I see this got modded down already, so let's examine the question closer: If you're reading this, chances are you're here because you've read Paul Graham's wri

I see this got modded down already, so let's examine the question closer: If you're reading this, chances are you're here because you've read Paul Graham's writing and want to be an entrepreneur. Paul Graham says that jobs are bad things (http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html) and you should be an entrepreneur instead. The problem is that something like 90% of startups will fail. I bet there are more than a few people on HN who have worked on a startup while receiving unemployment benefits. So if you're on unemployment benefits and decide to do a startup under the table, there's at least some chance something good will happen. The chance that nothing productive will come out of people working in the unemployment GULAG digging the Great Mexican Ditch (btw, wouldn't it be cheaper to hire Mexican laborers to dig it?) is 100%. Of course, none of this applies to you, because you're a special entrepreneurial snowflake. No one you know or care about has ever, or will ever, be unemployed. But everyone else is supposed to be your wage slave, willing to move across the country to work on your social media startup, cleaning toilets for stock options (because, you know, janitorial services is a dead industry). Either that, or they're a welfare queen spending their days snowboarding and playing x-box while sipping champagne and smoking cigars rolled from your tax dollars. And fuck their safety net and their medical care. This is why I have no problem calling out "libnerdtarians" and other social conservatives. There's a surprising lack of self-awareness, empathy, and the ability to perceive things from other people's perspectives. Some people call it being a sociopath: http://addictinginfo.org/new/?page_id=342 http://addictinginfo.org/new/?page_id=342