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For most people the answers to your questions are all obvious without anything more than weekly local news. Maybe without even that. > What should I eat? Food

For most people the answers to your questions are all obvious without anything more than weekly local news. Maybe without even that. > What should I eat? Food, from the grocery store. Adjust based on your family doctors advice and your own preferences. > What should I learn? Whatever your boss suggests will advance your career. > What career should I embark upon? Whatever is available locally and, optionally, suited to your abilities and interests. > What should I invest in? Whichever index fund option in your 401k is least volatile.

Spivak 2y ago
Or most volatile depending on your age. Yoloing an all stock portfolio is a pretty safe bet when you have time to play the long game.
rTX5CMRXIfFG 2y ago
Most people don’t consult their family doctors when food isn’t available or when they are confronted with a variation in recipe. It isn’t the case that most people blindly follow their boss’ advice. Most people don’t decide their careers based on short-term local availability. And almost no investor who’s financially literate enough to consider an index fund would consider volatility as a metric of attractiveness of the fund. I was going to say that your arguments only hold so long as you oversimplify what are inherently complex decisions that require multiple and current information sources, but the very foundation of your line of questioning is just plain wrong.
- jpc0 2y ago
  I'm going to disagee with you there. You are seeing the world through a different lens driven by constant churn in the tech industry. In many industries if you are just a drone that does their job reasonably well, will work overtime every now and then when it's available and have shown willingness and ability to improve, management will make sure you stay at that company. Your only actual fear would be that the company fails but then very likely you are on the shortlist for that same management at their new company. Assume incompetence not malice, people aren't out to get you and trying to get the worst for you, they want to best for themselves and if you make it so that making you comfortable also makes them comfortable then you aren't at risk. Regarding food... Buy what's on the shelf, nobody needs their special kale only diet or whatever is the trend. What the parent was saying is follow general food guidelines, avoid excessive meat, keep portion sizes reasonable, half you plate should be vegetables etc... Same with the index fund thing, if you start investing with a reputable investor when your are in your 20s even if it doesn't beat the market you will retire comfortably. You don't need to minmax life. You can hit autopilot and just go where life takes you while just make small course corrections every now and then and you will be fine. You wont have a great life or a bad one. You will fall close to the middle of the bell curve and that's actually good enough. Focus on the things that are important, spend time with your loved ones etc. Trust me I understand your point of view as well, that's me I can't be vanilla with these things, my mental health doesn't allow it. I need to shoot for the moon and do it as efficiently as possible. I just know that's not necessary.
  - 63stack 2y ago
    I think you are seeing the world through different lens as well (we all are?) Growing up in Hungary, your options in "drone-like" jobs are: a) put up with the ever increasing demand from your boss, making sure you keep hitting your quotas (eg. items scanned/minute) or b) get fired, and they will get the next person to do your job from the 1000 other desperate applicants.
  - stevenAthompson 2y ago
    You nailed my intent here, although I wasn't really advocating for it either. More just reminding HN readers that we aren't representative, and that (as the replies here confirm) we seem to forget that. The world is filled mostly with people who read below the 6th grade level. Those people have average life expectancies, average local jobs, and will retire with average savings if they retire at all. I'm not judging those average lives, just trying to encourage the high achievers here to consider the way the 24 hour news cycle impacts the average, barely literate, person who just wants to survive their day without falling down either slope of the bell curve.
roenxi 2y ago
That seems unwise. The comparison point for me would be 1920s Europe - in hindsight it seems likely they'd have had a lot of telegraphing in advance that things were about to go really badly wrong - disasters of the magnitude that engulfed them aren't easily missed. The average person wouldn't have been aware of it because the lack of an internet would have resulted in an insanely biased view of the data being presented that probably obscured just how bad things were getting. Today we have a much better level of information access available. The answer in the 1920s if you can see the 1930s and 1940s coming wasn't go local, it was some combination of fortify, fearmonger and/or flee. People needed to be alerted that the situation was really bad and immediate action was required at all levels to avert disaster - but action wasn't taken and we saw an economic crisis unfold, followed by a military one.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  The point appears to be that even if most people in 1920's Europe could have seen all the telegraphing, how many of them could have done anything to make a difference for their given situation? How many people do we think were realistically in a position to make a change to the economic conditions and still uninformed? How many were in a place to make a change to the military conditions and similarly uninformed? Hind sight is 20/20, and its easy knowing a massive war was coming to say people should have been getting the hell out of Dodge. But moving your entire family to a new country let alone a new continent is a massive undertaking. How many people even if they had the warnings would have pulled the trigger on that move rather than wait and see? What sort of huge, global war scale negative things are being telegraphed today and what major life altering decisions on the magnitude of leaving your entire community and extended family behind and seeking asylum in a foreign country do you foresee yourself undertaking to address them in response to your unprecedented levels of modern awareness? Or does your unprecedented access to that information simply make you feel helpless and hopeless? Are you actually better equipped to attend to the impending doom or do you just know that it's there. One wonders if we had the ability to know the exact month and year we were going to die, would we think our lives were made better by knowing that, or would we find that having that knowledge does little to change the quality of the life we live in any positive way, and largely adds stress or other negative experiences. There's a balance to be struck with any amount of being informed, but like everything else in life, I suspect moderation is the key.
throwaway2037 2y ago
> Whichever index fund option in your 401k is least volatile. That would be a govt bond fund or, worse, a money market fund. That is no different than telling retail investors to avoid equities, and only buy bonds. That is a terrible investment strategy. Literally: I have never seen an investment professional recommend such a portfolio for any one of working age. Better advice would a broad based US/Europe equity index, e.g., S&P 500 or FTSE 100 or EuroSTOXX 600.
- FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
  Given how terrible that advice is, it makes you reconsider the other items. The whole post might be clever satire: "Don't just do what you're told. Don't just eat the crap pushed by Big Ag. Do think."
latexr 2y ago
I mostly agreed with your first paragraph, but then the examples killed it for me. Especially the second one: what a profoundly sad existence that someone would define their learning interests by what their boss recommends, with the sole goal of advancing one’s career. It isn’t even guaranteed the advice would be useful—bosses can be incompetent and petty too. And pray tell, if your boss follows that same advice, where does it stop? When does anyone have one original thought to pursue? Food in the grocery store is stocked by corporations who have no concern for your health and want to fill you up with addictive fat and sugar. Eat instead natural ingredients, preferably from local growers or a farmer’s market. Don’t limit yourself to local careers if nothing calls to you. Dare to dream even just a big bigger. 401k is a US concept. Most of the planet doesn’t live there.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

