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Comment by Kalium | Hacker News Reader

If only there was something in there that could be easily cut and is significantly less important than homework...

Assuming you mean the sports practice: I also personally value homework more than sports practice, but it seems callous and self-centred to assume that our own preferences are automatically right for others.

Broadly, I think there's a price to be paid for any given life choice. You don't get to have it all for free. In this case, the person chose to pay in sleep. I'm suggesting that they had other options on offer.

Yes, I understand it can seem callous. In this case, I honestly believe that my preferences are superior in the vast majority of instances (although demonstrably not all).

FWIW, sports was not actually my choice. My parents saw it as very important (and they had to pick me up from school after practice every day, so they thought it was worth 1.5 hours of their time in addition to my time).

Not that dropping sports typically helped, based on other students. I was really paying for sports with my GPA; people who didn't play sports typically had better grades and about the same amount of sleep (the 2-3 hour average was pure homework; I didn't learn to study until college, largely because there simply wasn't time).

Sports teach kids about teamwork, working together, and how hard work pays off. I have found more use from what I learned in sports than any homework assignment.

And yet, most of the population won't end up making a living from their sporting accomplishments. However, they will get a job based on what they learned (or didn't learn) in school.

You think there is no value in participating in sports outside of the direct results of "sporting accomplishments"?

Did you not read what I wrote? The skill-set you need to succeed in the business world directly correlate with those in the sports. Homework assignments do not teach this.

Sports and athletic activities provide experiences, self awareness, entertainment, and teamwork lessons that are incredibly useful beyond academic or (pro-sports) career-centric pursuits.

Athletic activities are experiences in their own right, that can be appreciated in and of the act and experience of the moment itself, rather than the assumption that all things must be a task so in order to establish some future goal.

Sure, commuting, but it's not always practical to move closer to school.

I agree, sleep is overrated.

Exactly! Get that caffeine addiction going early. It's good practice for when you're in YCombinator later trying to develop your hyper-bacon-geo-social-game.

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