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I think you bring up a good example. I think a typical contract web developer in a western country is much more at risk for ego depletion then the Vietnamese fi

I think you bring up a good example. I think a typical contract web developer in a western country is much more at risk for ego depletion then the Vietnamese fisherman example. One of the factors of ego depletion is decision fatigue. If the fisherman does not fish that day, he and his offspring go hungry, and if that decision is repeated they will starve to death. So not really a decision, not one that a rational being would make. If the web developer goofs off on reddit today, instead of looking for new contracting work he won't go hungy.. He can probably coast for a little bit.. Actually, he could potentially just go on welfare, but then he'd have to live in a worse part of town. If he moved in with friends he could work less hours a week and have more leisure time, etc. Lots of choices to make. Novelty is another ego depleter. The fisherman has done it day-in-day-out for years, probably his father and grandfather as well. It's muscle memory and he's on autopilot. The web developer is constantly novelty fatigued, learning new clients' environments and the latest web framework fads which change month by month. His day has no routine. As a contractor it is much more difficult for me, and probably I'm the most lazy and restless after coming off a project, with a decent balance in the bank. I am much more focused and mentally sure when the bank balance is low and I'm chasing down business because if I don't find something it'll get uncomfortable quick. Contrast that to when I was in the gulf of Papagayo, miles from shore, on a small sailboat in the middle of a storm. There was no ego depletion. I never thought 'well, should I continue battling the sea to keep this boat afloat and going to my destination?' There's no ego there, only survival. Does the Vietnamese fisherman have the harder life by most metrics? Absolutely. However there are downsides to the modern western world.

jdietrich 9y ago
Despite low pay and poor working conditions, workers in fishing, agriculture and forestry report exceptionally high levels of job satisfaction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  it seems to me that for people in modernised industries, the disconnect is related to the fact that we work in non-natural environments. We evolved to live in nature and now we sit in artificially lit offices pressing plastic buttons to make electronic circuits fire the way we want them to. We have to be missing quite a few innate requirements that we get from wandering through fields and forests.
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    My dad was an Electrician. He always used to say the perfect job would be arriving to a warm office, and sit in a chair for two hours doing work. Then spend the next five hours working with your hands, and body. (His union got seven hour days, and Electrical work is still very physical.) I bet there will be an outdoor office, and it will be featured here on HN. At the end of the day, people will most likely find something to complain about? I don't think I've ever been to a beach/outdoors with anyone who didn't have at least one gripe--eventually? Especially camping. Actually, I take that back, I once down the Rogue River, with two friends, whom were on acid the whole time, and I don't remember them complaining about anything. One almost died though.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    Im not sure what your point is but if we follow your line of thought then we live in artificial environments as well. We use toilets too, and we dont gather food by ourselves for 95 % of us at least. Humans certainly did not evolve to live in nature but to model it to their liking.
    - beaconstudios 9y ago
      we certainly didn't evolve to model nature to our liking - that seems to have been an emergent property of a number of traits that we evolved such as tool use, opposable thumbs, higher level reasoning and so on. Our evolutionary baggage goes back throughout Earth's history and is mostly animal. We don't live in the environment we evolved for, like a dolphin living in an aquarium. Now that's fine, we obviously have the capacity to live in modern environments, but a certain amount of exposure to nature does us a lot of good.
- throwaway18917 9y ago
  Yeah, if my job sucked I'd probably try to rationalize it three ways to Sunday too.
- throwaway18917 9y ago
  Yeah, if my job sucked I'd probably try to rationalize it three ways to Sunday too.
abledon 9y ago
The fisherman doesn't sit in a chair all day either. the body being the interface to how we feel psychologically, he has a much easier time staying fit, Not squishing and collapsing down on his organs after a 2hr coding flow session, reducing blood flow and helping bring to fruition the effects all those 'sitting for prolonged periods at a desk will lead to cancer' studies. I also wonder how being outside on the water/nature effects the psyche to feel relaxed and in tune. Vietnamese are way ahead in terms of health hacks too. Almost no one in the west knows that you shouldn't be drinking ice cold beverages with your meal as it inhibits proper digestion , but any common folk in Hanoi etc will stop and seriously inquire to why the hell you just downed that glass of water WHILe your eating your beef/rice fermented cabbage roll lunch ? Why not before the meal , (cause it increases hcl production priming stomach for digesting upcoming meal etc ) And yeahbdownsides are definitely there , most people in Hanoi have a small persistent cough because of air pollution
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  People look at me weird when I ask for no ice in my drink when out to eat. I never understood what people like about freezing their insides when they eat.
  - southpawflo 9y ago
    ice water is an american thing, room temp water european. stems from the history of ice production, if you're interested the book 'imbibe!' by david wondrich talks about it
- SerLava 9y ago
  http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/do-cold-drinks-alter-digestion/ http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/do-cold-drinks-... I don't think cold water is actually bad for digestion.
  - abledon 9y ago
    interesting! Maybe not cold water, but drinking __before__ meals is supported by this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24179891 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24179891
Spakman 9y ago
Thanks a lot for this comment. It made a lot of connections form in my brain.

