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

141–150 of 286 posts

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

#141

Post by Hermitian909 »

CPLX wrote: post #106
Hermitian909 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some talking past each other going here. I think it's useful to bisect music into commodity/non-commidty categories. Category 1 is things like Taylor swift's music which is not a commodity. Category 2 is the music playing on lofi hip hop radio[0] is a commodity. 28,000 people are listening to the music on that channel as I type this and and approximately zero people know or care who made that music. T…

Just because they themselves have outsourced the selection of the music doesn't make it a commodity. It's like saying Michelin-starred restaurants are a commodity. They aren't. Once they are on that list they might be sort of interchangeable to a specific sort of person who just wants a generic "nice" restaurant and picks one off the list when they get to a city. But they're all unique and different in really substan…

Curation happens all the time in commodities. Tomatoes are clearly a commodity, but blemished or misshapen tomatoes (a purely aesthetic concern) are often worth far less and may even be discarded. Much of this process is done by hand (I've done it).

Corn is a commodity too, but I buy my sweet corn exclusively from one of a few vendors growing varietals that I enjoy more than what I can get at a super market (the varietal can be sold on the futures markets).

One definition of a commodity is:

> a mass-produced unspecialized product

My claim is that most lo-fi hip hop (and other genres) really looks like it fits this definition. The songs are produced in their thousands and have differences in the same way honeycrisp apples have slightly different colors and sizes, but ultimately are interchangeable.

Any further than this feels like it's nitpicking at technical details. I cannot tell the difference between lo-fi hop hop playlist A and lo-fi hip hop playlist B because the differences in the songs are not meaningful to me.

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

#142

Post by WalterBright »

solarmist wrote: post #126
WalterBright wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is moral and what is legal are different. There is overlap, but they are marketed as being the same thing. They are not. I think you are mostly reacting to GP's word choice of "moral flexibility," and are missing the point. Do the moral thing, but view the legal as pay-to-play. A great example is parking tickets. Violating parking rules results in a fine and is not immoral in many situations.

> What is moral and what is legal are different.

I understand and agree with that.

"Having moral flexibility helps so much. Being actively willing to "fuck over" arbitrary, faceless entities makes all the difference. If you start looking at the law in terms of "how much does it cost to do whatever I want", then you are now effectively playing by the same rules as those who seek to control your life."

This clearly advocates no honor at all. It is not dishonorable to not follow an unjust law (such as a law requiring you to inform on your neighbors), but it is dishonorable to be a cheater because others are cheating.

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

#143

Post by bena »

fiprofessor wrote: post #115

Nice essay, but some of the contemporary examples in this paragraph about the independenlty wealthy are not really that compelling: I’m not saying wealthy people can’t make incredible artists. Without Marcel Duchamp’s monthly allowance from his father throughout his adult life, we would never have Dada. Giacinto Scelsi was literally the heir and Duke of La Spezia castle estate. Something more contemporary? Grimes’ mo…

Grimes's dad was a former banker working on "the business side of biotech". That's two very solid incomes. And then she was with Devon Welsh, a singer/songwriter whose father was an actor. And most famously has been the partner of Elon Musk. She's had probably a larger share of carefree living than most.

However, success is never just one thing. Because there are plenty of people with the same or greater level of support that Grimes had that never make it.

But the point is that there are plenty of people as talented or more than Grimes who achieve no success at all.

Success is more often than not the result of avoiding catastrophic issues than it is from anything you actively choose. And the more chances you have to try, the more chances you have of doing something that avoids catastrophe.

Hard work, support, talent, luck, determination, these will all help you, but none of them will guarantee you success. Not singularly or in combination.

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

#144

Post by digging »

mrguyorama wrote: post #124
digging wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if that's true, then the animals are in charge. you'll be miserable for the honor of being enslaved by beast? the GP hit the nail on the head saying, > If you start looking at the law in terms of "how much does it cost to do whatever I want", then you are now effectively playing by the same rules as those who seek to control your life. laws are for the powerless.

