I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#161

Post by seanclayton » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #52

seanclayton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> throughout history Ancient egypt? Roman times? Medieval times? Byzantine times? Pre-colonial Philippines? Pre-colonial America? I think it may have started in the late 1800s at the earliest. I would need a bit more evidence to be convinced that your model of individual to nuclear to extended etc has been a thing longer than a few centuries, vs the vast majority of human life experience being in nomadic hunter-gathe…

> the vast majority of human life experience being in nomadic hunter-gathering, villages, farmland, and walled city-states. in which they lived in families, extended families and tribes as the primary units. I didn't understand your argument at all.

The nuclear family lived separate from the extended family. In separate cities. This is a new thing. You lived with your clan in history, not apart. The nuclear family is completely separated physically from their extended families, even across village lines.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#162

Post by throwaway173738 » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

meta_gunslinger wrote: post #106

flr03 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes in democracy we do

No, making policy out of your personal preferences is a dictatorship. Making policy by taking a representative majority of preferences is a democracy.

No, democracy is just rule by the people. It says nothing about requiring proportional representation or about how disagreements are arbitrated. In ancient Athens you weren’t elected, you were randomly appointed by sortition into a council. Voting for representation is a fairly new concept, and so is direct democracy. Democracy is more about everyone having input that is accepted. What you’re proposing is tyranny by the majority.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#163

Post by b3lvedere » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #123

b3lvedere wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everything in this universe wants you dead, including the species you belong to yourself, including the oxygen you so desperately need. The sooner you realise that the living time you have left is a careful balance of sheer luck and some preparations (money, food, shelter, love, the whole Maslov pyramid) the sooner you realise a standard job or labor is just a tool.

The universe doesn't "want" you dead. It just happens that life is always on a precipice, a little bubble carved out from an endless sea of unlife. But when you live underwater in an air dome, the sea doesn't "want" to flood your dome - that implies malice. The sea will flood your dome if you aren't careful, but you can maintain this air pocket as long as you want. Sadly (arguably this is the greatest possible sadnes…

I totally agree that it does not 'want' anything. It just is. My apologies for that.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#164

Post by seanclayton » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

throwaway27448 wrote: post #101

seanclayton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> throughout history Ancient egypt? Roman times? Medieval times? Byzantine times? Pre-colonial Philippines? Pre-colonial America? I think it may have started in the late 1800s at the earliest. I would need a bit more evidence to be convinced that your model of individual to nuclear to extended etc has been a thing longer than a few centuries, vs the vast majority of human life experience being in nomadic hunter-gathe…

The Odyssey is in theaters right now; it rather famously deals with the importance of family and that's a close to 3000 year old poem.

Not really relevant at all

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#165

Post by inigyou » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

Brendinooo wrote: post #150

inigyou wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even just capitalism with more regulation and safety nets (the ones most countries implement don't work very well) would suffice here.

>the ones most countries implement don't work very well I guess this is the basis of my critique: the author seems to be writing as though capitalism is robbing him of some ideal that would otherwise exist: invoking the so-called "Protestant work ethic" to describe a system that took over the world and made us all worse off. That doesn't feel right to me because I don't think previous economic systems did better at p…

Why limit the discussion to the current system and past ones? That's like saying memory safety is bad because before C++ there was assembly code and that was even less safe.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#166

Post by everdrive » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:51 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #103

everdrive wrote: post #76

I bristle a bit when it comes to discussing productivity an an ill that is _specific_ to capitalism. It's certainly an ill of capitalism as well, but I don't know many other systems where productivity is not valued and lack of productivity does not come with downsides. As another commenter has pointed out, the surest ally in this case is family. Not all families are tight, but families are largely the ones who will t…

There's nothing wrong with valuing productivity and unvaluing unproductivity, but capitalism fetishizes it to the extreme, kills people who don't have it, and defines the One True Productivity that you have to meet to not be killed. A lot of artists suffer from this last point where they are being productive but not in ways that capitalism values.

>A lot of artists suffer from this last point where they are being productive but not in ways that capitalism values.

I'm just not convinced. If there's not a market for your art, yes you will not be able to sell it and make a living. But, in other systems:

- Your art disagrees with the soviet government, so you are sent to a torture / labor camp to work until you die.

