Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Quit Your Job

palladiummag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 427 posts

Re: Quit Your Job

#81

Post by coldtea »

Traster wrote: post #5

I'm conflicted by this article. I'm sympathetic to it, but some things just really push past my BS meter. For example: >This is related to why man became stunted with the dawn of agriculture. We traded a life limited by the occasional violent struggle over bountiful surplus for a more predictable life limited by grinding labor after barely sufficient nutrition. Firstly, "man" or humanity did all of their greatest wor…

>Firstly, "man" or humanity did all of their greatest work after the dawn of agriculture. Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh.

That's not exactly historically accurate.

Re: Quit Your Job

#82

Post by wnolens »

Tried this. Quit and lived a truly romantic life for 2 years. Most happy time of my life - really.

But my ventures didn't succeed. With no partner or family to fall back on, I did contract development to not piss away savings. Hated the work, ran out of novelties to indulge in my free time, and became severely depressed.

Suggesting that anyone other than himself should do this is naive.

"Do what most people are doing unless you have a really good reason not to." Jordan Peterson (paraphrased)

Privilege wasn't a good enough reason for me =\

Re: Quit Your Job

#84

Post by troupe »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #50
walrus01 wrote: post #7

In 2022 who still uses the term "courting"? I feel like it's a term used by somebody from the Edwardian era who needs a refill on their moustache wax.

Courting appears to be the correct term for what was intended in that he did marry her. It's the pursuit of a serious relationship and it gets used for non romantic situations as well. Businesses court each other. So do nations. Their ambassadors sometimes court each other, not for a personal fling, but to broker an important deal between nations. Courting is that process of trying to make a connection that works equ…

Agree. And if he said "dating" it would have implied something different.

Re: Quit Your Job

#85

Post by smitop »

vzcx wrote: post #20
jimbob45 wrote: post #9

"Never code in any language except Assembly. You should never willingly give up any control over your computer" - Wolf Tivy, probably

You need to be hand-assembling your machine code. You need to stop using code written by anyone else. You need to be punching in raw bytes to bootstrap an interactive forth environment. Writing your own interrupt handlers, task schedulers, and specialized allocators, bit-banging wire protocols as well as using DMA. You need to control your own computer.

You need to be hand-building your CPUs. You need to stop using CPUs built by anyone else. You need to be soldering in circuitry to bootstrap an x86 environment. Making your own control unit, ALU, registers, memory, buses. You need to control your computer.

Re: Quit Your Job

#86

Post by betwixthewires »

I love this article. It feels like an articulation of the past 5 years of my life. Even the introduction to it mirrors what's going on with me the past year.

I certainly have periods of time where I doubt what I'm doing, where I wonder if I have what it takes to see my vision through. Articles like this help me to clear my head and keep going, and they're the primary reason I spend time perusing this site.

Re: Quit Your Job

#87

Post by gkop »

walrus01 wrote: post #59
andreyk wrote: post #27

"Transform your perspective thus: rather than seeing the job as carrying out someone else’s will in exchange for money, see it as itself your sacred cosmic duty. What important task do you do for the project you work for? How does that project fit into creating a more glorious future? How is that future pleasing to God, the proper order of things, and your own felt value instincts? Your wage is just a budget given to…

It's like somebody wanted to write Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, attempting something really deep and profound, and ended up with gibberish.

They even made it as long as a book.

Did you read the entire thing?

Re: Quit Your Job

#88

Post by TapWaterBandit »

darkengine wrote: post #41

I know it's bad form to move so quickly into meta-discussion on here, but I feel a lot of the comments in the thread right now are endemic of a certain closed-mindedness that has, to me, come to define in part the Hacker News zeitgeist, which stands in something of a contrast to the site's supposed founding principle of intellectual curiosity. There is plenty of prior art in Western (and other traditions of) philosop…

It is fairly easy to understand the hostile reaction to this.

This guy did exactly what he said and something many, if not most, of the people who comment on HN would have the means to do (take some time off, live frugally on savings, attempt something he had passion for). His success was by no means guaranteed but he had the guts to take the risk and make it work. And as he said if worse comes to worst, he can always go back to his old career/job (which is likely true of everyone here).

Most people are not risk-takers and are mainly status-seekers. They live their lives in ways to reflect this and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there is always the niggling feeling for many (I am one) that while I may be making the "smart" choice the real reason I don't do something like this is that I am afraid. I don't like having that pointed out, and so react with hostility.

This isn't to say the path taken by this author is for everyone (especially those with dependents etc), but for many it grates that it would be something they could easily do if only they had the guts. It is also quite telling to see how many of the biggest successes of Tech did something similar to what this guy is saying (Elon Musk as mentioned, Jeff Bezos quitting his finance job, Mark Zuckerberg dropping out of Harvard, Sergey Brin/Larry Page abandoned their PHDs, etc).

TL;DR: People don't like being told that their "smart" life choices are as much made out of fear of failure and status-seeking as from calibrated decision-making.

P.S. To anyone reading, none of the above is a personal attack on you or your circumstances. Everyone is different, everyone's story is different, everyone's circumstances are different. But this is still a valuable piece imo as there are plenty of us out there who could quite easily do what is mentioned and probably benefit from the experience but don't due to fear or just following a comfortable groove.

Re: Quit Your Job

#89

Post by bunnythefifth »

coldtea wrote: post #79
tootie wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> is the lifestyle of someone with 100% confidence in their social safety net Sorry, but millions of working and middle class people without any "net" have done it in history, I'm sure millions have done it in the US, and millions will continue to do the same thing in the future. As for "whitest"? Tons of blacks have quit their jobs and safety nets and tried their luck in what was termed "the great migration", while…

> I know at least a few people in their 30s and 40s with harldy anything in their name, that quit a shitty (but steady) job and travelled the world on a whim, with almost nothing in their pocket (and no safety nets).

Did they preach about it on the internet in the form of an ostentatious, almost comical prose too?

Re: Quit Your Job

#90

Post by Kranar »

coldtea wrote: post #79
tootie wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> is the lifestyle of someone with 100% confidence in their social safety net Sorry, but millions of working and middle class people without any "net" have done it in history, I'm sure millions have done it in the US, and millions will continue to do the same thing in the future. As for "whitest"? Tons of blacks have quit their jobs and safety nets and tried their luck in what was termed "the great migration", while…

Comparing a dude who quit their job to court a woman and lift weights while living off of their friends income to the plight of blacks in America or European Jews is quite something.
Post reply on HN