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Comment by satisfice | Hacker News Reader

I guess I'm the only one to speak up for the silent majority:

I say: No!

Take your cognitive reductionism and shove it. Take your mechanical life hacks to your Mars colony, if you want to, but I'll stay on the green hills of Earth and live a natural, flowing life.

Advice like this is tossed out as if there is no cost to following it. The cost is self-alienation! This is a practice that encourages self-enslavement!

My super-ego is not the boss of me. Respect your procrastination, man. Procrastination is a message from your unconscious. Ignore it at your peril.

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What?

I think OP is suggesting that commoditising, tracking, sequencing and optimising your actions (i.e. productivity culture) comes at the expense of your emotions, wants and "natural life", which is a Bad Thing™ - while also not acknowledging that a complete disregard for discipline or optimisation of life's tasks might also lead to Bad Things™ (e.g. lost time, failed/unfinished creative endeavours, unnecessary external stress, etc).

In general, this has always felt like the Golden Mean[1] problem to me - or for the Nietzsche fans, the conflict between our Apollonian and the Dionysian[2] urges.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean_(philosophy)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche#Apollonian...

TFA says the task could be procrastination too

> And don't forget that it could be "take a nap"!

Do you honestly think that my procrastination, or any other activity, needs permission from a list? There is nothing of substance that comes from writing something down, doing it, and crossing it off. It's a ritual of submission to your executive function. That submission has a price.

Look, I'm making an appeal to you, guys. This is called "Hacker News." Have all you Hackers gone corporate? Maybe you don't agree with me, but is my point really merely "self-absorbed" or "stupid" as one wag has put it?

You need to check your own privileges

Not everyone has had the luxuries of your life, some people need to actually work hard to get somewhere in life

Don't overgeneralize your experiences into others

It's just a tool, like a hammer. You can misuse a hammer and hit your finger, or you can grab it, hit a nail and be done.

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