jdietrich 9y ago

Despite low pay and poor working conditions, workers in fishing, agriculture and forestry report exceptionally high levels of job satisfaction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation

beaconstudios 9y ago
it seems to me that for people in modernised industries, the disconnect is related to the fact that we work in non-natural environments. We evolved to live in nature and now we sit in artificially lit offices pressing plastic buttons to make electronic circuits fire the way we want them to. We have to be missing quite a few innate requirements that we get from wandering through fields and forests.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  My dad was an Electrician. He always used to say the perfect job would be arriving to a warm office, and sit in a chair for two hours doing work. Then spend the next five hours working with your hands, and body. (His union got seven hour days, and Electrical work is still very physical.) I bet there will be an outdoor office, and it will be featured here on HN. At the end of the day, people will most likely find something to complain about? I don't think I've ever been to a beach/outdoors with anyone who didn't have at least one gripe--eventually? Especially camping. Actually, I take that back, I once down the Rogue River, with two friends, whom were on acid the whole time, and I don't remember them complaining about anything. One almost died though.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  Im not sure what your point is but if we follow your line of thought then we live in artificial environments as well. We use toilets too, and we dont gather food by ourselves for 95 % of us at least. Humans certainly did not evolve to live in nature but to model it to their liking.
  - beaconstudios 9y ago
    we certainly didn't evolve to model nature to our liking - that seems to have been an emergent property of a number of traits that we evolved such as tool use, opposable thumbs, higher level reasoning and so on. Our evolutionary baggage goes back throughout Earth's history and is mostly animal. We don't live in the environment we evolved for, like a dolphin living in an aquarium. Now that's fine, we obviously have the capacity to live in modern environments, but a certain amount of exposure to nature does us a lot of good.
throwaway18917 9y ago
Yeah, if my job sucked I'd probably try to rationalize it three ways to Sunday too.
throwaway18917 9y ago
Yeah, if my job sucked I'd probably try to rationalize it three ways to Sunday too.

abledon 9y ago

The fisherman doesn't sit in a chair all day either. the body being the interface to how we feel psychologically, he has a much easier time staying fit, Not squishing and collapsing down on his organs after a 2hr coding flow session, reducing blood flow and helping bring to fruition the effects all those 'sitting for prolonged periods at a desk will lead to cancer' studies. I also wonder how being outside on the water/nature effects the psyche to feel relaxed and in tune. Vietnamese are way ahead in terms of health hacks too. Almost no one in the west knows that you shouldn't be drinking ice cold beverages with your meal as it inhibits proper digestion , but any common folk in Hanoi etc will stop and seriously inquire to why the hell you just downed that glass of water WHILe your eating your beef/rice fermented cabbage roll lunch ? Why not before the meal , (cause it increases hcl production priming stomach for digesting upcoming meal etc ) And yeahbdownsides are definitely there , most people in Hanoi have a small persistent cough because of air pollution

rainbowmverse 9y ago
People look at me weird when I ask for no ice in my drink when out to eat. I never understood what people like about freezing their insides when they eat.
- southpawflo 9y ago
  ice water is an american thing, room temp water european. stems from the history of ice production, if you're interested the book 'imbibe!' by david wondrich talks about it
SerLava 9y ago
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/do-cold-drinks-alter-digestion/ http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/do-cold-drinks-... I don't think cold water is actually bad for digestion.
- abledon 9y ago
  interesting! Maybe not cold water, but drinking __before__ meals is supported by this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24179891 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24179891

Spakman 9y ago

Thanks a lot for this comment. It made a lot of connections form in my brain.