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

Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

klangmag.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 286 posts

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#71

Post by WalterBright »

eastbound wrote: post #52
JSavageOne wrote: post #39

Great, practical advice. I do think however that by 2030, UBI will be the norm in many wealthy countries, and thus more people will be able to pursue their passions rather than having to sell their soul as dayjobbers to make money for corporations and rich people.

UBI is a bane because it kills meritocracy. The reason most people are successful is because they risk a lot if they weren’t. Surprise: Stress is a factor of excellence. You say it yourself: If UBI is introduced, then none of the hard jobs gets done.

I understood well in college that without the pressure of exams and the threat of flunking out, I'd not have learned nearly as much.

As for a career, other people finding your work so valuable that they're willing to pay you $$$$ for it is the ultimate compliment.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#72

Post by digging »

ipsi wrote: post #11

Reminds me of a couple of married friends of mine. The wife played a classical musical instrument (e.g., not an electric guitar) and had her sights set on being a professional. While working towards that she did a lot of teaching/practising/etc, and her students would often say something along the lines of "I'm so envious of all this time you have to practice music! How are you able to do it?!" and her reply was alwa…

my partner is a working artist and, though successful, would not be able to live in our city comfortably if they weren't with me (or someone else with similar income). it's depressing, although I'm thrilled to help. it means I can't easily quit if I want to pursue another interest. it means we both have incentive to stay together even if something goes wrong romantically. neither of these points are a problem for us right now, but I am sure many artists do struggle with them.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#73

Post by WalterBright »

bob1029 wrote: post #51

> Knowing that the game is rigged is liberating! > how should you be expected to earn a living using their platforms unless you find a way to game the system? Do you have 20 smartphones lying around, per chance? This is the message I'd take away. Once you learn that the whole capitalist hellscape operates in approximately the same way, you can start to explicitly target its mechanisms in order to improve your life. H…

Honor is what separates men from animals. We all get to choose which we are.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#74

Post by dahfizz »

bluefishinit wrote: post #8
CPLX wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. A commodity would mean that people are indifferent to the music of Metallica vs Taylor Swift vs your brother in law's blues band. They aren't. So it's not a commodity. Because that's what commodity means. You could let your playlist run for years, but you don't and nobody else does either because repetition and familiarity and quality are things people care about musically. Playing music well in a way th…

I think you're underestimating the role marketing plays in demand generation. It's not that Taylor Swift is "better" than the local jazz guitarist, she's just more heavily marketed. Music labels know that the mass audience doesn't appreciate musical complexity so they market simple music with attractive performers. Then the Clear Channel/Ticketmaster... machine takes over and handles the promotion and distribution. I…

You're not understanding.

Commodity has a very specific meaning in economics.

You can very easily tell that a Taylor swift song and a local jazz song are not the same song. They are not interchangeable. If someone replaced some songs in your playlists, you would notice. Therefore, not a commodity.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#75

Post by vorpalhex »

elzbardico wrote: post #45
vorpalhex wrote: post #9

As someone who has spent an amazing amount of time coding, it's not because someone was paying my rent. It's because I sacrificed things to be able to work on my art. I have never had my rent paid for. I did not have a secret pile of cash or someone funding me. "Everyone who made it when I couldn't was secretly wealthy" is an interesting take but it seems more like coping mechanism than reality.

You should not stop reading as soon as you get to a point in the text where you get horribly offended and then comment as if you had read the whole thing.

The author repeats the point several times including in the second to last paragraph.

The game is not rigged. It's not some death of meritocracy.

He sort of gets near an important idea when he talks about spotify leading to bandcamp sales, but then misses it: being a successful musician is about more than just playing an instrument, just like being a successful business person is about more than wearing a suit and holding meetings.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#76

Post by tourmalinetaco »

nomaxx117 wrote: post #6

FWIW the open source scene (at least in the US) can often have very similar dynamics. I believe it was Ashley Williams who put it best by saying that in the Rust community (where I am), one's influence is determined by one's free time. I've noticed over time that in certain areas it can very much be those with the least experience on a subject (but the most free time) who wield the most influence.

