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Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

Somehow this seems like an American thing or maybe people in other places make less of a spectacle of it?

Always having too little time, always working and being proud to plan every minute of every day (recently Marissa Mayer and Bill Gates and someone else from the US said in interviews they have every minute of every day planned; sounds like pure hell but he) seems very American. This Soylent thing fits in there.

Why would someone want to work that much unless you want to become a billionaire which, again, seems a drive in media coming from the US?

Maybe it is just the media I read though, but here there is no vibe like that and when I meet (very successful/rich) entrepreneurs in Asia/Aus/EU they seem to be always eating elaborately so they do not give of that vibe either. Again the press distorts but posts here on HN and a thing like Soylent support that press.

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> Somehow this seems like an American thing or maybe people in other places make less of a spectacle of it?

I think there is more acceptance in certain cultures, for example, to skip lunch because it's a busy day. Having worked globally and in multiple industries, I don't believe it's an American only thing although probably more common there. I see it as more of an industry thing, and each industry seems to have it's own use case for a product like Soylent. i.e. the programmer 'in the zone' and not wanting to stop for dinner or the investment banker running on a few hours of sleep due to an upcoming pitch.

> Always having too little time, always working and being proud to plan every minute of every day

I'm not sure how that was implied, but that does not represent the typical American workforce in my view.

> entrepreneurs in Asia/Aus/EU they seem to be always eating elaborately

I would be surprised to hear these types of individuals don't deal with skipped meals or lack of time based on what's going on in there life/work like their counterparts in other countries do.

> I'm not sure how that was implied,

People here imply that people consume Soylent either because they cannot get enough calories in with normal food to not lose weight (what a luxury that must be), or, in most cases and as the direct parent writes, that they do not have time to eat 'normally'. That seems to mesh with the whole culture of fast food and minute day planning; I for one could not tell you if I have time for an elaborate meal or a quick meal at lunch today and I would not want to know if I do either. I'll see what happens when I get hungry.

> but that does not represent the typical American workforce in my view.

Not typical workforce; I'm citing some famous and very rich US business people. Just noting that these people seem proud of it while I don't hear the same stories (in the press) from anywhere else. And others (especially on HN) seem desperate to copy it (which is, I assume, were Soylent came from in the first place); people who cite this (time-hacking/life-hacking/whatever-hacking it is called) as a great feat are all from (=living in currently) the US when I check their profiles.

Particularly when you are inundated in valley slave culture, being busy all the time is a sign of your importance - you're busy disrupting the market getting ready to IPO, and if you have 10 spare minutes a day in which to regain some semblance of health or sanity, clearly you aren't a 10x developer. It's absolute hogwash and sadly a good number of brilliant young engineers are going to burn out, suffer health consequences, quit the field, etc. over it.

But having employees willing to sacrifice their actual wellbeing for the pipe-dream of getting "rich" is quite beneficial if you're say, a VC, so of course they foster this culture. "Look at how busy you are, you must be doing such important work!"

It's an old tradition, too: there are accounts from the early days of the United States talking about how reading is treated as labor rather than the enjoyable affairs which visitors from England, France, etc. were accustomed to.

https://books.google.com/books?id=2uBEAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA44&ots=...

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