How to Escape the Modern Rat Race • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#31

Post by ouid » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #28

georgeecollins wrote: post #9

I really like this point of view, but it is important to point out that the bar for happiness in life and relationships (as a proxy for "reproduction) is way below our aspirations. You aren't really trying to be like Instagram influenceres because of your "selfish gene". Your "selfish gene" would do better directing you toward fundamentalist communities where reproductive rates are higher. No, you are being influence…

> No, you are being influenced by media, which convinces you that things are a proxy for happiness and good relationships The Fight Club line has always really resonated with me: "We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" Live below your means. Tune out from all the consumerism. Suddenly you find that you have enough savings built up that you could support yourself for multiple years without working. Now you ar…

Well, not more than you could want...

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#32

Post by war1025 » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

war1025 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you are being influenced by media, which convinces you that things are a proxy for happiness and good relationships The Fight Club line has always really resonated with me: "We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" Live below your means. Tune out from all the consumerism. Suddenly you find that you have enough savings built up that you could support yourself for multiple years without working. Now you ar…

This works without kids. If you have kids, then typically you desire to give them the best available options, and that then means living in higher priced neighborhoods with higher achieving student populations. And then your kid befriends another kid whose parents are doctors/lawyers/engineers/business owners, and they want to don vacation or camp with them and you need to pony up a few hundred or thousand dollars an…

> This is fine, until you have kids

I have three.

If anything they have more options, they just have less concrete things.

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#33

Post by swiley » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #28

georgeecollins wrote: post #9

I really like this point of view, but it is important to point out that the bar for happiness in life and relationships (as a proxy for "reproduction) is way below our aspirations. You aren't really trying to be like Instagram influenceres because of your "selfish gene". Your "selfish gene" would do better directing you toward fundamentalist communities where reproductive rates are higher. No, you are being influence…

> No, you are being influenced by media, which convinces you that things are a proxy for happiness and good relationships The Fight Club line has always really resonated with me: "We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" Live below your means. Tune out from all the consumerism. Suddenly you find that you have enough savings built up that you could support yourself for multiple years without working. Now you ar…

How do you deal with paying rent to live within a reasonable distance of your job in the meantime?

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#34

Post by bobthepanda » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

war1025 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you are being influenced by media, which convinces you that things are a proxy for happiness and good relationships The Fight Club line has always really resonated with me: "We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" Live below your means. Tune out from all the consumerism. Suddenly you find that you have enough savings built up that you could support yourself for multiple years without working. Now you ar…

This works without kids. If you have kids, then typically you desire to give them the best available options, and that then means living in higher priced neighborhoods with higher achieving student populations. And then your kid befriends another kid whose parents are doctors/lawyers/engineers/business owners, and they want to don vacation or camp with them and you need to pony up a few hundred or thousand dollars an…

Even so, there’s a lot of decently affordable “good enough” where the difference between that and “best available” is marginal compared to the cost increase.

The most obvious and probably biggest expense item (at least in the US) would be tertiary education, but having been out a few years I don’t really notice what the additional benefit was of top-tier private university vs cheap state university, since I know plenty of state schoolers making FAANG money and plenty of Ivy Leaguers struggling to find jobs.

Though at least for me the primary/secondary property race you describe was not an issue, since I went to school in NYC, which has district wide school choice for middle school and universal school choice for high school. (NYC is a million kids so the city is split into districts for ease of administration.) Elementary school was geographically defined, but I also went to a school with a C rating, and plenty of people from that school ended up fine.

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#35

Post by bausano_michael » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #30

mgolawala wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't Human nature itself been crafted by evolutionary forces? It is conceivable that our ancestors that were more laid back and content were more likely to be out competed by those who were hungry for power and prestige. In fact, as an example, isn't there some often quoted statistic about half a percentage of all living humans having descended from Genghis Khan?

Human nature may be crafted by evolutionary forces, but that doesn't mean that human behavious do is always in service of biological evolution. The idea about people coming from Genghis Khan is unrepresentative in a couple ways. First, that a large number of people have a common ancestor does not mean that the common ancestor was in fact Genghis Khan. It could have been someone else associated with the Mongol conques…

More on this topic in a recent HN submission and its associated discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24686904

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#36

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #14

Excuse me, but what about prolonged periods of depression? I am hoarding an appropriate amount of resources specifically to not suffer when things go south. This also implies a different than usual choice of assets (at most a very small allocation to the S&P500 for me; I am not looking to get rich, but to survive).

That might mean you have minimal to few hobbies and nobody whom you care about to share them with. I don't mean join groups, I mean actually make friends. They can be completely superficial. It gives you a reason to step outside your comfort zone and do something you hate but with a smile.

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#37

Post by war1025 » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #14

Excuse me, but what about prolonged periods of depression? I am hoarding an appropriate amount of resources specifically to not suffer when things go south. This also implies a different than usual choice of assets (at most a very small allocation to the S&P500 for me; I am not looking to get rich, but to survive).

> This also implies a different than usual choice of assets

Care to elaborate on what specifically you are investing in?

Seems like if you were wanting to survive "things going south" that would entail productive farm land and some sort of "back to the land" style prepper homesteading.

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#38

Post by 1996 » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

war1025 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you are being influenced by media, which convinces you that things are a proxy for happiness and good relationships The Fight Club line has always really resonated with me: "We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" Live below your means. Tune out from all the consumerism. Suddenly you find that you have enough savings built up that you could support yourself for multiple years without working. Now you ar…

This works without kids. If you have kids, then typically you desire to give them the best available options, and that then means living in higher priced neighborhoods with higher achieving student populations. And then your kid befriends another kid whose parents are doctors/lawyers/engineers/business owners, and they want to don vacation or camp with them and you need to pony up a few hundred or thousand dollars an…

> This works without kids. If you have kids, then typically you desire to give them the best available options

Let me quote you one of my favorite posts: "You say 'I can't do XYZ because I have kids and a mortgage?' - well maybe you should have thought about the long term ramifications of your actions."

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#39

Post by war1025 » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

swiley wrote: post #33

war1025 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you are being influenced by media, which convinces you that things are a proxy for happiness and good relationships The Fight Club line has always really resonated with me: "We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" Live below your means. Tune out from all the consumerism. Suddenly you find that you have enough savings built up that you could support yourself for multiple years without working. Now you ar…

How do you deal with paying rent to live within a reasonable distance of your job in the meantime?

I live in the Midwest, so cost of living isn't really an issue.

Re: How to Escape the Modern Rat Race

#40

Post by tstrimple » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

birdsbirdsbirds wrote: post #26

This article is not about escaping the rat race but about winning it. Reinvesting and having long-term goals is just the best strategy to make the most. It's kind of doubling down on the rat race. The status game is actually a valid strategy since, unlike developers, most people don't live in a merit-based society. Strong people associate with strong people. So whoever needs resources also has to appear strong. For n…

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think there is anything at all about developers which would set them apart from the hoi polloi. The vast majority of developers do not live in a merit based society. They are just as much subject to the requirements of appearing strong as anyone else. They have to pitch to win, just like anyone else.