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Comment by ramraj07 | Hacker News Reader

People always bring up how people in Fiji or the Carribean are so happy and not stressed, and I’m not sure what the message is. Of course if you just want to relax and not worry too much about what you want to accomplish in life then yeah go to some corner of the world and live happily? However for a lot of people that’s not what they want out of their lives; they want it to mean something in their own way. Of course the vast majority get lost in the rat race and forget what it is that made them choose to work their ass of to begin with, but it’s not because their ultimate goal (at least in the beginning) was to chill at the beach.

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You miss the OP's point. They're talking about a specific aspect of culture in the Carribean, where they worked for a while, not about idyllic lifelong vacations. While there, they found that separation from the internet reduced the amount of outrage they felt.

Unless you're suggesting that social media outrage is productive and helps people to accomplish something meaningful in their own way, you're not actually addressing the OP's comment, you're addressing an unrelated idea that you've heard in the past.

I think the OP is also indirectly touching upon the benefits of the slow movement, which has serious (and positive) implications for technology and how we use it. People in big cities and urban environments might find the transition to this kind of thinking jarring and difficult. I've found it takes on average about two years to adjust to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_movement_(culture)

I don't see life slowing down, maybe after some natural or man-made disaster wipes out half the population and most modern infrastructure, but until then, I only see things getting faster.

HFT is the perfect example of the benefits of being fast, literally by trading faster, not necessarily better, billions in profit are made. In other fields, first-movers often have a massive advantage, AWS for example.

Just look at Europe, things are slow and rather relaxed here... and as a result they've missed out on about the last 3 generations of technology.

I think many people won't be able to keep up, but the future of evolution is probably people who can sit still for days on end, just consuming information non-stop, with the ability to react very quickly as soon as the information signals opportunity for a reward. Some sort of really autistic apex predator stuff.

Ironically, even though computers can do so many tasks faster and better than humans, one would think we could all relax and let the computers work, but instead the trend seems to be, that we constantly have to be even faster in the remaining fields where computers are not yet superior.

The result of for-loops and automation hasn't been that humans no longer have to rush around doing mundane tasks, but rather that now we have to rush around writing for-loops and fixing all the bugs introduced by rushing... and so it continues...

I'm sorry, Europe has missed out on the last three generations of technology? I live in Europe and have visited the US. My impression has been the opposite.

When I was visiting (5 years ago):

- The trains didn't work

- People printed out google maps instructions instead of using a network connection because data connections were bad/expensive

- I had to sign my name to pay with a card at gas stations. I couldn't use an electronic payment card, only credit cards worked.

Now these are just examples off the top of my head. In my home country of Finland, the trains work, internet and utilities work (we don't have blackouts), payment is usually done by NFC for small amounts, card readers (with pin) for larger amounts.

If you're talking about industrial technology, I don't have enough information to compare. But I would assume Europe has better manufacturing. After all, Germany makes all the cars that end up in the US.

After all, Germany makes all the cars that end up in the US.

I just pulled up a list of the top 25 selling cars in the US and there are 0 German brands on that list. Plus most of the 'German' cars sold in the US are also made in the US.

I take it back, I was too hyperbolic.

The export is substantial though:

https://www.acea.be/publications/article/eu-us-automobile-tr...

I don't think VW ever broke 1m cars a year here, off the top of my head.

According to this: https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/volkswagen-us-sales-figures/

they've never broken 500k (at least going back to 2005).

edit: Volkswagen Group sell in the 500k-650k cars range

Yeah, actually one third ends up in China.

Using physical checks/cheques to pay for rent what means that you need to physically go to a bank, or send it via post. It takes days if not weeks to clear

Lack of same day/instant money transfers between bank accounts so everyone uses paypal which is not a real bank and it can block your money for 180 days for their "investigations"

"HFT is the perfect example of the benefits of being fast, literally by trading faster, not necessarily better, billions in profit are made."

Casinos make billions in profits too, but just like HFT they contribute nothing to the productive economy and are a blood-sucking leech.

I read OP's comment the same way, but also think the counterpoint is valid.

People living in these "slow", offline first places are self selecting, and it's not for everyone.

My parents moved to a tropical island, have been there for decades now, they love it and will never go back. I also grew there but left at the first occasion and more than half of my schoolmates did the same.

IMO living there requires a distance from fast paced, online, strongly information based social discourse. If you don't have that you're in for a bad time.

I think instead of saying it's relaxed, I would describe it as very local?

Folks work pretty hard in Caribbean, but when I was there (a fair while ago), I also worked dang hard. But you absolutely felt like you were in a bubble. You really could imagine that Israel and the Palestinians would have an intifada / war and no one would notice.

You drank after work with the folks you worked with (in west this is a no no for many good reasons), you ate larger group meals, you spent a lot more time outside. I'm just spitballing some impressions. Some of this was efficiency, (group meals are more cost effective?) etc.

There is also an attitude difference. There is a story (probably made up - please fill in correct details) that a group "conquered" one of the islands (maybe Saba?). They took over whatever building, raised whatever flag. And everyone just ignored them. They eventually left.

