The most precious resource is agency

On the flip side, if you step outside the bubble of comfort that Western society generally affords people, you'll find that life is "nasty, brutish & short" as Hobbes put it.

We've come a very very long way in a short time towards raising our standard of living and our expectations for what our lives can be - especially for regular folk from humble beginnings who aren't born into huge advantages.

Not to say that we can't improve things further for Western society, but just to say that the script we are generally given is pretty damn good compared to historical averages.

I just applied for a regular job. Because to be honest, it’s gonna be pretty sweet having a fat bank account, even if it’ll take till I’m 50 to have FU money.

My current hypothesis is that the team is all that matters. The work can be the most boring, crud-type work. As long as you’re working with people you like on something vaguely interesting, who cares?

20yo me would be mortified to hear myself say this, but the chances of either of us influencing the world is quite small. I’m happy I threw all of my effort into doing something I wanted, but my honest answer is that you’re not really missing out on much.

Relax and enjoy yourself. Most days, I end up wishing I’d had kids 5 years ago. It was nice to prioritize myself, but you can’t prioritize a family you never focused on building.

(I had no idea I even wanted a family or that it was important to me until about… 29?)

I guess my point is, the “relax and enjoy yourself” mentality isn’t so bad. No one will probably remember us the way they’ll remember pg. But I’ve helped thousands of devs directly, whether in DMs or by contributing code, and I think I only care whether those folks might remember me.

So that’s the area you can really make an impact: on the people around you, in your day to day life.

Maybe I’ll wake up in a few years and realize this is a terrible mistake, but that seems unlikely.

> One of the leading critics was the philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, who argued that computers, who have no body, no childhood and no cultural practice, could not acquire intelligence at all.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0494-4

This is based on my own experience, because I was allowed to manage my free time. When I got out of school, I had a chore or two, but the rest of the evening was mine to manage. (I was expected to do my homework at some point, though, and make decent grades. In fact I made A's and B's.) But the rest of the time I watched about 2-3 hours of TV, drew a lot, jumped on the trampoline, and in general ran around outside (We lived on five acres).

My parents never sent me to summer camp. The summer was mine. They never made me take piano lessons or join the boy scouts. Nothing.

I graduated magna cum laude, started my own business (which failed) then pivoted to a completely different field (web programming) and taught myself everything, through books, blogs, etc. That was 15 years ago and professionally speaking, I lead a very stable life.

When I hear about today's children being shuttled from school to one extracurricular activity or another, where they have very little unstructured time, I scream on the inside on their behalf. I've known a handful of adults who were homeschooled, and most of them have turned out very poorly. They basically are walking time bombs: quiet and obedient through childhood, then they get out of the house and explode.

As my mother wisely said, "Kids need to be kids." (We had a very strong religious teaching, however, in my household --- firm but not oppressive. I ascribe my own acceptance of that teaching as a key reason I did not just squander all that freedom on drugs, sex, and rock'n'roll. But most of all, I felt very, very loved and accepted as a person, even if I were to screw up royally.)