Spivak 2y ago

Or most volatile depending on your age. Yoloing an all stock portfolio is a pretty safe bet when you have time to play the long game.

rTX5CMRXIfFG 2y ago

Most people don’t consult their family doctors when food isn’t available or when they are confronted with a variation in recipe. It isn’t the case that most people blindly follow their boss’ advice. Most people don’t decide their careers based on short-term local availability. And almost no investor who’s financially literate enough to consider an index fund would consider volatility as a metric of attractiveness of the fund. I was going to say that your arguments only hold so long as you oversimplify what are inherently complex decisions that require multiple and current information sources, but the very foundation of your line of questioning is just plain wrong.

jpc0 2y ago
I'm going to disagee with you there. You are seeing the world through a different lens driven by constant churn in the tech industry. In many industries if you are just a drone that does their job reasonably well, will work overtime every now and then when it's available and have shown willingness and ability to improve, management will make sure you stay at that company. Your only actual fear would be that the company fails but then very likely you are on the shortlist for that same management at their new company. Assume incompetence not malice, people aren't out to get you and trying to get the worst for you, they want to best for themselves and if you make it so that making you comfortable also makes them comfortable then you aren't at risk. Regarding food... Buy what's on the shelf, nobody needs their special kale only diet or whatever is the trend. What the parent was saying is follow general food guidelines, avoid excessive meat, keep portion sizes reasonable, half you plate should be vegetables etc... Same with the index fund thing, if you start investing with a reputable investor when your are in your 20s even if it doesn't beat the market you will retire comfortably. You don't need to minmax life. You can hit autopilot and just go where life takes you while just make small course corrections every now and then and you will be fine. You wont have a great life or a bad one. You will fall close to the middle of the bell curve and that's actually good enough. Focus on the things that are important, spend time with your loved ones etc. Trust me I understand your point of view as well, that's me I can't be vanilla with these things, my mental health doesn't allow it. I need to shoot for the moon and do it as efficiently as possible. I just know that's not necessary.
- 63stack 2y ago
  I think you are seeing the world through different lens as well (we all are?) Growing up in Hungary, your options in "drone-like" jobs are: a) put up with the ever increasing demand from your boss, making sure you keep hitting your quotas (eg. items scanned/minute) or b) get fired, and they will get the next person to do your job from the 1000 other desperate applicants.
- stevenAthompson 2y ago
  You nailed my intent here, although I wasn't really advocating for it either. More just reminding HN readers that we aren't representative, and that (as the replies here confirm) we seem to forget that. The world is filled mostly with people who read below the 6th grade level. Those people have average life expectancies, average local jobs, and will retire with average savings if they retire at all. I'm not judging those average lives, just trying to encourage the high achievers here to consider the way the 24 hour news cycle impacts the average, barely literate, person who just wants to survive their day without falling down either slope of the bell curve.

