I don’t get the obsession with building an “empire”. Why is that even something people find noble or the actions of a “responsible elite”? Imperialism quite literally has destroyed the lives of millions of people in the service of a privileged few. If you really wanted to be a responsible elite build public goods, not an empire.
Quit Your Job
191–200 of 427 posts
Re: Quit Your Job
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 agree with everything you are saying. I'd like to share my perspective. 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 st…
When you initially quit, were you thinking you'd find a new position that you were passionate about and then it didn't materialize, forcing you to go back to your previous life?
Re: Quit Your Job
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 agree with everything you are saying. I'd like to share my perspective. 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 st…
Re: Quit Your Job
#194So many wild things in this, but I was curious about this aspect: > It also helped that I was unemployed. I had time to court her properly. Does anyone find this kind of situation helps their relationship health? I've started relationships between jobs and started them with people who weren't working. It's not always long-term poison, but a big part of a relationship is figuring out if your two lives will work well t…
Now granted I still had my apartment for that three months, so it probably didn't feel that radically different. I just burned though most of my emergency savings and had to build it back up again after.
Re: Quit Your Job
#195Great article. I can very much relate. I’ve been writing open-source software for a very long time. This was mostly because I earned my pay as a manager. The job paid … not great, but enough to keep the lights on, and to let me save. It also wasn’t particularly demanding, and gave me time for extracurricular coding. I needed to code, to keep my chops up. Even in “nights and weekends,” I was able to get some fairly se…
Is this what makes you happy? A lot of people might criticize this as unhealthy. This statement does not contain a lot of "balance". Where's the exercise? Cooking for yourself? Socializing with others? Spending time with loved ones/family? Working on hobbies?
I too am at my keyboard a lot. A lot a lot. I just don't know if it's a noble "I work hard" or "addiction".
Re: Quit Your Job
#196Growing up poor white trash gives me a completely different perspective and makes me crass enough to say go fuck yourself you entitled prick.
Could you please make your substantive points without fulminating or calling names? Perhaps you don't feel you owe entitled pricks better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Re: Quit Your Job
#197This article makes me anxious that I just might not have any interesting ideas to share with the world, that I might be stuck in my own perspective and that others will see right through all the fancy words I come up with to masquerade it. I think I might not be able to refrain from smiling when being called an intellectual. Only positive outlook: At least I do not think I will ever go as far as calling myself an int…
Its important not to preemptively judge yourself into believing that you aren't worthy of creating something purely of your own accord. You don't have to be a mastermind inventor and discover something entirely new, you can also be an innovator.
Re: Quit Your Job
#198Tried 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…
Re: Quit Your Job
#199"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…
It smells like privilege. 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.
It's just that some distinct socioeconomic classes have the capability of failing and retrying very quickly, due to moneyed resources.
Contrast that to the person without assets or access to capital, they save up, take a chance, fail, and now have to wait maybe 10 years or more to get to the same place with jobs. And with time, there is error introduced, divergent paths, life changing events, or simply competing priorities as the years keep going by. Alternatively, everyone else in their similar situation rationally decides not to bother, a good network for them is one that exposes them to basic personal finance gurus on odd forums and youtube, who give them generic advice that works for a broad population.
On the concept of privilege, there is no parade and red carpet that gets rolled out, you just wake up one day and realize that you don't have to apply for jobs to maintain food and shelter, and that your bank account also has enough to make that seed investment or hire developers. So, if you're willing to play your cards, you play them. Enough people are willing to and their successes wind up outnumbering the poorer people that want to play tech entreprenuer.
Re: Quit Your Job
#200I 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's HN comment sections this one that make me really sad. Like, there's nothing actually wrong with anything the author said or did, but a lot of what I'm reading here is just snark. I can even tell just how little of it many of us actually read, seeing as how he's admitting to privilege yet some know-it-alls still need to point out privilege as if that invalidates the whole thing. You're damned if you do, and you'r…