>laws are for the powerless. But understanding that doesn't give you any power back. Knowing that you can just pay large fines to do illegal business things doesn't help someone who isn't running a business or can afford to pay those large fines

nope, you're still in grave danger if you're not wealthy. but it does give the insight that we don't have to play by their rules when we realize most of those rules only exist to make it harder for us to play.

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

#145

Post by bluefirebrand »

digging wrote: post #85
ericmay wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> semi-regular panic attacks, persistent existential dread Ha - I’ve known a number of friends who have had this same problem working a “useless 9-5” job and missing out over what they’re passionate about. It’s all about trade-offs.

> It’s all about trade-offs. It's true that in our limited lifespans we will always have to choose trade-offs, but the current choice between crushing poverty vs crushing workload is not a natural one; it's contrived. most of us should be working fewer hours in the modern economy and have more leisure/creativity time. personally, I've made it my goal as a SWE to get a 4-day work week and/or shorter work days. even if…

> personally, I've made it my goal as a SWE to get a 4-day work week and/or shorter work days. even if it means a pay tradeoff.

Part time work week + fully remote is the dream for me

I don't want to spend my whole life working to make more money than I realistically am ever going to spend just to save enough to retire just to die a month into my retirement.

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

#146

Post by digging »

WalterBright wrote: post #142
solarmist wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is moral and what is legal are different. There is overlap, but they are marketed as being the same thing. They are not. I think you are mostly reacting to GP's word choice of "moral flexibility," and are missing the point. Do the moral thing, but view the legal as pay-to-play. A great example is parking tickets. Violating parking rules results in a fine and is not immoral in many situations.

> What is moral and what is legal are different. I understand and agree with that. "Having moral flexibility helps so much. Being actively willing to "fuck over" arbitrary, faceless entities makes all the difference. If you start looking at the law in terms of "how much does it cost to do whatever I want", then you are now effectively playing by the same rules as those who seek to control your life." This clearly adv…

your mistake is thinking that there is moral equivalence in stealing from your neighbor vs stealing from a billionaire.

and please define what honor means to you in this conversation, we've moved too far past pithiness.

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

#147

Post by zeryx »

This doesn't just resonate with creatives - the startup / path to tech entrepreneurship is structured in a very similar way. I've seen lifers, trust funders and day jobbers succeed and fail in different ways, raise funds or bootstrap with nothing for years. Obviously the trust fund kids succeed substantially more often than the lifers or day jobbers

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

#148

Post by WalterBright »

digging wrote: post #139
WalterBright wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to justify acting like an animal means making that choice.

yes, I'm happily making that choice. it is the only sane choice. if you really think the kingdom can be neatly divided into wolverines, nuthatches, and happy people on one side, and "honorable" people on the other side, you do you. aren't you amazed that an animal like me can argue with you though?

Choosing honor over animalism has nothing to do with intelligence nor education.

Like I said, each of us gets to make that choice.

An observation - many people brag about things like cheating in school "because everybody does it", or other excuses. When other people hear these, they smile and nod and move them to the "do not trust" list in their heads. The cheaters unwittingly miss out on a lot of opportunities that way.

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

#149

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #73
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.

https://www.admissions.caltech.edu/why-caltech/student-life/...

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

#150

Post by WalterBright »

digging wrote: post #146
WalterBright wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is moral and what is legal are different. I understand and agree with that. "Having moral flexibility helps so much. Being actively willing to "fuck over" arbitrary, faceless entities makes all the difference. If you start looking at the law in terms of "how much does it cost to do whatever I want", then you are now effectively playing by the same rules as those who seek to control your life." This clearly adv…

your mistake is thinking that there is moral equivalence in stealing from your neighbor vs stealing from a billionaire. and please define what honor means to you in this conversation, we've moved too far past pithiness.

> there is moral equivalence in stealing from your neighbor vs stealing from a billionaire

They are the same. You said it yourself: STEALING

Post reply on HN