181–190 of 427 posts
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> So you're trapped in a mental prison and proud of it? Starting your reply this way is not effective if your goal is changing minds. But it isn't, is it?
I'll stipulate that i have to tweak the way I say things as it's not coming across the right way.
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When men talk about courting a woman. It just sounds like they are either hunting an animal or performing a job. Seriously, if she (or he) likes you, then it just clicks. Talk of putting effort into it removes the humanity of the other person and also gives creepy people the perspective that someone "owes" them romance because they put the hours into it. It's just gross and misogynistic behavior.
This comment says more about you than them. It never "just clicks". Meaningful relationships take work. In the modern adversarial dating environment, people are very wary of one another. Helping someone get to know you means getting them to let down their defenses. People are defensive and cautious these days for good reason, but often times it means meaningful connections with potential just don't happen out of appr…
The article seemed longer than it needed to be, but that's a good phrase, "hard leisure."
"If you lose everything you own, you generally still have your network and skills" I get the general call to action that those who have excess resources should leverage that to take big risks, but this really undersells the possible consequences of losing everything you own. No, you don't always keep your network and skills. Sometimes, you lose everything. You lose friends from fallout or you belatedly realize that y…
That isn't to say that the OP was protected regardless. But the mindset that lets you do this is a mindset that comes from a background of abundance. Where you can always get another job if you want one, where you always have friends or parents who will bail you out or give you what you need.
A background where things just always seem to work out.
Preaching about the "virtue of poverty" when you are privileged enough to be able to choose it instead of it choosing you is just so middle class. We had enough of that during the industrial revolution.
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 alway…
I quit my job for about 2 years, thinking I would never go back to full time. It was extremely liberating but also a somewhat scary experience. The reason for this is I think delusional thinking unfortunately plays a big part in what happens to people who stop working for long periods of time.
There are many, many people in my experience who stop working at some point, have nonwork become a big part of who they are, and never go back. They realize their current mode of work and life are making them miserable, so they throw out work complety instead of finding something more balanced.
I've met probably a dozen people like this and most if not all of them are in a deep state of laziness that is probably also a certain category of depressipn. Its quite sad when they realize they are 50, have no money, no way of making money, and no family because they couldn't afford one.
The author to me seems like a very delusional person. I hope I'm wrong but it just comes off as very naive. Is this magazine going to somehow change the world? How is he going to make money? How long has he not been working? How much savings has he lost in opportunity cost?
There is nothing more liberating than not working and convincing yourself that you don't need to work. For every 1000 people who think they are going to do this about 1 succeeds, and 100 manage to support themselves by living cheaply, contributing nothing to society, and mooching off of their relative, friends, and social safety nets.
I should also say I think taking time off, even long periods of time, is one of the best things that people who can afford to can do. It changed my life. I just wanted to point out there is a dark side to this, that a lot of people fall prey to. I could be reading too much into the article but I thought I'd give my perspective as I've thought a lot about this.
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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 alway…
Asserting most people choose the "smart" path as much out of fear of failure as by making a calibrated decision seems more like projection than observation.
If you really wanted to be a responsible elite build public goods, not an empire.
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…
> Before agriculture, life wasn't bountiful. It was short and harsh We all have a linear view of evolution: nomadism -> agriculture -> villages -> cities => for all the better. And we think life was really not fun before agriculture. Yet, some authors (especially in the recent years, with the progress of archeology) will note that things are maybe not so clear, and that's fascinating. With agriculture, man was (possi…