Comment by UglyToad | Hacker News Reader

Comment by UglyToad | Hacker News Reader

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As a white man I feel you're being extremely sensitive here.

You've taken a small part of the article seemingly out of context. The author is talking about well meaning but ultimately useless advice from those with the financial means to support themselves indefinitely while they travel or relax. While a generalisation, the ability to build up a cushion of 'fuck you money' tends to correlate with being from a generation with higher job security, (in the UK) free higher education, no dependents to support, etc.

I don't know when everyone got so sensitive to understanding their own privilege vs other people. I'm in my third month off and have been travelling for the last month as well without having to work. I'm exceptionally lucky, I have no dependents to support, free accommodation at my parents, etc, etc. Instead let's imagine I'm a care leaver or my parents had caring needs or I had a child to support or medical/student debt or whatever it might be, I'd have continued to endure burnout until it likely killed me.

Certainly my life has its own challenges, depression, health troubles etc, but compared to most people I've won the lottery.

Anyway, that aside, I hope you're doing well and staying burnout free!

> the ability to build up a cushion of 'fuck you money' tends to correlate with being from a generation with higher job security

With all due respect - this stability comes from age, not generation. I have a stable life now. As someone born in the late 70's, I have a house, a stable job, and a 401k.

But I didn't have these things at 20 - I was fighting to keep my head above water from month to month after coming off being homeless and jobless. I didn't have it at 25, I had been fired and was couch surfing in CA. I was just starting to get stability at 30 - I had enough experience to get a steady job and enough money to start saving, even after paying bills and debt. It took the next decade to get to where I am today.

Age has re-inforced to me that TANSTAAFL is more than a programming idiom. I've put a lot of directed effort and energy into getting a stable life. Like my parents before me and their parents before them.

EDIT: I'd also like to note that my job security is virtually identical to the rest of my colleagues, a number of whom are in their early 20's. My only advantage over them for stability are the skills I'm honing to keep myself useful to this (and other) companies.

That's a fair point and a flaw in my response.

It's more based off the UK too where job security was higher and previously unemployment benefit was more generous and more widely available. There's still a difference here, from the UK the common mass redundancies of tech in the US seem bizzare and likely to increase work related stress.

I still think the author is using "older white male" shorthand to point out that we need to structure society and the economy in a way that protects all people from burnout and provides access to the tools and treatment to recover from it to all. Rather than assuming all people are sufficiently well off to take 6 months to do a Jack Dorsey style Buddhist retreat. I'd hope that the readers are capable of enough nuance to understand that what is meant is an elite rather than react to perceived racism, ageism, sexism etc. It just seems like the mirror of widely derided sensitivity of those on the left but even more bizarre because it claims racism against a group holding power (again in the UK, US, Australia, Canada, most of Europe, excluding the Roma, whoever else, but having to caveat to this extent swiftly makes language unworkable)

>"older white male" shorthand to point out that we need to structure society and the economy in a way that protects all people from burnout and provides access to the tools and treatment to recover from it to all.

That "shorthand" is going to inadvertently open the possibility of the reader to drawing broader and less exact conclusions than if the writer were more careful in their choice of words.

Using "older white male" makes it sound like the goal is something that's already broadly available (and just being artificially limited) rather than a thing for people with riches or worked hard to get it. They're therefore statistically older, having worked to get into that position and probably only have access to limited doses unless they've been phenomenally successful.

>Rather than assuming all people are sufficiently well off to take 6 months to do a Jack Dorsey style Buddhist retreat.

What's the goal here? How big is the gulf between Doresy's adventure and "protect[ing] all people from burnout and provid[ing] access to the tools and treatment to recover"? Outside of fully automated luxury space communism, next to nobody is going to have the resources to not only not work for six months, but to also hand over all their regular day-to-day responsibility like taking care of family, paying their bills and making sure the house didn't burn down.

> next to nobody is going to have the resources to not only not work for six months

Why not? We're richer than we're ever been. What happened?

Rent, debt and inequality. There is much more wealth, but it's concentrated in places that are expensive and distant from traditional safety nets and social support networks.

> the author is using "older white male" shorthand to point out that we need to structure society and the economy in a way that protects all people

This feels like a justification, an excuse on behalf of the author. If we replaced "older white male" with "young black woman", would this be acceptable? If we replaced the author's references to "other generations" with "millennials", would the article be acceptable?

> I'd hope that the readers are capable of enough nuance to understand that what is meant is an elite rather than react to perceived racism, ageism, sexism etc.

As I said, I took it for what it ultimately is: blowing off steam. But I also couldn't ignore how the author is also using their burnout as an avenue for attacking others as if it's their fault the author burned out.

The "others" can, and should, provide a safety net. I have done so in my personal life. But ultimately, I have no sway in someone else's mental well being, for example when it comes to the expectations the author has put upon herself WRT social networks.

As a white man who's neither American nor Western-European I often see things being associated with or characterized by my skin tone when this couldn't be further from the truth.

I mean, in reality, these things almost always have everything to do with status and nothing to do with skin tone - otherwise I wouldn't be experiencing them from my higher-status friends who are baffled that I don't put more than 70% of my income into savings(actual thing one far removed from reality person said to me).

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