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Comment by stjo | Hacker News Reader

TIL: Didn’t know I was stupid for having different goals than starting a family.

In non mockery voice: I think there is nothing wrong in being smart and perusing academic titles, wealth or recognition. Can’t I be happy travelling the world because I have so much passive income that I don’t care how much I spend? Can’t I be happy running megacorporation without a child?

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If you calmly re-read the post you were replying to, you will see that they didn't question different goals than theirs, at all. They said "many smart people", not all, and they didn't say that those outside that subset are stupid.

An expression of one's own values doesn't have to imply a judgement of others, especially if they're about what makes one happy.

If that makes you happy then fine, but it's wrong to assume that it's the ultimate goal for everyone to be mega rich. Honestly it's a very common mistake for people to be totally sure that everyone in the world desires to be rich and famous

>>that everyone in the world desires to be rich and famous

Keep the fame, I just want the freedom that money buys. I was never famous; but I have been asked for autographs and been stared at by total strangers with hero worship in their eyes--it is bizarre, and it made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I can't imagine anyone wanting that.

I think it was Naval Ravikant who said recently that the ideal is to be rich or financially independent enough to not worry too much, + anonymous. Rich AND famous is a never-ending nightmare and poor + famous is pretty much the worst outcome because you have such reduced freedom and privacy and don't know who your real friends are.

I don't care about being kicked out of the 9-zero club or whatever, I just want to lay about all day or if I want to take a week trip to Kenya or Moscow... and NO BOSS

That was one of the more butt hurt of all possible interpretations of what I said. And without knowing anything at all about you, and only judging from your comment, my guess is that hit a bit of a nerve. Why is that?

And I didn’t mean to say that playing with three year old kids in the garden is the only thing that is worth pursuing. It was just an example close to my hearth right now in my life in my circumstances and in my part of the world. Of course there are many other worthy pursuits. My point was only that trying to get a bigger pile of money than other people I don’t consider one of them.

Of course you can. True happiness is something that can't be controlled. So anyone who tells you you can't be happy doing a particular thing isn't right.

Granted there are some things we shouldn't be happy doing but I think that we all know what they are and it goes without saying.

Generally, happiness is a reward from doing what your genes want you to do. The greatest happiness therefore, should be found in the process of breeding and caring for offspring.

Social status (consumption, skills and achievements) helps you secure higher quality mates and offers greater security to your offspring. That's why gaining social status, feels worthwhile, but without kids it feels a bit empty.

Before kids, I knew the breeding was pretty good fun, but my genes gave me no indication that having kids would be fun too.

Perhaps thats just to ensure those genes are spread far and wide and to concentrate on social status before the all consuming process of caring for offspring begins.

overly reductive evolutionary psychology 101 but ok...

> Generally, happiness is a reward from doing what your genes want you to do.

I disagree. Generally happiness comes from being happy/content/thankful for what you have (as opposed to "having a lot"). You can be happy having no children, no fortune, no fame, etc. Conversely all of these do not guarantee happiness - Robin Williams committed suicide despite having them all, I think it's fair to assume he was not happy.

> Robin Williams committed suicide despite having them all, I think it's fair to assume he was not happy.

That's why I added 'Generally' and 'should be found'. It would be fair to say that Robin Williams was ill.

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