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

361–370 of 402 posts

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#361

Post by nunez »

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…

So, as you saw, this provoked the age-old parenting vs CF "debate." (There isn't a right answer.)

I'm child-free by choice, so I can only offer the CF perspective. If you're a parent who wants to better understand our viewpoint, or if you're not a parent but are on the fence about kids, I recommend reading "Childfree by Choice" by Dr. Amy Blackstone. It's an extremely comprehensive book that deeply explores why we choose this life and how we find fulfillment beyond the material benefits that come with this decision.

(I want to be clear: There are loads of happy and very fulfilled parents out there, and it is possible to have a rich life with kids!)

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#362

Post by watermelon59 »

freetime2 wrote: post #38

I honestly don’t understand how anyone has the time and energy to be a coach while working a full-time job. My kids practice three times a week, and usually have games on both Saturday and Sunday - sometimes several hours away. Just getting them to practices and games often feels exhausting to me - I can’t imagine all the planning and scheduling that goes on behind the scenes, or having to show up and actually run th…

As a father of a still very young boy who might be getting into sports later in school (who knows), reading that terrifies me. I’ve heard the same, in person, from friends who have kids on their school’s soccer team and whatnot.

Why don’t school provide transportation to games on the weekends? Seems like a massive waste of collective resources to have every family drive for hours to get to wherever games are played.

Is it an American phenomenon due to the car-centric culture?

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#363

Post by bengale »

nunez wrote: post #361
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…

So, as you saw, this provoked the age-old parenting vs CF "debate." (There isn't a right answer.) I'm child-free by choice, so I can only offer the CF perspective. If you're a parent who wants to better understand our viewpoint, or if you're not a parent but are on the fence about kids, I recommend reading "Childfree by Choice" by Dr. Amy Blackstone. It's an extremely comprehensive book that deeply explores why we ch…

I didn't even mention them being his kids, the point really is that focussing on giving to others is the path to happiness and fulfilment vs focus on self. It doesn't have to specifically be children at all.

I guess I get why that irks a lot of the child-free people but it wasn't really the point I was making.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#364

Post by watermelon59 »

lr4444lr wrote: post #147

As someone who taught kids in person and fell into a deep depression with how Kafkaesque that job was and then found so much more gratification as a SWE, all I can say is, the author's experience is not universal. (And I am a parent, so it's not about disliking kids.) I will say though that remote work is definitely dystopia. I need an office and the presence of people physically.

> As someone who taught kids in person and fell into a deep depression with how Kafkaesque that job was

Would you mind elaborating on why that was the case? I’m super curious because I’ve considered switching careers to become a teacher.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#365

Post by bengale »

card_zero wrote: post #201
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…

> Chasing happiness, moral righteousness, or political engagement just loops you back into your own head, helping people doesn’t. Feeling good is a side-effect of being useful, not the goal. Presumably you imply that moral righteousness, too, is best attained intuitively, by being useful to others and helping them (to do whatever, like a useful idiot?) without conscious thought for what's right. Or else you're saying…

This feels like a bit of a staw man argument, I'm not sure there's any reason to read into it that you could help someone do morally bad things and feel good about it.

To be clear though feeling good is not the justification per se, it's pretty much just the signal that you're aligned correctly. When you aim outward, morality becomes less about self image and more about stewardship which is why it tends to work.

I’m also not claiming morality is relative or "attained" particularly beyond normal development as an adult. I would assert that we already know what’s right, the problem isn’t discovering the moral law, it’s obsessing over our own righteousness instead of living it.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#366

Post by bengale »

steezeburger wrote: post #289
bengale wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! That’s a great point. For real though, I’m not wasting tokens on comments. I do wonder if we will pick up habits when interacting with them a lot though.

I 100% thought this was written by an LLM. You copy its style if it wasn't. Or it has copied yours! Lol

My understanding is it learns from us. It's to be expected that it often speaks the way we speak, especially in places like this, since it's a free source of training data.

I'm not sure playing "spot the llm" is going to be a good use of time in many cases.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#367

Post by bengale »

ionwake wrote: post #273
bengale wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! That’s a great point. For real though, I’m not wasting tokens on comments. I do wonder if we will pick up habits when interacting with them a lot though.

For real the grammar is so good its sus, did you aprse this through claude?

No. I do have the gammarly tool running though, and it often corrects my writing.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#368

Post by graemep »

nunez wrote: post #350
graemep wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having a look at your state/country's foster care registry and the foster care industry as a whole might change your feelings on that.

I doubt there is a correlation between kids being wanted before birth and their likelihood of entering foster care. People who do not want kids do nkt have them.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#369

Post by bengale »

pickledish wrote: post #167
bengale wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not meant to be negative.

Ah -- IME people usually start a sentence with "in the nicest possible way" when they're couching something mean is all. Often it's even sarcastic, and the meanness isn't even meant to be couched, so I wasn't sure how to read it

Ironically, I went back and added it because I thought the comment sounded a little bit unfriendly on a first pass. Mission failed.

Re: The happiest I've ever been

#370

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

somenameforme wrote: post #332
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 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 populati…

Western societies solve that problem by letting in immigrants. I'm not sure what SK or Japan are going to do though.
Post reply on HN