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It's not ironic in the slightest. He's correct - the HN crowd is definitely afraid of slaving away for hours working on our own or other people's ideas that are

by RyanZAG 13y ago

It's not ironic in the slightest. He's correct - the HN crowd is definitely afraid of slaving away for hours working on our own or other people's ideas that are simply not useful to the world around us. We're the guys who can dedicate our lives to the right cause and actually change human civilization in some small way (eg. searching Google for recipes, booking your holiday with some taps on a screen, paying your bills without going to the post office). However, if we're not watching where we're going, we end up spending 6 years (of 15 hour days) making a cat simulator that even cat lovers ignore after two minutes. So he's got the right assessment - we're deadly afraid of slaving away at pointless work. If you follow the posts on HN, you'll see it's a constant reinforcement of people trying to determine if they're doing something worthwhile - how to test the waters, which ideas are working well, how to efficiently accomplish tasks. He's completely off the wall in believing this is a bad thing though. I pity that he believes spending an extra two hours each day digging his own grave deeper is in any way a good thing. His message is simply incorrect - work itself has no meaning. Only outcomes have meaning.

ionforce 13y ago
I think you're misconstruing the linked article. Answer the following. In a generation raised to believe that "how I feel" is the metric to be optimized, who will do work that does not provide "a positive amount of feels". Not all work is sexy work. And loads of people are inheriting this prima donna attitude of, well, I'm above unsexy work. How do you reconcile this?
- kybernetyk 13y ago
  What's there to reconcile? Let people who are OK with doing boring work do the work (and get paid well) and let people who are more about the "feels" pursue their interests. That way everyone wins and no one needs to do something he/she doesn't want to do.
- scott_s 13y ago
  You're assuming that people have been raised a certain way, and will act a certain way. Both are suppositions. Regardless, if enough people don't do "unsexy" work, "unsexy" work will start paying enough that people who are more mercenary about their jobs start doing it.
- invalidOrTaken 13y ago
  Work that needs to be done, and isn't, becomes better and better paid until it is sexy.

by RyanZAG 13y ago

ionforce 13y ago

I think you're misconstruing the linked article. Answer the following. In a generation raised to believe that "how I feel" is the metric to be optimized, who will do work that does not provide "a positive amount of feels". Not all work is sexy work. And loads of people are inheriting this prima donna attitude of, well, I'm above unsexy work. How do you reconcile this?

kybernetyk 13y ago
What's there to reconcile? Let people who are OK with doing boring work do the work (and get paid well) and let people who are more about the "feels" pursue their interests. That way everyone wins and no one needs to do something he/she doesn't want to do.
scott_s 13y ago
You're assuming that people have been raised a certain way, and will act a certain way. Both are suppositions. Regardless, if enough people don't do "unsexy" work, "unsexy" work will start paying enough that people who are more mercenary about their jobs start doing it.
invalidOrTaken 13y ago
Work that needs to be done, and isn't, becomes better and better paid until it is sexy.