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Life is way too short to spend in soup kitchens worrying about how much and what form of privilege you may have.

Wow. I hope this is sarcasm. I'm sure that those who need soup kitchens don't share your point of view.

Not sure why you are downvoted. You are absolutely correct. I found the parent comment incredibly self-centered.

Life is too short to not spend it in great company rather, to spend it being so weak you consider a bit of reflection and having compassion for others as "worrying". An unexamined life is not worth living, as Abe Lincoln said during the Super Bowl show, so what are you even calling life? Furthermore:

    Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
    But always pity brought me back to earth;
    Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
    Of children in famine, of victims tortured
    And of old people left helpless.
    I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
    And I too suffer.

    This has been my life; I found it worth living.

-- Bertrand Russell

Who also said this:

> Although both love and knowledge are necessary, love is in a sense more fundamental, since it will lead intelligent people to seek knowledge, in order to find out how to benefit those whom they love. But if people are not intelligent, they will be content to believe what they have been told, and may do harm in spite of the most genuine benevolence.

Life is a big word, and I find a collection of unrelated experiences without connecting any dots to be more a hysterical undertaking born of lack and leading to more want. Others can disagree, but they cannot tell me what fulfills me in my life. Life is too short to be a coward about it, life is to short to not face the music, life is too short to not own up. Ultimately, I care more about saving myself than anyone else: I need to not be crooked, I can't help everybody but if I help nobody who would I be?

And frankly, I don't know a single selfish person who seems happy, they all seem scared, like feeding some monster in their basement that is never full and just keeps growing. Life is too short to have pity on them, or to accept what they offer.

> Say honestly, "I love arm-chairs better than free men, and pursue them because I choose; not because circumstances make me. I love hats, large, large hats, with many feathers and great bows; and I would rather have those hats than trouble myself about social dreams that will never be accomplished in my day. The world worships hats, and I wish to worship with them."

> But if you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel. Think that your soul is strong and will hold its way; and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps the strength will grow. And the foregoing of possessions for which others barter the last possibility of freedom will become easy.

-- Voltairine de Cleyre, "The Dominant Idea"

All the good things you're not being right now. Why? What does the contempt help, do you think? Why do you think it helps at all?

> then do everyone else who prefers that outcome a favor and keep your trap shut

Your comment comes off as far more vitriolic than his.

He raises a good point; that this "problem" of not being happy with a life that already has safety, security, and many things guaranteed that others might die never having, is not exactly the pinnacle of "being in-touch" the article makes it out to be - on reading that the guy is making apps/etc to let others do this I'm already anyicipating the fad coming and going, and people like you spitting contempt once it reaches the passé phase without really thinking about how it came about - whereas your comment raises none and is more outwardly hateful -

> I just want you to cut the bullshit attitude

- than his much more reasonably presented one.

I edited out the overt vitriol, because on reflection it was unhelpful. But I don't think it was unmerited, and I think you miss the point of it, which has nothing to do with the rather silly but largely harmless app and accompanying promotional piece.

'moneytalks might genuinely be interested in convincing people that it's more worth finding ways to step out of their comfort zone and help others, than it's worth using some kind of "randomize my life" app. If he is so interested, then he goes about it in the worst way possible - what he ostensibly advocates is difficult enough for many folks to contemplate, without adding the apparent likelihood of doing so only in order to have to put up with the kind of pretentious, contemptuous priggery we see on display here. But 'moneytalks spends so much more effort on being a pretentious, contemptuous prig, rather than suggesting it might be worthwhile to do somebody a good turn, that it's very hard to credit his interest being in the latter, rather than the former.

That's what merits my ire and my vitriol. I don't care if some random Google or Amazon or whatever decides to shake up his routine in the most stereotypically Silicon Valley way possible. I agree there are lower-effort, higher-impact ways to go about that, but I'm not going to get all judgey over it. I am going to get all judgey over somebody using "we should help other people" as an excuse to spit contempt that makes no one want to actually do that, and if anything puts people off.

If you want to get all precious and self-gratifying and put yourself on a pedestal over other people, read Pitchfork and be a music hipster, or Petapixel and be a camera hipster, or pick some other ancillary realm of human endeavor, where the distaste your behavior elicits will do no harm. Being a helping-people hipster goes from useless but harmless to actively toxic, and I don't see why anyone should expect to get a pass on that.

It's more positive to see this app as the way he found to get courage to change his life. Paradoxically he is still following rules..