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If you try to drill down to real specifics with these people, then eventually you have to give up because there aren't any. They're fixated on not having anything that looks or feels like a job. They can't be convinced that less drastic measures are necessary. They won't engage with their problems logically.

Hmm. I'm not going to say you're overgeneralizing, because you probably do have observational data behind your summation above. But even if it applies to the majority of "escapists" -- there's a significant percentage out there who not only do have plan; they make up for a good chunk of the truly brilliant and creative people who do anything truly interesting, at all.

The closest I can get to these people's underlying thought mechanics is that they just don't want to subordinate any time at all to anyone else. They want complete 100% control over all of their time. Which would be really nice, but c'mon now.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. But is it really that outlandish? There's this category of people known as "small business owners", you know - who basically fit that description. In fact, if you look around, there's quite a lot of them out there. In addition to, you know, genuinely creative people -- successful film makers, musicians and the like.

Are you saying they all should've just thrown in the towel, gotten a teaching job or something because... there's just no "there" in these pursuits they were almost blindingly attracted to?

C'mon now.

"Entrepreneurs are the crazy people who work 100 hours a week so they don’t have to work 40 hours for someone else" (https://twitter.com/richardbranson/status/488646661326245888)

If you think Richard Branson ever worked even 40 hours a week in his life the way an employee does, you'd be surprised.

He had a hippy indy prog record company that got lucky with an unexpected hit record. The rest is investing, self-marketing, and networking, hard work (a la Jobs or Carmcak or Gates etc.) was seldom required.

Not sure your point is coming across. Okay, he's no Jobs or Gates, that's for sure.

But something tells me probably does something besides sit around and sip Daiquiris (or read HN) all day. "Networking", if you want to call it that. Or "investing" in ways that don't actually lose money takes actual work, you know.

That is: "work", nonetheless.

>That is: "work", nonetheless.

If we contrast it with sitting at home or at some beach drinking Daiquiris (which is still a huge part of his time), then yes.

If we contrast it with what is actually work, stressful hard work, then no.

If we contrast it with .. stressful hard work,

Then we'd be shifting the goalposts.

The point is that, while it's not like he toils away in a coal mine -- and we know he ain't no brain surgeon -- whatever it is that Branson actually does, by any common sense definition it qualifies as "work".

> They want complete 100% control over all of their time. Which would be really nice, but c'mon now.

I think you may be under-valuing how much some people like to be in control of what they put their time towards. These are the people who hate taking a class because its a requirement for a degree, or doing an entry level job that they have no interest in simply to pay the bills.

Work is a large part of life. But not working for someone isn't about 'controlling your fortune' so much as it is controlling what you get to put your effort towards for a large portion of your life. Having to work for someone else will lead to less freedom of choice than working for yourself. Or at least, that's the eventual goal.

It's quite rational.

> Having to work for someone else will lead to less freedom of choice than working for yourself.

That's just silly. If you really wanted to get away from all human dependence, the path to that is clear, go live out in the woods off the grid. Build your own shelter. 100% of your time will go towards the things you want to do.

You don't even have to go that far, you can pick and choose your amount of engagement. I met a guy at the bar who was visiting from, was it South Dakota? Way out there. Had like 8 different little business-y things he did to make a living. Only reason he came down here was to visit his mom.

Whatever it is you want, holding down a stable, reliable job is a great way to move closer to it.

People with irrational mindsets will never agree to a rational course of action. It's all gotta happen right now.

>That's just silly. If you really wanted to get away from all human dependence, the path to that is clear, go live out in the woods off the grid.

For all your talk of irrationality, this is the classic slippery slope fallacy.

As if the only two options are dependence on salaried work as an employee and escape away from civilization.

Listening to you one would think that wanting to be an entrepreneur or a freelancer is something exotic, for really crazy daredevils. Something only terminally hippies would ever attempt. When it's not just extremely common, but it's just as valid way of working as any other.

Maybe the military is not the best place to learn everything there is about employment and the motivations of people, or about what's "rational"?

No, it's you committing the slippery slope fallacy. You introduced the idea of being independent. I offered one extreme solution and one not so extreme solution and indicated how you could pick and choose just how dramatic you want to go.

You are the one who is saying I gave a either-or.

> Listening to you one would think that wanting to be an entrepreneur or a freelancer is something exotic, for really crazy daredevils.

I said nothing of the sort! I know lots of successful entrepreneurs. That's a great path to take if you want to do it. But you get there by learning about entrepreneurship and marketing, not by wishing and wishing you can quit your job.

> Maybe the military is not the best place to learn everything there is about employment and the motivations of people, or about what's "rational"?

Good thing I was only there for two years.

>You are the one who is saying I gave a either-or.

That's not the case (plus I'm not the parent who you were responding to).

The parent wrote: "Having to work for someone else will lead to less freedom of choice than working for yourself."

And you responded: "That's just silly. If you really wanted to get away from all human dependence, the path to that is clear, go live out in the woods off the grid."

That's the dictionary definition of the slippery slope fallacy.

The parent didn't say anything about "really [wanting] to get away from all human dependence", so why bring this up? He just said that working for yourself is more free than working for someone else.

And you continued that "Whatever it is you want, holding down a stable, reliable job is a great way to move closer to it" freelancing or creating one's own business is not an option, and everybody is better of to achieve their goals by "holding down a stable, reliable job".

Tens of millions of people started straight into either freelancing or getting their own business while young or even straight out of college. An office or salaried job has never been a requirement, and has become even less so nowadays.

