Cultural anorexia: The pursuit of thicker desires in a thinning world • Hacker News Board

Re: Cultural anorexia: The pursuit of thicker desires in a thinning world

#71

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:32 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #70

Dylan16807 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you could your 40 hour work week back to 4 hours, that would just pay for healthcare, and healthcare only. Sure! I like modern healthcare! And then 4 more hours to pay for the rest of a 1920 standard of living. And 4 more for extra disposable income. Let's say that's two days a week for 6 hours each. Sounds pretty good.

What’s stopping you?

It's really hard to get a job with such nonstandard hours, and also the housing market is extremely screwed up, and wages haven't risen enough with productivity gains, among other things.

But my choice isn't what's important here. What's important is that you don't have to give up the vast majority of modern amenities because those are usually very cheap.

Re: Cultural anorexia: The pursuit of thicker desires in a thinning world

#72

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 7:48 AM UTC

AniseAbyss wrote: post #62

brimble wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If healthcare cost 80% of GDP, would you still not understand?

If that 80% kept you alive? No. But when you are twenty I suppose one sees health differently. When you are 60 and take a bunch of pills to keep yourself from dying it suddenly all makes sense...

At a certain point... how many hours of your life are you willing to spend working to extend your life by an average of 1 month / 500 waking hours?

If almost all of GDP was healthcare, with costs dramatically increasing with age, then that number climbs for each additional month and reaches into the thousands. I wouldn't make that trade, especially because I'd be spending so many of those hours in my early to mid life.

Re: Cultural anorexia: The pursuit of thicker desires in a thinning world

#73

Post by iamhamm » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

john-titor wrote: post #10

this reads to me as a rant of someone who just finished their undergrad degree in sociology and wants to show it. some specifics aside, the same article might as well been a topic some 10, 30, 60 years ago. re-packaging an old opinion that our society is degenerating for whatever contemporary reasons without actually providing any constructive solutions does not feel very productive to me. ironic that the not very fi…

Apparently it’s by a former investment banker turned philosopher? I didn’t he get the rant because the metaphors were so clunky.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukeburgis