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How to Work Hard

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Work Hard

#91

Post by ottoflux »

or, you know, work hard when it's work time and take a life balance. your company isn't going to come to raise your children (if you have them) when you die, nor are they going to live a happy life for you.

we have to stop thinking exploiting ourselves for someone else's gain makes us a better person.

i'm not saying the author says the opposite, but i think in any discussion of hard work we need to bring up balance. a good part of Bill Gates success was the money infusion from his friends and a wildly asymmetrical deal with IBM and the writer of DOS on the other side.

if we don't take a more nuanced approach we are (intentionally or not) perpetuating the myth of sacrificing your life for your company. i did that with my 20s and a chunk of my 30s. would not recommend. live your life, you only get one trip through and sometimes the body doesn't hold up well enough to keep enjoying all the things you love.

Re: How to Work Hard

#93

Post by dragonwriter »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #57
nickelcitymario wrote: post #34

> I had to learn what real work was before I could wholeheartedly desire to do it. That took a while, because even in college a lot of the work is pointless; there are entire departments that are pointless. The arrogance! This is one of my pet peeves at work: When someone looks at another person's work and judges its value or difficulty. "That's easy." "That's pointless." Ugh. Everyone else's job looks easy and/or po…

The author is right. Gender studies, for example, is a pointless degree. You certainly have a point about not being quick to judge, or overly dismissive, but there are certain things in life that are genuinely pointless, even in education.

> Gender studies, for example, is a pointless degree.

I would say that, like most interdisciplinary and many other degrees, its not particularly useful as a vocational credential outside academia.

OTOH, gender studies as a component of or elective within other degree programs that are more vocationally useful outside of academia is useful, and you don't have that without gender studies professors who you don’t have without people focussing on gender studies.

Re: How to Work Hard

#94

Post by stnmtn »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #57
nickelcitymario wrote: post #34

> I had to learn what real work was before I could wholeheartedly desire to do it. That took a while, because even in college a lot of the work is pointless; there are entire departments that are pointless. The arrogance! This is one of my pet peeves at work: When someone looks at another person's work and judges its value or difficulty. "That's easy." "That's pointless." Ugh. Everyone else's job looks easy and/or po…

The author is right. Gender studies, for example, is a pointless degree. You certainly have a point about not being quick to judge, or overly dismissive, but there are certain things in life that are genuinely pointless, even in education.

Shouldn't there be people researching and understanding if there are any differences between men and woman in our society?

You can say that the degree "leads to no jobs", but saying it's pointless seems like you are angry at it when it is just a subset of social science

Re: How to Work Hard

#95

Post by necrotic_comp »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #84
giantg2 wrote: post #44

Hard work can be good, but only if you own a substantial capital interest in the company/result. But if you can hire people to do it for you, then you can reap the benefits and live a life worth living. If you are just part of the labor and not the capital, then there really isn't an incentive to work harder than necessary to keep you job or earn a measly raise. If you tell people that if they work 12+ hours a day in…

> If you tell people that if they work 12+ hours a day in their 20s that they would be millionaires or billionaires Billionaire isn’t a realistic goal, but millionaire is a common outcome for software developers who work hard through their 20s and 30s now. It doesn’t even require a FAANG job or living in a super expensive city any more, just wise job selection, a reasonable amount of financial savvy and budget adhere…

And luck. Don't forget luck.

Re: How to Work Hard

#96

Post by borski »

sergiomattei wrote: post #75
ARandomerDude wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is right. Gender studies, for example, is a pointless degree. You certainly have a point about not being quick to judge, or overly dismissive, but there are certain things in life that are genuinely pointless, even in education.

The level of disrespect towards the social sciences in HN is just baffling to me. Sometimes people study stuff for intellectual fulfillment. I haven't studied gender studies, but according to HN, if I were to study sociology I'd be an ass with a pointless degree.

I think people are conflating intrinsic value with extrinsic value.

PG’s point is that those degrees have no extrinsic value, even if they provide lots of time to think, learn, and gain enjoyment. That can certainly be valuable, but it isn’t necessary or helpful in achieving success.

Nothing wrong with that, and his choice of wording wasn’t ideal, but that was my takeaway.

Re: How to Work Hard

#97

Post by bserge »

onemoresoop wrote: post #41
Y_Y wrote: post #16

Doesn't this sound shit though? If Bill Gates is so smart why did he have to work so much? Did he like coding and management more than days off? If a life of hard work is needed to get you into heaven that's fine. Or if anything less would mean you and your dependants going hungry. But once your basic needs are met then it's irrational not to start spending time on all of the other things that life has to offer. I fe…

If Bill Gates was so smart why did he have to screw so many people over? Remember how many other smart people and other companies he eat for breakfast? If Bill Gates had the right work ethic would he still be so rich?

He worked other people hard, which is really the only way to become very rich. One person can only do so much no matter how hard they work.

Re: How to Work Hard

#98

Post by Ntrails »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #57
nickelcitymario wrote: post #34

> I had to learn what real work was before I could wholeheartedly desire to do it. That took a while, because even in college a lot of the work is pointless; there are entire departments that are pointless. The arrogance! This is one of my pet peeves at work: When someone looks at another person's work and judges its value or difficulty. "That's easy." "That's pointless." Ugh. Everyone else's job looks easy and/or po…

The author is right. Gender studies, for example, is a pointless degree. You certainly have a point about not being quick to judge, or overly dismissive, but there are certain things in life that are genuinely pointless, even in education.

You're going to get downvoted into oblivion I suspect, which may have been your intent?

Is History a _useful_ degree? Is Economics? Is Politics? Psychology or Sociology?

I actually don't want to make those determinations. I don't think I'm qualified. I have a rough view that highly specific degrees are worse overall than general ones. Eg Actuarial Mathematics vs Mathematics. Marine Biology vs Biology.

But those are personal dinner table views, and I'm not certain I'm right! I certainly don't want to define policy on it, and I'm not sure I know of anyone I think is qualified.

Re: How to Work Hard

#99

Post by warent »

giantg2 wrote: post #53
eafkuor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is absolute shit, and it appeals to a very specific kind of "driven" people. Nothing against them but they need to realise that most others just want to enjoy their short time on this planet. I'm happy with my really mellow stable job that leaves me plenty of free time to do the things I actually want. Life is too short.

And then there are many people like me who work a job they hate, still don't get much time to enjoy life, all just to pay the bills. Less time on the planet might actually something many of us look forward to as life is full of pain and misery.

I hope this doesn't come across as insensitive but this is something I've never understood. If life feels like this, that seems like an indicator that it's time for some massive change. Usually people give some vague abstract response about why massive change is just unrealistic, indicating some fragile house of cards, while in a simultaneous act of cognitive dissonance dreaming of the day it topples.

Perhaps we could: sell everything and move into a van to live on the road; or get a cheap house boat; or declare bankruptcy and move into a Buddhist monastery; quit jobs to transition into a more mindless one that allows more free time; find a nonprofit organization in a different country to throw oneself into; teach English in a foreign country; etc...

It's like, when we're brooding so much that we're done with life, it just seems like that's the best time to give life a chance, because at that point there's nothing left to lose.

Re: How to Work Hard

#100

Post by chaosite »

WillDaSilva wrote: post #12
nicholast wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I just looked up the phrase false dichotomy, apparently doesn't mean what I thought it meant, probably would have been better said as "the two are not mutually exclusive", still point holds.

"False dichotomy" implies more than just the fact that "the two are not mutually exclusive". It further implies that the speaker in question has implied that the two are mutually exclusive, when they are in fact not.

And it further implies that the speaker has suggested that the two options are the only possible ones, when in fact there are other possibilities.

But the person you're correcting seems to have already noticed that, and has corrected themselves.

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