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

The happiest I've ever been

ben-mini.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 402 posts

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#331

Post by __turbobrew__ »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #315
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, if somebody offered me a time machine to travel back in time and live at any point in history, would I take it? Hell no. If given a choice I would rather be born in 1940s. 80 years of relative peace, prosperity, cheap education, cheap housing, only single parent needs to work, stronger community network, less overpopulation, better access to doctors, better wealth equality, and you get to partake in the first…

Would you want to be born a girl in the 1940s? How about as a non white person? And that is assuming you were even born in the US. Before women had the ability to be professionals earning real money, or access to birth control and many, many other types of healthcare specific to women. Before no fault divorce and before rape within marriage was outlawed? Decades before the Civil Rights Act and Jim Crow laws still exi…

> Would you want to be born a girl in the 1940s?

My grandma was born in the 40s and said it was better back then.

> Decades before the Civil Rights Act and Jim Crow laws still existed?

I don’t live in the USA so that is irrelevant.

Also, keep in mind I still have over half my life to live and the future seems very uncertain. Maybe I am a pessimist, but I would take 1940-2020 which I now know in hindsight was a pretty decent time to live compared to whatever the next 40 years holds. Maybe I am wrong and we will magically cure cancer, solve wealth inequality, 20 hour work weeks due to automation, and stay WW3.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#332

Post by somenameforme »

Aurornis wrote: post #99
nvarsj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s an entire generation of mostly childless adults who are shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others’ happiness. I have friends like this, their only purpose in life is to have no responsibilities, FIRE, and never give to anyone but themselves. Seems like a terribly depressing way to live but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.

> but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles. It's common in some tech and upper middle class bubbles , but outside of some startups and a few VHCOL cities most of the 40+ people in tech I encounter have families. I think the mindset is most popular in internet bubbles like Reddit. Reddit went mainstream a decade ago and many people in their 30s and 40s grew up reading a lot of Reddit. Reddit cleaned up the…

I don't understand why people, generally on both sides of the issue, just ignore the social effects of it and instead just focus on the personal. I suspect most don't intuit how rapidly fertility shifts population sizes, because it's an exponential. A fertility rate of 1 means each generation decreases by more than 50%, compounding. So after just 5 generations and your generational size is down 97% with your population doing the exact same, staggered out by a few decades.

And fertility determines not only the size of a population, but even the age ratios within that population. Low fertility means you end up with far more elderly than you do working age. Far from this vision of being a society with more for everybody, we'll be creating societies where labor is ever-more scarce, economies are primarily dedicated to helping sustain the elderly and simultaneously collapsing at the same time. It's not going to be pretty.

For these reasons, and many others, I think the social aspect is one of the most important. Self fulfillment and these other things are very important and good, but if we don't have children then we're going to be creating some pretty messed up societies for our descendants. We're likely going to get to see this play out in South Korea during our lifetimes. And I do wonder what their descendants will think of the South Koreans of today.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#333

Post by sublinear »

chasd00 wrote: post #327
sublinear wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am about to hit 40 soon and have an alternative take on all that. I agree reddit was and still is a very toxic echo chamber, but the rest of us who have avoided having kids shouldn't be lumped in with those people. I came from a big family and grew up somewhat poor watching remorseful adults who didn't recognize the gravity of bringing a life into this world, let alone several, basically drink themselves to death t…

I said this in a different comment but the real key is just knowing what’s right for you. Knowing yourself is actually very hard though.

I don't really know myself either, just the flaws I have (right now). I found them by pushing outside my comfort zone.

Sometimes you just need to know when to stop pushing for a while and come back later. Later can be sooner than you think, or never. It's the whole point of living. I'd find it miserable to be over my skis the entire time, but I still take risks here and there. How else do you find out?

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#334

Post by sublinear »

dgritsko wrote: post #6

These blog posts are fascinating to read. I don't have a personal blog, but if I did I'm sure I would've written a very similar post as I've been wrestling with similar thoughts over the last few weeks. I have the distinct sense that I will look back on February 2026 as an inflection point, where AI crossed over from being an interesting parlor trick to something that fundamentally and irreversibly altered what I do…

I think you're missing the point. My entire career has been looking up and reusing code written by humans who are objectively better at writing code than AI ever will be (please don't argue about this).

