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> I’d take an hour of staring at a wall over an hour of Hacker News any day, if I was trying specifically to drum up ideas for something to hack on. I feel lik
by freddie_mercury 8y ago
> I’d take an hour of staring at a wall over an hour of Hacker News any day, if I was trying specifically to drum up ideas for something to hack on.
I feel like this misses the point because you're still looking at it through the lens of productivity, albeit a step removed from "writing code" kind of productivity.
In your example you're still doing something -- "trying specifically to drum up ideas for something to hack on".
It seems like, if anything, this is an example of what the author is talking about: the need to turn everything into productivity.
- ambicapter 8y agoThat sounds like something Slavoj Zizek would say. Capitalism is the cornerstone of American culture, so everything we do easily falls into a "pump up those numbers" mindset.
- sweetheart 8y agoYeah I’ve had a couple conversations with friends about this in the last year. They tend to see this as a negative thing (the pressure to always be creating _something_), but I’ve never been convinced by their arguments. I think I look at one’s relationship to value production as a fairly romantic venture that sates some poorly understood desire to leave the world in a better place than you found it. They tend to say this is just because I’ve grown up in a capitalist economy and there is no innate value to producing new things. For some reason that just doesn’t feel right to me.
- c0vfefe 8y agoWell, there's definitely utility to you in creating things, even if it provides no value to anyone else. Not only can you solve your own problems this way, but it develops your skills, creativity, & general sense of well-being.