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Comment by shswkna | Hacker News Reader

The author refers to others being driven by class and status.

There are however also people who work because they want to contribute to society and provide purpose to others and themselves.

I was instilled by my parents with a principle that I should give back more than I take from society.

I am not judging the author, and I believe he and his wife love their kids, which is what matters most.

But as others have pointed out, his path in life is only possible in Europe or similar societies. Most other societies are in desperate need of more “providers” and those that “pull the cart”.

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You take nothing from society, you take from the environment, with several abstraction layers, some slaves, some robots, some wage-slaves, some pure abstractions like companies.

Society is not involved in this. Actual society only exists with everyones spare time and only connects to others in there spare time.

Nobody chose to be part of this machine, they all march at gunpoint of each other. If they had a choice, they would abandon the whole thing, be the cog, that with a last pling vannished into some dark corner.

To project emotions on this machinery is miss guided. The cattle farm feeding robot, does not appreciate the subjective warmth emotions those it feeds project on it. To bring morals into the whole affair as a engineer, is a lack of judgment.

Its a machine, nothing more nothing less.

By the end of the article he says that, if he took the job, he'd work 40 hours a day and get nothing out of it that he does not already have. Fine; it's Sweden, I believe it (even though many people will say that this is exactly what is bringing Sweden down, but that's another subject). What baffles me is how a person can actually believe that this is an universal truth, some kind of take away message. Imagine being so alienated that you believe anyone anywhere can simply stop working and go live safely in the woods with 5 kids without starving to death.

The thing is, 'providers' are paid much less nowadays compared to the past. Like for how long should one work to afford a house? If society is making people's life worse by requiring to work more for less, why should people care to go extra?

I don't know, man. I guess, in the end, it's about fulfilling your purpose. For some, it is family. For others, it is to build. For yet others, it is to serve.

Overall, it's quite galling to see half of every dollar go to California and the US and see it spent on ineffectual and greedy people far less capable than me and with far less suffering than who I'd prefer to help.

But what's the alternative? I must fulfill to myself what I want to be. That's why everything.

> Overall, it's quite galling to see half of every dollar go to California and the US and see it spent on ineffectual and greedy people far less capable than me and with far less suffering than who I'd prefer to help.

So as well paid software engineers our overall tax rates as single filers in California reach about 40% at $400k but would only reach 50% at around $5M annual income.

That public services are so expensive to provide in California reflects the fact that housing costs are so expensive. Housing costs are where they are because of a mix of very high average wages and the ingrained nimbyism of existing home owners sitting on multi-million dollar homes.

At the end of the day median public sector workers like teachers need to earn enough to pay median housing costs. In the Bay Area we don't pay teachers anything like that. That makes me wonder whether I should move away when I have school age kids even if I am making absurd tech salaries here.

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