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Comment by gnulynnux | Hacker News Reader

This is pretentious and pretty bad advice.

Does the author believe most people can afford to quit working for a period of time, let alone afford to travel around the world? Does this author look down upon those who aren't so well traveled, view them as lesser or less deserving?

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I don't like it either. I don't think Sivers is especially pretentious, but to me this just reads like a third-rate poem - I see what he's saying, but I don't think he says it well

edit: Just realised Derek will probably read this. Sorry dude, I think you're a good guy, but you can do better than this

Perhaps I'm just unfamiliar with the rest of his work. But this, and a brief perusal of his page, carries the same air as those self-help books written by the wealthy and privileged.

If this is intended as advice, I stand by my judgement that it's just not good. But I also think others would see that it's not good, we all generally understand travel as another form of consumerism and something available only to the wealthy. So it probably isn't advice.

But if this is a metaphor, then there is meaning that I don't understand and I withdraw my judgement.

I can’t say for certain, but I don’t think that is the case. However, the author did have the benefit of making $4MM off of his company before selling it for $22MM in his late thirties. I didn’t get the sense, though, from a brief perusal of his site that he’s remarkably pretentious or looks down on those less well-traveled.

> This is pretentious and pretty bad advice. Does the author believe most people can afford to quit working for a period of time, let alone afford to travel around the world?

It's a metaphor.

It didn't strike me as one, and I'm not sure what it would be a metaphor for.

I don't see how this is a metaphor, it seems to be pretty much on-the-face as recommending people travel the world four times.

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