesn't save time in way a that actually frees up blocks of time, because most things in your day are running to someone else's schedule. Saving 10 minutes here and 20 minutes there only adds up to give you hours to do what you want if you're not waiting for some event to let you begin the next task. If you are waiting for something then saving 10 minutes just gives you 10 minutes more dead space in your day to spend waiting. If I have two meetings and I can manage to get the first one done early the only impact that will have is that I'll have to wait longer until the second one. I guess that's a little more time to spend writing nonsense on HN, but it doesn't feel useful to have saved that time.

Saving time on tasks to give yourself more time to do other things only works if you have complete autonomy over your schedule.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#108

Post by cameronh90 » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #87

jamil7 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the other side of that is you can often take a dog or kids with you in the car or train but with a cat it’s a bit trickier. That being said my mum used to throw (kinda literally) the cat in the back of the car when I was a kid and we’d drive 2 hours to my grandmas place. The cat didn’t seem to care much and went to sleep.

A dog on the train? In what country and what dog size?

You can in the UK. Any size. They can’t sit on the seat though.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#109

Post by Aeolun » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:44 AM UTC

toper-centage wrote: post #73

carabiner wrote: post #15

I see this all around me. People are fixated on careers, hobbies (FOMO), spread thin by family obligations and errands. The truth is, happiness does not derive from these things. This "busyness" is an invention. Life is simple, and happiness actually derives from having cats.

Life is simple* * YMMV. You might need to live in a developed world that assures you won't be left to die, that is not at war, that you can find a way to sustain yourself, and that you're not involved in any accidents that drastically change your otherwise simple life.

I’d argue that if you are living in a warzone, life is simple too. Just in a completely different way.

Re: Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

#110

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 9:44 AM UTC

chillwaves wrote: post #56

rconti wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do up to about 6 or 7 days. I often joke I'm not responsible enough to own a dog, and if I was going to get a dog, I might as well just have kids. The idea of having to find a way to take care of the dog when you want to go out of town is definitely a little anxiety-producing.

How do you deal with litter boxes?

Clean before the trip, clean after trip? It probably depends on the cat, but in case of ours, the litterbox can stay untouched for a week before it starts pooping outside of it.

(However, we always arrange for someone to take an active care of the cat, including cleaning its litterbox, if we have to leave for more than 3 days.)