One thing that's an adjustment is ignoring the rules if they are silly - no one thinks anything of it. And yes, in part because of corruption and rent seeking there are some silly rules so maybe you have to.

Absolute downsides as well no question. But I wonder if the folks not on internet just don't care as much about what someone said to someone as the rest of us.

> You drank after work with the folks you worked with (in west this is a no no for many good reasons)

In the West, this is a conventional thing that many people expect.

Probably an American equating "the west" with the US and Canada.

I never experienced this in the US. I did experience this in Germany, Sweden, and the UK.

Yeah, in the UK this is incredibly common. Drinks after work were at least a weekly thing, sometimes even a nightclub.

Yes. And in some places it would be drinks during the workday, if the pub was close enough for a lunchtime pint.

Definitely. In one of my previous companies, we'd sometimes do sprint retros in a nearby pub, drinks on the company tab.

in Germany this is also extremely common. I really don't know what the commenter means by the west, I'd assume after office drinking is also normal in the US?

It's less common, because most people have to drive home from work in the US.

> You drank after work with the folks you worked with (in west this is a no no for many good reasons)

It's like you've never been to a Western country`

I live in the US - and drinking with staff of different levels is tricky for a number of reasons. Inappropriate behavior broadly defined is not tolerated, and drinking is already in that category in many California and east cost areas. Public transit / jitney's etc are not great so a lot of folks drive to work and back which makes drinking harder.

Your right - I should have said US (and maybe just progressive areas).

Or maybe just the particular companies you work for. At many companies I've worked for, and many others I haven't, drinking with coworkers happens often enough that many they have regular official happy hours at bars.

> There is a story (probably made up - please fill in correct details) that a group "conquered" one of the islands (maybe Saba?). They took over whatever building, raised whatever flag. And everyone just ignored them. They eventually left.

I would guess it made up, because when people conquer stuff, they tend to have actual material goals and need. Starting from basic - their army needs to eat. The way you get that food is to take it from people who are there. They need wood and what not, if you are the armed one, you force local population to get it for you. When people used to run from incoming armies, it was not for fun. It was because the armed men tend not to ignore you.

The miracle there is not island people ignoring incoming people. The miracle there is the supposed conquerors being content with raising flag, without trying to take actual benefit from it. I guess in some rare situations they would conquer thing for trolling/emotional purposes, but generally the goal is control and things.

Do you really think all wars are rational, resource-driven pursuits? How about Falklands, what Argentina planned to extract there? Steal the rocks and tax the 300 sheep? Or Russia with Crimea, whose ownership value is enormously negative?

All it takes is one moron with delusion of grandeur.

Indeed, countless wars were started for the most idiotic reasons imaginable, see 'war of the bycket'

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Bucket

Did you read what you linked to? It says that the war wasn't actually started to due to the bucket, but the taking of a castle.

Pretty reasonable cause to start a war I could imagine, back then.

Wars are expensive, that is first thing. Second, soldiers need to eat right now and where do you think food used to come from? Army "living off the land" was a thing, because supplying them was difficult and who cares. The land armies passed through used to be pretty destroyed after.

> Russia with Crimea, whose ownership value is enormously negative?

Russia does not see expansion of own territory as negative value. Also, Russians are very much making changes in Crimea.

Unlike 'seeing', negative economic value is objective. Suffering sanctions for occupying a region that was traditionally heavily subsidised is negative value.

1 To distract the population by stirring up nationalism / appealing to "machismo" 2 OIL

You could try programming in the Caribbean. Nice beach shack, a couple of manuals and offline copy of stackoverflow perhaps....

I heard that Travis Kalanick coded the initial code base of Uber in Varkala beach in Kerala[1],[2].

[1] https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/guess-what-uber-ceo-tra...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varkala

If you count New Orleans, Blockpad (https://blockpad.net) has certainly tried it. I had a friend though who was a PM for a summer thing for Data Science for Social Good in Chicago at some point for physicists transitioning to data scientists and she complained about how none of them took her seriously when she said she lived and worked there.

I think you’re letting your own pre-conceived notions color your interpretation of this comment. The person said nothing about not working as hard, not accomplishing as much, and only chilling on the beach. People in the Caribbean (and other beach/vacation destinations) work hard and accomplish plenty. Just because some people go to their country to relax doesn’t mean the entire country does nothing but relax.

>However for a lot of people that’s not what they want out of their lives; they want it to mean something in their own way. Of course the vast majority get lost in the rat race and forget what it is that made them choose to work their ass of to begin with, but it’s not because their ultimate goal (at least in the beginning) was to chill at the beach.

IMHO, if that person who was working their ass off was a genius and an outlier, then their contributions are a huge net benefit to society and we/society should reward and applaud them.

However, most people are average or below average, so their contributions are extremely unlikely to move the needle. So from the point of view of the person chilling on the beach, yeah sure, do whatever makes you happy, but as far as real accomplishments go, its a wash between them and the non-genius hard-worker. Just my opinion! :)

(Writing this as a non-genius average person)

> then yeah go to some corner of the world and live happily? However for a lot of people that’s not what they want out of their lives

if i just knew where that corner is ...

I'd be surprised if anybody really wanted spending time hearing about useless horrible event after another alone in his flat.

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