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>God that sounds terrible anyway. Do that many people want to retire - literally have nothing greater than themselves that requires their input on a daily basis

>God that sounds terrible anyway. Do that many people want to retire - literally have nothing greater than themselves that requires their input on a daily basis - and go sit on a boat? What a waste. I do! Not necessarily a boat, though; I'd rather have a nice house in the woods, and spend a lot of time traveling the world. But you seem to think it's a "waste" if someone doesn't want to spend their whole life working. For what? So I can spend most of my waking hours in the sheer hell which is the modern open-plan office? Why TF would I want to do that if I didn't have to? The sooner I don't have to put up with open-plan offices, the better. And what are you contributing to the world while you're working anyway? You really think that working on yet another Javascript framework, or building yet another re-spin of some website is improving the world in a substantive way? Out of all the HN readership, I'd guess that less than 5% actually does anything that's lasting and useful to society.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago
Who said anything about working in an office? Out of all the HN readership, I'd guess that less than 5% actually does anything that's lasting and useful to society. I'd put it at closer to 1% - and that's the point. You have the causation backward though. If the purported goal is this mundane, hedonistic "retirement," then nobody will ever do anything lasting and useful because you can find an easy niche to fall into that lets you maximize your "leisure time."
- gorkonsine 9y ago
  >Who said anything about working in an office? You said before: "Do that many people want to retire - literally have nothing greater than themselves that requires their input on a daily basis" What else would people be doing if they don't retire, than working? And working means having to deal with all the crap that goes along with working: the open-plan office, meetings, the daily stand-up, office politics, etc. Why would anyone sane want to put up with this crap if they can afford not to? I sure wouldn't. >I'd put it at closer to 1% Yeah, I was being charitable. >If the purported goal is this mundane, hedonistic "retirement," then nobody will ever do anything lasting and useful because you can find an easy niche to fall into that lets you maximize your "leisure time." Yeah, but I don't see any alternative. Sure, I'd like to spend some of my time working on something really useful to humanity, and in fact that's one reason I got into engineering. The reality has been entirely different; nothing I've worked on has been important at all, and very little has even gotten any use. Most stuff just goes nowhere, gets canceled, etc. It's not like I can just go pick exactly what I want to work on. Notice how many applications NASA gets for the astronaut program, and how few of them are accepted. And even if I could pick some great project to work on, I don't want to do it if I have to work in an open-plan office, and I don't see office environments ever becoming a place where I'd be really excited to go every day. (i.e. cubicles were better than today's open-plan offices, but still pretty miserable.) So it's pretty simple: if I can afford to not work, I'd rather just do that than to put up with the annoyances that are unavoidable at work. If that means nobody ever does anything lasting or useful, then so be it.
  - AndrewKemendo 9y ago
    put up with the annoyances that are unavoidable at work. If that's all it takes to deter you, then I don't have much else to offer I suppose other than those annoyances are everywhere in life.
    - gorkonsine 9y ago
      No, they really aren't. I can stay at home in my home lab/workshop and have it set up just how I want and be very productive and happy. I can't do that in any workplace. Without a regular job, I can spend my time associating only with people that I like, not people I'm forced to work with. Without a regular job, I don't have to deal with power structures and hierarchies inherent in workplaces; I have complete freedom of association. Stuff like this is precisely why many people are happy to retire. Sure, a retired person may still have to deal with some annoyances, like the local government placing restrictions on what they can do with their property, having to pay taxes, etc., but they can sure minimize the number of annoyances they have to put up with in their daily lives a lot. They can even move somewhere else if they want, without having to worry about that new location being close to a paying job. It's really weird how dead-set against retirement and freedom you are.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

Who said anything about working in an office? Out of all the HN readership, I'd guess that less than 5% actually does anything that's lasting and useful to society. I'd put it at closer to 1% - and that's the point. You have the causation backward though. If the purported goal is this mundane, hedonistic "retirement," then nobody will ever do anything lasting and useful because you can find an easy niche to fall into that lets you maximize your "leisure time."

gorkonsine 9y ago
>Who said anything about working in an office? You said before: "Do that many people want to retire - literally have nothing greater than themselves that requires their input on a daily basis" What else would people be doing if they don't retire, than working? And working means having to deal with all the crap that goes along with working: the open-plan office, meetings, the daily stand-up, office politics, etc. Why would anyone sane want to put up with this crap if they can afford not to? I sure wouldn't. >I'd put it at closer to 1% Yeah, I was being charitable. >If the purported goal is this mundane, hedonistic "retirement," then nobody will ever do anything lasting and useful because you can find an easy niche to fall into that lets you maximize your "leisure time." Yeah, but I don't see any alternative. Sure, I'd like to spend some of my time working on something really useful to humanity, and in fact that's one reason I got into engineering. The reality has been entirely different; nothing I've worked on has been important at all, and very little has even gotten any use. Most stuff just goes nowhere, gets canceled, etc. It's not like I can just go pick exactly what I want to work on. Notice how many applications NASA gets for the astronaut program, and how few of them are accepted. And even if I could pick some great project to work on, I don't want to do it if I have to work in an open-plan office, and I don't see office environments ever becoming a place where I'd be really excited to go every day. (i.e. cubicles were better than today's open-plan offices, but still pretty miserable.) So it's pretty simple: if I can afford to not work, I'd rather just do that than to put up with the annoyances that are unavoidable at work. If that means nobody ever does anything lasting or useful, then so be it.
- AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  put up with the annoyances that are unavoidable at work. If that's all it takes to deter you, then I don't have much else to offer I suppose other than those annoyances are everywhere in life.
  - gorkonsine 9y ago
    No, they really aren't. I can stay at home in my home lab/workshop and have it set up just how I want and be very productive and happy. I can't do that in any workplace. Without a regular job, I can spend my time associating only with people that I like, not people I'm forced to work with. Without a regular job, I don't have to deal with power structures and hierarchies inherent in workplaces; I have complete freedom of association. Stuff like this is precisely why many people are happy to retire. Sure, a retired person may still have to deal with some annoyances, like the local government placing restrictions on what they can do with their property, having to pay taxes, etc., but they can sure minimize the number of annoyances they have to put up with in their daily lives a lot. They can even move somewhere else if they want, without having to worry about that new location being close to a paying job. It's really weird how dead-set against retirement and freedom you are.