>I said nothing of the sort! I know lots of successful entrepreneurs. That's a great path to take if you want to do it. But you get there by learning about entrepreneurship and marketing, not by wishing and wishing you can quit your job.

Who said about "wishing you can quit your job"? TFA and other people in these comments spoke about actually quitting your job. Or not starting with one in the first place, but doing your own thing from the start. Heck, the article is about the guy completing 10 years doing his thing, not about them "wishing they can quit their job".

Maybe I'm more off-the-handle here than I care to admit. I don't know why I still get constantly surprised by the crazy idealism of HN. I'm a 100% dyed in the wool hacker, coded BASIC in grade school, but there are aspects about the culture that still elude me, mostly because I have a lot of other identities and can't constantly keep tabs on what this particular community feels.

So yeah, I'll concede the logical points you raised.

But you have no idea how many really and truly irrational people I've run into in my day. Life wasn't kind to them, and I'm expected to fix it, and if I don't, I'm the irrational / disloyal one. I am very very attuned to the irrational mindset.

But HN has its crazy idealism, so the second I call one person irrational, everybody here jumps on me like I'm a crazy job Nazi. I attacked your idealism, I must pay. I get this crap with my roommate, who pissed away 3 jobs since I've known him and have to give a break on the rent because he's satisfying other obligations that he took on at least partly due to idealism.

So let me state, for the record, that not wanting to have a 9-5 job is an eminently rational thing to want. Wanting it against reality, however, or without a realistic plan to accomplish it, or settling on stupid ways of getting there, like just quitting without a game plan, is a recipe for pain, not prosperity. You're not dealing from a rational frame, so your outcomes will not be what you want them to be.

My strong reaction comes from many many years of dealing with people who beg for your help, but just can't be helped. You can't talk sense into them, you can't give them anything that would meaningfully help them.

People who beg for help, but are beyond help, are one thing. Yes, that's annoying, but you are projecting an awful lot that's not actually in this article. Your reaction to a blog article about some guy finding his own way is out of proportion to what was actually stated. I would humbly suggest that there is something deeper being triggered in your psyche that you would gain more by exploring than trying to convince everyone else how irrational this approach is.

From the article:

I felt sure that I’d never work for someone else again. My will to “work” was gone. I cashed out a big chunk of my retirement fund to buy myself some time. After all, I had spent years eating 80-cent Banquet® meals for lunch, saving for this moment.

From your comment above, one of many here:

So let me state, for the record, that not wanting to have a 9-5 job is an eminently rational thing to want. Wanting it against reality, however, or without a realistic plan to accomplish it, or settling on stupid ways of getting there, like just quitting without a game plan, is a recipe for pain, not prosperity. You're not dealing from a rational frame, so your outcomes will not be what you want them to be.

The article also indicates he has savings, something lots of Americans don't have, regardless of how they make their money. He has more than paid back the money he cashed out of his retirement.

I don't know what on earth you are arguing against here, but it seems unrelated to the actual article under discussion. I get that people get defensive when "everyone" seems to argue against them. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. But sometimes, walking away from the stupid argument with internet strangers and not continuing to dig your grave deeper is the better choice. Sometimes, one is just running a fever or pissed at their boss or whatever and this stupid argument seems wildly more important than it really is. Down that path lies madness.

best.

>So let me state, for the record, that not wanting to have a 9-5 job is an eminently rational thing to want. Wanting it against reality, however, or without a realistic plan to accomplish it, or settling on stupid ways of getting there, like just quitting without a game plan, is a recipe for pain, not prosperity. You're not dealing from a rational frame, so your outcomes will not be what you want them to be.

Well, we can agree to that, but that's not the exclusive or general case.

I think you color it more by your experience with your roommate, than by what people generally do.

In general, judging from hundreds of millions of McJobs and corporate jobs, most people don't leave their jobs willy nilly.

I'd go as far as to say that wanting to quit your job and start a freelancing or entrepreneurial or small business gig, is not irrational in itself, EVEN if the person fails. If it was guaranteed success, we wouldn't be talking about entrepreneurial risk.

As long as its a calculated risk -- and not crazy optimism, I don't find it irrational.

Now, crazy optimism, "I will succeed no matter what", that is irrational.

You're taking my argument to a ridiculous extreme, nowhere did I extend it to ridding self of human dependence. It looks like you are simply content to keep pushing an ideology instead of replying to what's being said.

This reads like someone who has never stepped out of their comfort zone and just wants to justify their own life choices.

I dunno. I jumped from school to the military, then out of the military into the workforce. I've had spiritual adventures and travel adventures.

I am somebody who knows what I want and why I want it. And I've found that the best path to getting those things is usually the one you're already on, you just have to make slight course corrections.

>I dunno. I jumped from school to the military, then out of the military into the workforce. I've had spiritual adventures and travel adventures.

And the message from those adventures was "keep your day job and don't try anything independent"?

But why do you find it so hard to empathize with people who look at their lives in a different way? What's with going around calling people irrational instead of just different than you?

>The desire is irrational because it doesn't respond to reason.

Whereas the desire to go be somebody's helper for 8 (or more) hours every day, be on their command, and work on implementing their dreams and plans, stands to reason?

>Their decision-making process is completely oriented around not having a job, not around making money.

You seem to be convinced that the pinnacle of reason is making money.

Just because those decisions doesn't align with YOUR reasoning doesn't make them irrationals.

The reasons aren't that difficult. They are usually autonomy, creativity and dictating your own pace. I didn't mention less/more stress or less/more money but they are somewhere there too.

These can be huge reasons for folks wanting to pursue their own path. Depends on the personality.