> I've noticed over time that in certain areas it can very much be those with the least experience on a subject (but the most free time) who wield the most influence.

Unfortunately, I have found similar. A prime example I feel is Reddit mods, who all do it for free and spend countless hours moderating a community. In fact powermods, the most influential ones, were moderating a decent handful of communities. There wasn’t necessarily any reason for them to be in power specifically other than they had the time and desire for that power. No real need to interact with the community or even know what they were saying, as long as you could remove enough low quality content to retain your position.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#77

Post by digging »

nomaxx117 wrote: post #6

FWIW the open source scene (at least in the US) can often have very similar dynamics. I believe it was Ashley Williams who put it best by saying that in the Rust community (where I am), one's influence is determined by one's free time. I've noticed over time that in certain areas it can very much be those with the least experience on a subject (but the most free time) who wield the most influence.

I find that phenomenon in many self-organizing communities. it is often true that those with the most free time do get to research the problems and solutions more and have good answers, but even if they do, they dominate the conversation in an inherently unsustainable way. they either drive out newcomers or burn themselves out - sometimes both!

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#78

Post by 8note »

aodonnell2536 wrote: post #63
dragonwriter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI is a bane because it kills meritocracy. UBI enables meritocracy, it doesn’t kill it.

How so? A big motivating factor to be successful for most people is to set themselves apart financially from the masses. Edit: And of course, what would be the motivating factor for someone to give their best possible work, if the other 12 guys in their position get paid the same for less quality work?

The ubi is a minimum for everyone, rather than a maximum.

The merit comes from people being able to take risks that otherwise only the wealthy could do

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#79

Post by e_i_pi_2 »

eastbound wrote: post #52
JSavageOne wrote: post #39

Great, practical advice. I do think however that by 2030, UBI will be the norm in many wealthy countries, and thus more people will be able to pursue their passions rather than having to sell their soul as dayjobbers to make money for corporations and rich people.

UBI is a bane because it kills meritocracy. The reason most people are successful is because they risk a lot if they weren’t. Surprise: Stress is a factor of excellence. You say it yourself: If UBI is introduced, then none of the hard jobs gets done.

> UBI is a bane because it kills meritocracy. The reason most people are successful is because they risk a lot if they weren’t

This seems kinda backwards - UBI gives people the ability to take more risks. Success is mostly determined by how many bets you're able to make, and UBI lets people place more bets. There's plenty of people that would want to start a business but don't have parents able to loan or gift them the money. You'd be opening up more possibilities for people, and people naturally want to do useful things. I'm not sure what hard jobs you're imagining but anything valued by society will still get done because people want to see themselves as valuable.

I think the confusion here is because you have a false premise that there is a meritocracy now - UBI is something that could help us get towards a meritocracy. Right now it doesn't matter how good you would be at something if you can't afford to do it

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#80

Post by softfalcon »

ipsi wrote: post #11

Reminds me of a couple of married friends of mine. The wife played a classical musical instrument (e.g., not an electric guitar) and had her sights set on being a professional. While working towards that she did a lot of teaching/practising/etc, and her students would often say something along the lines of "I'm so envious of all this time you have to practice music! How are you able to do it?!" and her reply was alwa…

Yeah, similar situation with:

- My brother who is a writer while his wife works at an industrial job that pays exceedingly well

- My friend who is an artist, whose husband owns an engineering firm with big medical device contracts

- My other friend who is a nature photographer, whose husband works in tech

- Yet another friend who is a musician, whose wife works in tech

- Another friend who runs a dog shelter, whose husband is a high paid engineer

- My other friend who is a writer, whose girlfriend is a real estate investment manager at a large bank

- My friend who is a social worker helping at-risk youth, whose husband is an oil and gas executive

- And yet another friend who makes jewelry and sews bags, whose wife owns an investment management firm

- Finally, a friend who volunteers to catalogue deer populations for conservation, whose boyfriend just happens to be a big wig executive for the city

I could go on, I see this phenomenon everywhere. There are no free lunches in life, someone is always footing the bill... just follow the money.

Post reply on HN