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How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

problogger.net

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Re: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

#31

Post by blinkingled »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #15
vertr wrote: post #6

The author is selling people on living his lifestyle, a lifestyle he gained by telling people how to live his lifestyle. These sorts of bloggers constantly talk about 'changing the world' but ultimately they aren't promoting people to build useful products and services, but to step up and join the blogging wealthy. Are there people making good money blogging? Of course. The problem is in the 'token' people who sell m…

Exactly: very impressive motivational speech... yet very dangerous. MLMs use exactly that approach in recruiting.

There. You nailed it. I was thinking back of my mind while reading TFA - where have I a heard something similar in style to this before?

Re: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

#32

Post by yeahsure »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #15
vertr wrote: post #6

The author is selling people on living his lifestyle, a lifestyle he gained by telling people how to live his lifestyle. These sorts of bloggers constantly talk about 'changing the world' but ultimately they aren't promoting people to build useful products and services, but to step up and join the blogging wealthy. Are there people making good money blogging? Of course. The problem is in the 'token' people who sell m…

Exactly: very impressive motivational speech... yet very dangerous. MLMs use exactly that approach in recruiting.

A colleague of mine signed up for an MLM a few years ago (He was broke at the time). He put massive effort into it and now makes more than $50K per month pretty much without working.

Would I do it? No. Do I recommend it? No. Can it work? Absolutely.

Re: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

#33

Post by vertr »

vertr wrote: post #13
whiletruefork wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in principle that claiming the path to A is by doing B is generally a pyramid scheme situation. However, this author came across differently because of his specific situation. I read it more along the lines of the Randy Pausch quotation about brick walls keeping us from achieving what we want. 'The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to g…

Explain to me how it makes it any better because of his situation? He's selling scammy make money online products. Do the ends justify the means?

It's also important to note that almost every self help guru has a sad story about their former lives, then goes on to tell you how they used their 'system' to pull themselves out of it. This post is a classic example of that type of storytelling.

Re: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

#35

Post by shii »

vertr wrote: post #27
blahblahblah wrote: post #14

Why is this "get rich quick" crap on the front page of HN?

I think it was gamed.

Although I'm certain HN has been gamed in the past (search through the top results on searchyc for high traffic blogs and you'll notice a trend, and high upvotes with very few and completely worthless comments -- the effect of a content-less post), but in this case I'm not so sure.

I keep a hawkeye out whenever I see a post from a top blog on HN's frontpage, shit like this problogger, smashingweb, and mashable which are always either contentless diatribes or a bizarre summary of a link that's at the bottom of the post. There's a specific name for these types of posts but I forget exactly what. Anyways, this poster has a history if submitting from these major blogs anyways, so I think it's just a case of him/her being subscribed to their feeds.

The truly worrying part is seeing it with 100+ upvotes on the frontpage. That's not a good sign.

Re: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

#36

Post by dillona »

duopixel wrote: post #24
vertr wrote: post #6

The author is selling people on living his lifestyle, a lifestyle he gained by telling people how to live his lifestyle. These sorts of bloggers constantly talk about 'changing the world' but ultimately they aren't promoting people to build useful products and services, but to step up and join the blogging wealthy. Are there people making good money blogging? Of course. The problem is in the 'token' people who sell m…

I agree with you on all points. The guy is on top of a pyramid scheme where there's only room for a few. However, it is posible to live a quality life in third world countries. This was the view of an apartment I had in Puerto Vallarta: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dfmedrano/377695445/in/photostr... . I shared it with two friends. Price per person? $200/mo. My total expenses were perhaps $1000/mo (five years ago). To…

If I may ask, why did you give it up?

Re: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

#37

Post by yeahsure »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #20

I'd love to move to my version of Paradise (Vancouver, Canada, of all places). I love hearing the stories of people who say "it's simple, just scout out a place for a couple weeks, find an area in Paradise to live, and move there". But, I looked at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and it seems really unlikely that a large number of humanity (including myself, save winning the lottery or being a logging/petroleum w…

+1 and, at least for some of us from Latin America, it's not just US/Canada but pretty much anywhere.

I can work from anywhere with an Internet connection but because of immigration laws I couldn't just move to any country I want. Europe has pretty strict laws, same with the US/Canada.

Unless you have money to invest in a country or are employed by a company there, they won't let you stay there except for a 90 day tourist visa.

Re: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

#38

Post by hasenj »

vertr wrote: post #6

The author is selling people on living his lifestyle, a lifestyle he gained by telling people how to live his lifestyle. These sorts of bloggers constantly talk about 'changing the world' but ultimately they aren't promoting people to build useful products and services, but to step up and join the blogging wealthy. Are there people making good money blogging? Of course. The problem is in the 'token' people who sell m…

He's not telling people to do exactly what he did, that's obviously not going to work; it doesn't take a genius to realize that.

He's saying that you can do independent work (aka "indie") and still get a damn good income that may even surpass your "job" income (depends on how hard you work and how dedicated you are).

It's not really all that different from what PG writes in his essays. PG is just more specific "do a startup", this guy's post is more general "go indie".

I don't think he ever intended to imply it's some sort of "magic"; he clearly says it's hard work and there will be time where you'll want to quit, which is also something that PG says.

> While some level of motivation is necessary to kick start action, too much motivation is a crippling addiction that turns individuals into self-help cult members who follow every move of their marketing guru.

Same could be said about this community. A bunch of people who follow the PG cult of "quit your job and come to YC and get rich". While some of them do indeed succeed and get rich; the majority don't. (just playing the devil's advocate here)

Re: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

#39

Post by vertr »

shii wrote: post #35
vertr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was gamed.

Although I'm certain HN has been gamed in the past (search through the top results on searchyc for high traffic blogs and you'll notice a trend, and high upvotes with very few and completely worthless comments -- the effect of a content-less post), but in this case I'm not so sure. I keep a hawkeye out whenever I see a post from a top blog on HN's frontpage, shit like this problogger, smashingweb, and mashable which…

Fair enough. Thanks for the insight. I just saw 3 comments and 50+ upvotes and it seemed fishy.

Re: How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get Paid to Change the World

#40

Post by vertr »

hasenj wrote: post #38
vertr wrote: post #6

The author is selling people on living his lifestyle, a lifestyle he gained by telling people how to live his lifestyle. These sorts of bloggers constantly talk about 'changing the world' but ultimately they aren't promoting people to build useful products and services, but to step up and join the blogging wealthy. Are there people making good money blogging? Of course. The problem is in the 'token' people who sell m…

He's not telling people to do exactly what he did, that's obviously not going to work; it doesn't take a genius to realize that. He's saying that you can do independent work (aka "indie") and still get a damn good income that may even surpass your "job" income (depends on how hard you work and how dedicated you are). It's not really all that different from what PG writes in his essays. PG is just more specific "do a…

I think he is telling people to do exactly what he did. He has products talking about 'money making' and 'guest blogging', and the conclusions that he draws at the end tell you almost exactly what to do to be like him.

Also if you read my comment you will notice I said the people who resonate with these posts are susceptible to magical thinking. I didn't directly say that there is magical thinking in the post, other than he seems to believe strongly in positivity being the key to success.

I do agree about HN being very cult like. There is an ideology in play here, if you post things that agree with the ideology you are upvoted, if you disagree with it you are downvoted. The positive reinforcement is right there. Over time users learn what comments will lead to upvotes, and thus they change their thinking to match.

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