Hacker News Reader

Comment by andrepd | Hacker News Reader

But that is a false dichotomy. Your working long hours in an office in no way helps or correlates with the ability of being able to travel, or to have headache medication.

View on HN

Technically, you're probably right.

Realistically I also like to live in a nice house, do have to (well, by choice obviously) take care of three kids and like to enjoy a luxury here and there.

That takes money. I have tried multiple times to build my own companies, but sadly haven't been successful in that.

So that's for the travel argument.

As for the headache medication argument - I have that only because thousands of people have spent a lot of time in offices and labs developing those drugs and treatments.

Personally, my work mostly revolves around making wind turbines more efficient at producing energy by helping with data analysis. I also like to think that's my small way of offsetting the environmental damage I do by travelling. It's probably not enough, but still. something. So yeah, I'd say spending time at the office correlates quite nicely.

If you care about offsetting environmental costs of travelling, etc. consider donating to coolearth.org! About 70$ can offset an average carbon footprint for a whole year I think... It‘s one of the most effective charities against climate change and comes recommended by people such as Will MacAskill and Peter Singer who have founded a movement concerned with effective charity or „doing good better“. https://www.effectivealtruism.org/doing-good-better/

It's kind of sad to realise reading a comment like this now makes me instantly suspicious about whether or not this is "true" enthusiasm or something motivated by profit. It's a fundamentally hard problem to solve, but IMO it is one of the bigger hurdles facing places like this now.

Even when you're not doubting the recommendation enthusiasm, it's hard to not be suspicious of the charity itself, given how badly most of them are managed.

Alot of people are workaholics, maybe because they feel aimless and need some outside driving force. I work, but I also make alot of time for family and other activities. I turn down jobs that ask for more then 40 hours a week and I've quit jobs that had an unhealthy obsession with having your ass in a chair 8 hours a day at exactly 8am.

Work long hours to make money to pay for nice things like travel and medication because those things take time and effort to create and time spent creating should be rewarded and we reward people spending time working long hours creating things with money.

So yes, it does correlate.

ooh. much better put than my longer rant in sibling comment.

Maybe it does, if he works at Boeing.

The reason we have all these advances that increase our quality of life is because generations have worked their ass off to build them

Modern healthcare is the one thing I would be truly scared to give up. Fancy food, elaborate shelters, and rapid transportation are things that don't really matter much to your actual happiness. The idea that a cut on your thumb could kill you in your early twenties is pretty scary though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com