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Thank you for this. I feel the same way. I hate the performative theater of office life. Pretending to care, pretending that our work matters at all. But the pay is great, and I can’t afford to live without it, so… that’s how it goes.

>If I could get 1/10 of what I earn but without having to perform all this theatre, it would be better for everyone.

What does this mean? You would take a 90% pay cut for 90% less work? Seems pretty doable

Not really, no company hires you for 10 or 20% in software engineering, while still paying enough that you could sustain yourself. The minimum is 80%, because it still the most of your time, so it seems reasonable in the work oriented society.

>no company hires you for 10 or 20% in software engineering, while still paying enough that you could sustain yourself.

I agree that most employers wont offer 10% positions, but my feeling is that someone can work 10-20% for 10% pay by gigging pretty easily.

Whether 10% pay is sustainable is a different question, but I was under the impression that you thought it was.

If you are looking for 10% work and 50% pay, I agree that is much less attainable.

Being responsible for your own insurance while gigging makes this seem less feasible given the cost.

I agree, but insurance is part of the pay.

Im a bit skeptical that the poster would actually be happy with 10% pay, which would probably not cover the insurance, shelter, and food they are used to.

That said, I am open minded and there are certainly people that do live on 10% of a SWE salary. You can rent a mobile home in a low CoL area, get on Medicaid, and have a lot of free time. Some people do exactly this, but it is a pretty rare breed.

I'd absolutely accept 10% pay for a four hour schedule, but I have been working for a long time and have built up enough investments to live on that and gains. It's nearly early retirement. I don't think I'd do it if I was young, though.

Most people cannot consider taking the status hit from that even if objectively they’d be much happier.

Realistically, I would need 30% of my pay to live a modest, but safe life.

I would make sure your accounting for Social Security and health insurance but if that's what you want you should totally do it.

You can definitely get contracting gigs (Upwork at the bottom tier) or consulting work to work only 10-20% hours. Depending on your skill set you might find it easier to do “blocks” of 20-hour weeks to align with client needs, then take blocks of time off.

It’s doable, but not on a standard employment contract.

Thanks, this is constructive and useful! I have no idea how to look into that, but if I manage to land something like that, I could reduce my working week.

No idea how to deal with the uncertainty of being able to get enough contracts that pay enough.

>> One of them is philosophy. There is a great deal of benefit and pleasure that a person can derive from learning about about and understanding the arguments that have been made across the centuries.

>> Another is physical activity. It feels great to move your body, it makes you so much happier than sitting at a desk

Maybe you should get a job doing repetitive manual labor. You get plenty of activity and it is completely mindless so you can be thinking about whatever you want. That's how it was for me at least.

If only they paid well!

> One of them is philosophy. There is a great deal of benefit and pleasure that a person can derive from learning about about and understanding the arguments that have been made across the centuries.

Do you just enjoy reading about it and that's it? Or how do you make philisophy interactive and interesting beyond satisfying curiousites? I got kind of into some sub topics of philosophy, but lost a lot of motivation once i realized no one cares about what you have to say or even really wants to cater to you unless your part of academia

I'm learning about the history of ideas and the arguments used to defend or challenge them. Reading philosophical texts is the way to do that.

Understanding such a text often is an interactive experience - you formulate your own claims and try to relate then to the argument that the text contains. It's challenging but very satisfying.

Nevertheless, it helps to have teachers - joining courses lead by people who learned philosophy in academia is a common way to find them. YMMV, and it depends on what's available to you locally.

I can see how it can differ for everyone. For some people, there's value in just learning about new things and not necessarily "exercising" that skill in a community or making a dent in the culture. Think of it like learning to paint or make music, but not necessarily wanting to impacting the art world or becoming a performer.