11–20 of 154 posts
I'm always amazed how I end up seeing long threads from HN users who read an article, but when I click on it, there is a pay wall. Are all those readers subscribers to these news sites?
"Leisure time is now the stuff of myth. Some are cursed with too much. Others find it too costly to enjoy. Many spend their spare moments staring at a screen of some kind, even though doing other things (visiting friends, volunteering at a church) tends to make people happier. Not a few presume they will cash in on all their stored leisure time when they finally retire, whenever that may be. In the meantime, being busy has its rewards. Otherwise why would people go to such trouble?
Alas time, ultimately, is a strange and slippery resource, easily traded, visible only when it passes and often most highly valued when it is gone. No one has ever complained of having too much of it. Instead, most people worry over how it flies, and wonder where it goes. Cruelly, it runs away faster as people get older, as each accumulating year grows less significant, proportionally, but also less vivid. Experiences become less novel and more habitual. The years soon bleed together and end up rushing past, with the most vibrant memories tucked somewhere near the beginning. And of course the more one tries to hold on to something, the swifter it seems to go"
I'm always amazed how I end up seeing long threads from HN users who read an article, but when I click on it, there is a pay wall. Are all those readers subscribers to these news sites?
I'm always amazed how I end up seeing long threads from HN users who read an article, but when I click on it, there is a pay wall. Are all those readers subscribers to these news sites?
I found this article really interesting and extremely well written. The excerpt below is a literary masterpiece.(other comments complain about paywall but on mobile I got "3 articles free" message. Not sure if they're A/B testing or if they're giving me free stuff because I'm in South Africa and they assume that online payments are hard here) "Leisure time is now the stuff of myth. Some are cursed with too much. Othe…
But most people never get far enough to worry about. Our world has been designed to lure people into poor behavioral loops like watching TV, browsing social media, and otherwise consuming aimlessly and mindlessly. Sadly, there appears to be a strong incentive to induce that kind of adverse behavior in users/customers.
I found this article really interesting and extremely well written. The excerpt below is a literary masterpiece.(other comments complain about paywall but on mobile I got "3 articles free" message. Not sure if they're A/B testing or if they're giving me free stuff because I'm in South Africa and they assume that online payments are hard here) "Leisure time is now the stuff of myth. Some are cursed with too much. Othe…
Novel experiences slow down time while habitual behaviors speed it up. However, we are almost by definition creatures of habit. They're necessary in order to function efficiently. So you could argue there's a tension between living efficiently and living well. But most people never get far enough to worry about. Our world has been designed to lure people into poor behavioral loops like watching TV, browsing social me…
I found this article really interesting and extremely well written. The excerpt below is a literary masterpiece.(other comments complain about paywall but on mobile I got "3 articles free" message. Not sure if they're A/B testing or if they're giving me free stuff because I'm in South Africa and they assume that online payments are hard here) "Leisure time is now the stuff of myth. Some are cursed with too much. Othe…
It was Grandfather’s watch and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s.
I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
[...]
I dont suppose anybody ever deliberately listens to a watch or a clock. You dont have to. You can be oblivious to the sound for a long while, then in a second of ticking it can create in the mind unbroken the long diminishing parade of time you didn’t hear.
[...]
It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret.
William Faulkner — the Sound and the Fury
Great quote from the doc:
Naoki:"You (the West) game me this f*cking Capitalist system 100 years ago..."
Cameramen: "And now you're rich"
Naoki: "Is this rich...is this a good system?"
I hope - and expect - that one day offices are viewed in the same way we view the factories of the early industrial age: prisons of drudgery and misery.
I'm not naive, civilization and its innumerable benefits (like actually being able to live past 65) has a cost. But the notion that sitting in traffic each morning to reach a room where one stares into a screen for 9 hours - every day, for 40 odd years - is desirable is the greatest con capitalism has ever pulled.