roenxi 2y ago

That seems unwise. The comparison point for me would be 1920s Europe - in hindsight it seems likely they'd have had a lot of telegraphing in advance that things were about to go really badly wrong - disasters of the magnitude that engulfed them aren't easily missed. The average person wouldn't have been aware of it because the lack of an internet would have resulted in an insanely biased view of the data being presented that probably obscured just how bad things were getting. Today we have a much better level of information access available. The answer in the 1920s if you can see the 1930s and 1940s coming wasn't go local, it was some combination of fortify, fearmonger and/or flee. People needed to be alerted that the situation was really bad and immediate action was required at all levels to avert disaster - but action wasn't taken and we saw an economic crisis unfold, followed by a military one.

tpmoney 2y ago
The point appears to be that even if most people in 1920's Europe could have seen all the telegraphing, how many of them could have done anything to make a difference for their given situation? How many people do we think were realistically in a position to make a change to the economic conditions and still uninformed? How many were in a place to make a change to the military conditions and similarly uninformed? Hind sight is 20/20, and its easy knowing a massive war was coming to say people should have been getting the hell out of Dodge. But moving your entire family to a new country let alone a new continent is a massive undertaking. How many people even if they had the warnings would have pulled the trigger on that move rather than wait and see? What sort of huge, global war scale negative things are being telegraphed today and what major life altering decisions on the magnitude of leaving your entire community and extended family behind and seeking asylum in a foreign country do you foresee yourself undertaking to address them in response to your unprecedented levels of modern awareness? Or does your unprecedented access to that information simply make you feel helpless and hopeless? Are you actually better equipped to attend to the impending doom or do you just know that it's there. One wonders if we had the ability to know the exact month and year we were going to die, would we think our lives were made better by knowing that, or would we find that having that knowledge does little to change the quality of the life we live in any positive way, and largely adds stress or other negative experiences. There's a balance to be struck with any amount of being informed, but like everything else in life, I suspect moderation is the key.

throwaway2037 2y ago

> Whichever index fund option in your 401k is least volatile. That would be a govt bond fund or, worse, a money market fund. That is no different than telling retail investors to avoid equities, and only buy bonds. That is a terrible investment strategy. Literally: I have never seen an investment professional recommend such a portfolio for any one of working age. Better advice would a broad based US/Europe equity index, e.g., S&P 500 or FTSE 100 or EuroSTOXX 600.

FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
Given how terrible that advice is, it makes you reconsider the other items. The whole post might be clever satire: "Don't just do what you're told. Don't just eat the crap pushed by Big Ag. Do think."

latexr 2y ago

I mostly agreed with your first paragraph, but then the examples killed it for me. Especially the second one: what a profoundly sad existence that someone would define their learning interests by what their boss recommends, with the sole goal of advancing one’s career. It isn’t even guaranteed the advice would be useful—bosses can be incompetent and petty too. And pray tell, if your boss follows that same advice, where does it stop? When does anyone have one original thought to pursue? Food in the grocery store is stocked by corporations who have no concern for your health and want to fill you up with addictive fat and sugar. Eat instead natural ingredients, preferably from local growers or a farmer’s market. Don’t limit yourself to local careers if nothing calls to you. Dare to dream even just a big bigger. 401k is a US concept. Most of the planet doesn’t live there.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]