- The soviet government does not care about your art, but you're still in the soviet union and everyone is poor so no one can pay for your art anyhow.

- It's the 1600s Europe, and you're only sort-of in a capitalist society given modern definitions, but the Church doesn't like your writing so you've been locked up.

- Your are a subsistence farmer, and have absolutely no chance of creating art whatsoever given how busy and poor you are.

- You're a subsistence farmer, and somehow you manage to make art, but the only people you have access to are the ~2,000 people in your immediate vicinity, and none of them have any money to pay for your art to support you, and they are not willing to trade a chicken for a song.

vs.

- You have the most niche art you can imagine, (eg: Dark Souls analysis, or Harry Potter fanfiction where Snape gets pregnant and is constantly embarrassed by it) but due to (lousy, imperfect) platforms such as Patreon and the internet you can get enough patronage to support yourself, even if it's just barely.

I'm just not convinced that artists are doing worse now (in terms of per-capita artists) than other times in history, or under other systems.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#167

Post by seanclayton » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

ghusto wrote: post #53

seanclayton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> throughout history Ancient egypt? Roman times? Medieval times? Byzantine times? Pre-colonial Philippines? Pre-colonial America? I think it may have started in the late 1800s at the earliest. I would need a bit more evidence to be convinced that your model of individual to nuclear to extended etc has been a thing longer than a few centuries, vs the vast majority of human life experience being in nomadic hunter-gathe…

It was _especially_ like this further back. You literally could not survive without the tribe, and the tribe had norms-and-values you had to adhere to, some of which were to do with family units. This went for nomads and settlers alike.

Tribes aren't the nuclear family. The nuclear family lives separate from the tribe.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#168

Post by Altern4tiveAcc » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #134

Telaneo wrote: post #5

> If your worth is not determined by your productivity, then what remains of you underneath it all? Everything else. You are worth so much more than your productivity. I'm glad I never got sucked into the protestant work ethic, since defining yourself based on your labour and the value you generate from that sounds woefully narrow-minded (this doesn't feel like quite the right word, but close enough). It's probably h…

> Reading the classics is productive because it's enjoyable, even though it doesn't help with your work It's productive in that it is hard and a sign of high intelligence. Don't believe me and swap it out with Candy Crush. Is playing Candy Crush productive? This obsession about people with disabilities is weird. Yes, people with real disabilities exist. But focusing on pathologizing every day life is extremely harmfu…

> Roughly 20% of undergraduate students at Ivy Plus institutions (including Harvard, Brown, and Cornell) are registered as disabled and receive accommodations. This figure has surged dramatically over time, rising from fewer than 3% at Harvard and under 6% at Cornell in 2015.

That seems to check out with the period people started getting more addicted to social media, pandemic side-effects and increased awareness of mental health issues

I believe the amount of people dealing with crippling anxiety these days is higher than that 20% figure, and we are still under-diagnosing it

> Hard work is a good in it of itself.

Hard disagree tbh but that's more of a personal values discussion

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#169

Post by throwaway173738 » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

thaumiel wrote: post #35

meta_gunslinger wrote: post #4

[flagged]

I disagree. People are born with disabilities, which doesn't always show it's face until it is too late. There are people who are completely incapable of saving and investing, because for them the "future" does not have any meaning in it self. What is the point of investing if money by it self does not have any value? There are also people who are born who will never be able to work a "normal" 9-5 job. To put everyth…

Nobody should be a victim of the circumstances of their life.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#170

Post by cjcole » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

veddox wrote: post #64

[flagged]

Find a Church which still does this:

"There were no needy ones among them, because those who owned lands or houses would sell their property, bring the proceeds from the sales, and lay them at the apostles’ feet for distribution to anyone as he had need." Acts 4:34-35

The Catholic Church has an ancient tradition asserting the inherent dignity of the human person (imago Dei), regardless of circumstance, including the very recent Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) subtitled On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.

In our supposedly rational age we've discarded structures which encoded timeless wisdom because we didn't recognize the value. We thought we'd outgrown it, but it turns out that now is when we need it the most.