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Comment by nroach | Hacker News Reader

Bear in mind that we segment our activity more in "modern" society. For example, in agrarian societies you didn't need to carve out time for exercise. Work was exercise. You also didn't need to carve out time for child care, because children worked alongside adults much of the time. And commuting wasn't really an issue when workplaces and residences were in the same community with minimal geographic separation.

It's our societal lifestyle that has demanded separate time for separate activities, resulting in a need for a greater than 24-hour day.

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I think the lack of children working along side adults is a great shame. Not that I'm a fan of child labour but I think there is something that adds to a child's self esteem when they take on responsibilities along side adults. I know they complain and don't often like the labour, but I think it brings a sense of purpose and belonging that many young people seem to lack.

That lack of purpose is the point. If you can acculturate children to doing what they accurately perceive as pointless, joyless, regimented tasks and get them used to being told what to do, when to do it and how, to being ranked by an authority figure then school has done its job. An industrial society cannot function with people who won’t just put up and shut up.

I'm also struck by cities that commute heavily by bike (such as Amsterdam). Your commute is your exercise. That is not how most Americans live, however.

I would absolutely love to commute by bike. Distance is a factor but that is not the primary issue. I am in south-east Georgia and bike lanes are an absolute foreign concept. I mean even if we had them, people would use them as passing lanes and all that. I've seen plenty of 'sleep hack' articles recently; trying to do more with less where sleep is concerned. To me that is a complete non-starter. I truly just need more sleep.

I wonder how VR/AR will change this?

With your four display setup, now perched on your nose, moving between sitting desk, standing desk, and stretching on the floor, means moving a wireless keyboard. And for tasks where phone-like keyboards are good enough, no need for the desk, just wander.

Twitch a finger on a pad, twitch a hand and arm on mouse or controller or knee, or raise your arms and dance. You, not the task, determine your style.

Overlay work, while hanging with children. Or map remote kids, into your virtual world. Helicopter parents, meet drones.

Commuting? Well, I suppose some prefer the village well, to indoor plumbing - it's a chance to socialize, away from family oversight. And I suppose commuting will become more pleasant, as the roads clear out - have you seen video of 1950's highways? ;)

There's a meme, of people blithely living their lives, ignoring the future, not appreciating they will soon be stumbling through the smoking ruins of their city. Perhaps we need its complement. People blithely stumbling through smoking ruins, not appreciating they will soon be living in a city.

I can't tell if your VR-parenting suggestions are tongue-in-cheek or not. I'm terrified either way.

Once they got old enough, sure. Until then, women typically took care of them. Good luck working alongside an 18 month old.

Yeah, it's like trying to work in an open office, with people repeatedly stopping by with problems, and springing surprise meetings, and... well, maybe not quite that bad? :)

I'm not sure what's scarier: a coworker stopping by saying, "hey, the PROD-DB-1 server has been down for four hours" or your four year old stopping by and saying, "there's an oops in the kitchen."

If you train the four year old correctly you might even get "there's an oops on the PROD-DB-1 server". That would be more than I get from some of my adult co-workers.

A friend of mine runs a rural radio-based ISP, while raising... four? kids or so. It's entirely possible that some of his downtime was caused by someone accidentally spilling juice into something and letting the magic smoke out, but I've never asked.

Well, with 6 kids or more in each family taking care of small children was a full-time job of its own. Not to mention not having things such as a washing machine...

With 6 or more kids in each family older children frequently helped with chores and helped take care of the younger ones. Even a 5-year old is capable of helping with simple childcare tasks and a responsible 10-year old is capable of being a babysitter for periods of time.

Children would also be naturally spaced because breastfeeding around the clock typically continued until the child was at least 18 months old, meaning that they would normally be 15-30 months apart (the amount of time that breastfeeding acts a contraceptive varies widely from woman to woman but typically breastfeeding on demand will halt a woman's reproductive activity for at least 6 months).

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