Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

news.ycombinator.com

201–210 of 288 posts

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#201
I've been the software engineering game for the last 8+ and this is the best lesson I've learned in the past two years, been facing lot of health issues due to my workoholic nature and ignoring my physical health. Somehow my mental health has been good due to the support systems I have in my life and I'm super grateful for that.

Having a balanced life is my biggest goal right now as other carrer related things are mostly on auto pilot mode. I have a system set for that.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“This is a step in the right direction but it is still wrong” You are wrong in suggesting I’m wrong. There isn’t any wrong. If you believe what you say, you would understand that and strip “wrong” from your vocabulary. There is only a way. There are many ways. The one I described was mine. The universe does not recognize your black and white thinking.

I mean this doesn’t really mean anything. There is a right view and a wrong view, and of course you can make incremental steps towards right views. Don’t get so attached to your own opinions, that’s a form of clinging.

“There is a right view and a wrong view” there you go again. No, there is your own right way and wrong way. Those ways are not the same as mine per se. Stop trying to conform my world view to yours. I would highly recommend you read “The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings” by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#203

Great question & post! I am definitely working on nothing (outside of my normal day job, of course). I used to work a normal day job and then in the evenings and weekends work furiously on side projects. One of those side projects became a business that while still around today, is probably getting shut down this year due to failure to generate revenue that exceeds its relatively minimal costs. In other words, the bu…

I believe it's freeing to try, fail, and eventually exclude life paths and gain a new focus and understanding of what's next.

I don't know anything about your project, please ignore if I'm off the mark. But is it possible you spend time building something without validating it's a solution people actually need and pay for? It's very difficult to do because you have to face feedback technology doesn't provide. On the other hand, few people focus on validation first. At least I don't, because it's quite tedious and I don't typically work on side projects with the intention to make money.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#204
post #58
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you pass Nihilism is not the belief that there is no God and life is ultimately meaningless. Nihilism is recognizing that there is no God and life is ultimately meaningless, while continuing to sacrifice at a grinding job you hate, continuing to submit to the phony morality of those higher than you in the social hierarchy, conforming to social rituals and customs you privately think are bullshit, continuing to…

> Nihilism is behaving as if there is a God who gives life meaning, even when you don't actually believe that, instead of assuming responsibility for making your own meaning during the brief time you're alive. TIL I am a nihilist.

That sounds more like absurdism > the belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#205

I'm not sure how this will resonate here, but this past year my interests in side projects sharply declined. For reference I am early 30s, married no kids. Up until now I used to work on 2-3 large side projects a year, diving deep into them obsessed with sleepless nights working. Now with LLMs it just feels kind of like whats the point? Either my work will be consumed by an LLM to train and get tossed aside or i shou…

> Its hard to work hundreds of hours on something knowing the end monetary value is going to be $0

Thats kind of a crux of an issue. Why not find something you'd work on regardless whether it will be worth $0 or $100?

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#206

The value proposition, honestly, has fallen off a cliff. If "they" can dangle things you really want (money, better lifestyle, interesting work) in front of you, then there is reason to get excited. Right now? Oh hell no. Entire tech industry is in the mode of getting rid of people, lowering standards, lowering pay checks, the work is boring and tedious. It is reasonable to simply not have any motivation to work on o…

Funny that you mentioned WebMD - they just released this cringe video to let people return to the office: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kxqnx/dont-mess-with-us-web...

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#207

I'm not sure how this will resonate here, but this past year my interests in side projects sharply declined. For reference I am early 30s, married no kids. Up until now I used to work on 2-3 large side projects a year, diving deep into them obsessed with sleepless nights working. Now with LLMs it just feels kind of like whats the point? Either my work will be consumed by an LLM to train and get tossed aside or i shou…

I feel the same way. I follow the LLM/AI advancements very closely, and I find that motivating. However, the whole discussion seems to turn around long term replacement of all labor and absorption of business value into some big tech providing the AI infrastructure.

I usually had two types of motivation, technical motivation to learn skills that would eventually be useful in my career and hacker motivation to build something with the implicit expectation of eventually making it a sustainable business. But now I am not certain there is a point in learning a new skill or building a side hustle if eventually an LLM will be better than me or my business for pennies.

Maybe this whole feeling is part of the AI replacement hype, and totally false. And maybe it is just common to feel this way when technological revolutions happen, and it's just temporary and we should push through. Regardless, we probably should keep monitoring the space.

Maybe it's time to genuinely focus on doing anything that intrinsically makes you feel good without any external expectations. An LLM might be better than you at everything, but you would still enjoy your mediocre implementation, just because you did it. Maybe this is what it really means to be an artisan.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#208
A common theme here in this modern self and business driven world.

We are human beings not human doings.

Doing nothing is the most wonderful thing.

It is a place where new ideas and innovations come from.

I have always found that space to be a place of change, either in personality or the beginning of a new developmental stage. The old self changing the old life to meet my new demands of a new life. What we seek as teenegers is not same as when we are in our 30's, 40's or 50's.

However, the anxiety is unbearable in that space, hence we are continually seeking and doing things, anything to reduce the existential anxiety of just being.

Everyone? Who is everyone, do you not mean you? Own it and all you say. Not everyone is busy building and learning for the next big thing. You are or have been and still are. Own it. "I am so busy building and learning for the next big thing."

Those things are not out there they are in here. They are yours and it is your life.

Life is monotonous and unchallenging.

looking inside and working on ones self is always the beginning

Working on personal issues can only be a priority.

Creating a healthy balance, for me, is just business speak for keeping 50% of your focus on meaningless things. A real healthy balance is committing 100% to yourself

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#210
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we are surrounded by people not doing that, and not even through any fault of their own for the most part. They are wired into an endless machine that trades dopamine hits for their money. Children are wired in before they even have a chance to resist.

The Extremely Online crowd’s influence is waning. Twitter is widely mocked as a cesspool of conversation. Facebook is seen as antiquated. Instagram and TikTok are the current darlings but they seem to have less of an iron grip than the OG social networks. The future is probably not another winner-take-all network. We’ve tried enough of those. The future is probably smaller networks where users self-select into them b…

Weird, I've seen social media and "online communities" move into the publicly accepted sphere more and more. 10 years ago you'd be looked at funny by certain people if you said you had a social media or reddit account, and nowadays it's just sorta expected
Post reply on HN