Your job has always been to be accountable for the technical decisions made. Sometimes I read comments like yours and wonder if the almost apologetic tone is an admission of guilt that you never really liked this job. You can speak for yourself, but I didn't get into this to just noodle around or work at unhinged startups where nobody gives a rat's ass about code quality.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#335

Post by [deleted] »

roenxi wrote: post #135
whaleidk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who want to be childless usually champion the importance of building strong community through friends and neighbors, just because they don’t want kids doesn’t mean they don’t want to contribute to others’ happiness lol. People wanting FIRE is a lot more to do with the current economy and wealth of useless or harmful jobs than kids

I think more than FIRE people should just focus on FI. You still have to do something with your day after becoming financially independent and a job is still one of many good ways to contribute to the community even if you don't technically need one. So retiring is an option but not the only one. On the other hand it remains quite confusing that after centuries of capital achieving vastly better results than labour p…

[deleted]

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#336

Post by graemep »

sublinear wrote: post #146
Aurornis wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles. It's common in some tech and upper middle class bubbles , but outside of some startups and a few VHCOL cities most of the 40+ people in tech I encounter have families. I think the mindset is most popular in internet bubbles like Reddit. Reddit went mainstream a decade ago and many people in their 30s and 40s grew up reading a lot of Reddit. Reddit cleaned up the…

I am about to hit 40 soon and have an alternative take on all that. I agree reddit was and still is a very toxic echo chamber, but the rest of us who have avoided having kids shouldn't be lumped in with those people. I came from a big family and grew up somewhat poor watching remorseful adults who didn't recognize the gravity of bringing a life into this world, let alone several, basically drink themselves to death t…

You seem to be polarising the choices. You do not have to have a big family or no kids at all. I have two kids.

For the vast majority people nothing else they can do with their lives will be anywhere near as fulfilling as having children. There are exceptions, of course, but it takes something like an unusual personality, or a great commitment to something else (e.g. celibacy in religious orders etc.), or something else really fulfilling.

I strongly suspect that someone who has the sense of responsibility that you have about children would make a great parent and not do what you grew up with.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#337

Post by graemep »

nine_k wrote: post #184
arealaccount wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dont want to deal with kids Someone has to bring up the next generation, the no kids crowd want all the luxury of having the next generation without putting in the effort or spending the money.

I suppose that people who actively do not want to have kids should not have kids. Their hypothetical kids won't be happy and well-developed, but instead always feel that they are an undesired burden. Instead, people who like having kids should have more kids. This would proliferate a healthy culture that sees kids as a source of happiness, not a burden of misery taken out of necessity.

I am not convinced that is true. Once you actually have kids it changes your outlook too dramatically. Someone who does not want to have kids before they have a kid, will almost certainly love any kid they actually have.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#338

Post by graemep »

littlexsparkee wrote: post #295
arealaccount wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dont want to deal with kids Someone has to bring up the next generation, the no kids crowd want all the luxury of having the next generation without putting in the effort or spending the money.

Nonsense, there are plenty of childless teachers, scientists, etc that devote themselves to helping humanity. If someone wants to become an expert in their field towards this end, how can they devote themselves while having kids? It would kneecap you.

Why would having kids kneecap you? Most people who are experts in their fields do have kids.

Almost all the teachers I know have kids. Most scientists do. Einstein had three kids, Dirac four, and Planck five. Marie and Pierre Curie managed two.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#339

Post by graemep »

throwaway1492 wrote: post #309
abc123abc123 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of time left. Create a tinder account, or adopt a child. Adpoting a child is the most self-less thing you could do. There are countries where single men are allowed to adopt. If you are rich, move there, become resident, adopt, and move back. Problem solved! As a bonus, being a single father then makes it more probable for you to meet a woman.

This, I got married at 40 to a 36 year old. We both wanted kids and a family but for reasons it hadn’t worked out for either of us. This wasn’t a Disney romance by any means but we get along and we put in the work to make it work. We had two kids back to back and I can say without a doubt what we have built is greater than any one of us. Trust there are some really great women in their thirties, they may not have bee…

I think the modern idea that it is only OK to marry and have kids because you are in love is part of the problem.

Lots of cultures have arranged marriages that most people are happy with. There is nothing immoral about seeking someone you can live with in order to build a life together and to have an raise children with them.

its probably a safer path to happiness than the romantic one. I did that and it very definitely did not work out and I am now divorced. I do have two kids though and have been a single dad for the last few years (the younger one is about to turn 18 so that phase of my life is coming to an end).

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#340

Post by throwaway920102 »

joshkojoras wrote: post #249
bengale wrote: post #35

In the nicest possible way, this is basically the oldest lesson there is. You weren’t happy because you optimized your feelings or had the right opinions. You were happy because you stopped focusing on yourself and became responsible for other people. Six kids needed you, in the real world, every week. That kind of outward focus kills emptiness fast. Chasing happiness, moral righteousness, or political engagement jus…

^^ This comment sums up the entire philosophy of happiness very well, although you first have to go through life to get the context to understand it. I'm over 40 and single and childless. I work in Tech, have a good salary, a house, a car, investments and a second property. I have everything people work for in life but I'd give it all up for a family. I wish I hadn't been so proud and arrogant and full of myself when…

You could easily still have a marriage and children.
Post reply on HN