This is the way.
Life Is Short (2016)
171–180 of 310 posts
Re: Life Is Short (2016)
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny enough, I know some engineers who go to work, non-remote, to escape from their wife and kids for a bit and work becomes an avenue to relax! And having to take care of an aging parent who lives with me, I can understand.
Certainly. When I’m at home I sometimes cannot wait to run off to the office. The feeling is often temporary though, and by 3-4 I’m basically waiting until I can get home :)
Life couldn’t be sweet without the sour. I like to think that work life balance like this is self reinforcing. Happy holidays!
Re: Life Is Short (2016)
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
RSA is not only the monthly amount paid, the recipients also live in social housings paying next to nothing in rent, heating, healthcare and transportation. A similar thing exists in other country like UK or Germany
And cost of living in France is very low. People are happy with 1800€, as long as they have the rebates for theater and transports.
Do you mean housing and transportation, or is there really something specific to theater?
Re: Life Is Short (2016)
#174I'm able to shorten life by doing mindless "have to" tasks and consuming distracting media (music, books, movies, games, etc.) I'm able to lengthen it by deliberately, reflectively doing anything (thinking, programming, breathing, etc.). I spent almost three decades in school -- grading and getting graded. I made that time race by as much as I could so I could get to the part where I have kids and a job that I can ac…
Well said. It’s worth adding that various mood altering substances can speed up our perception of the passage of life while impairing our ability to remember what happened.
Re: Life Is Short (2016)
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny enough, I know some engineers who go to work, non-remote, to escape from their wife and kids for a bit and work becomes an avenue to relax! And having to take care of an aging parent who lives with me, I can understand.
Can totally see that. I see.work colleagues who are new parents who seem to enjoy spending as many hours at the office as possible.
Work is easy compared to parenting
Re: Life Is Short (2016)
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
If everyone behaved like that, our society wouldn't have the wealth needed to make anyone's lives comfortable and secure, except for the lives of the rich. A job that provides an income to a worker, and generates wealth for society, is not bullshit -- even if all it involves is making crappy consumer products, or working on an assembly line, or doing paperwork all day. In fact, such jobs are the reason the majority o…
Universal Basic income would solve those problems. Eventually AI and automation should perform all the mundane jobs which is a good thing but we need to provide basic sustenance for everyone.
I understand the justification for UBI from a labor perspective if all “mundane jobs” are automated, but where I haven’t heard convincing justification is on the more abstract “life purpose” side of things. What happens, regardless of UBI, if we move towards a system that provides little to no purpose in working towards anything, or at a basic level, working for a living at all? I know many friends and relatives who reached retirement and faced anxiety and depression due to lack of “a reason to get up in the morning” - it feels like UBI would introduce this problem at a larger scale, and I’m not convinced by the general “we’ll all just be artists” concept either…
Re: Life Is Short (2016)
#177" I lived as if she'd always be there. And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion. But an illusion it was. I think a lot of people make the same mistake I did."
PG's writing style is excellent, conversational and clear expression of ideas.
Profoundly written.
Relentlessly pruning bullshit gets better with practice and age.
Re: Life Is Short (2016)
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not true. Humans died on injuries and sickness that are easily treatable now. They used to be more frequent and deadly. Humans got frequently born with disabilities because malnutrition in pregnancy (like a lack of iodine) that just don't happen anymore in West. There were whole classes of these issues that killed people and just don't exist anymore.
In the other hand they were not dying from technology induced accidents, like traffic :) Sure it is simplification, but the point is that statistical average life duration and total lifespan of adult person have quite weak correlations. Actually even now these early years are most risky ones, just the scale is different. Now I have witnesses bias here also - in my 40ies I can expect to live 50 years more, very differ…
People used to die from transportation, drowning when crossing rivers, accidents around horses, etc... were very frequent. Safety codes are fairly modern.
Re: Life Is Short (2016)
#179Life is short if you’re enjoying it. If it’s full of unbearable torture, the opposite is true.
Not necessarily. There are options to make their life short in that circumstance. Horrible and unfortunate options, but options nonetheless.
Re: Life Is Short (2016)
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
What got you interested in life extension? And how long would you want to live for? I’ve never understood the philosophy behind life extension research, because to me it seems like a case of spending a lot of resources in the hope of improving something that isn’t really broken. However I love people with passion and I value freedom, so I’m glad that people get to work on it even if I feel like it’s probably a bit of…
> it seems like a case of spending a lot of resources in the hope of improving something that isn’t really broken This puzzles me. Ageing is extremely expensive to society. Healthcare and care for the elderly is often >10% of total expenditure. Surely that's pretty broken? And of course there's all the pain they're in, the things they wish to enjoy but can't (like football) and things like covid lockdowns that have t…
I meant the human life cycle wasn’t broken, because I was only thinking of this in terms of preventing death. Framing it as a reduction in suffering helped me understand, thanks!
I still have concerns that it would be used in such a way that people would live long despite intense suffering, thus increasing suffering overall. But hopefully that isn’t the case.