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Comment by abhaynayar | Hacker News Reader

> One useful trick for judging different kinds of work is to look at who your colleagues will be. You'll become like whoever you work with. Do you want to become like these people?

Reminded me of this gem: https://moxie.org/2013/01/07/career-advice.html

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And this interview at Slashdot:

> Please, don’t spend your late teens or early twenties in front of your computer at a startup. If you’re a young person, I think the very best thing you could do is get together with a group of friends and commit to a one year experiment in which the substantial part of your life will be focused on discovery and not be dedicated to wage work – however that looks for you. Get an instrument, learn three chords, and go on tour; find a derelict boat and cross an ocean; hitchhike to Alaska; build a fleet of dirigibles; construct a UAV that will engage with the emerging local police UAVs; whatever – but make it count.

— Moxie Marlinspike https://interviews.slashdot.org/story/11/12/19/179256/moxie-...

While I agree that would be great for many people, how are 99% of young people supposed to survive during this time? How do they pay their rent, buy groceries, and pay for these explorations without wage work?

They can’t.

Need to have the day job and try to do something in the night, or vice versa.

We need a basic income.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=basic+income

Be born to rich parents, win the lottery, dumpster dive, live on the boat/aircraft?

A friend of mine from New Mexico calls them Trustafarians, where they exist in droves.

Lemme guess, Taos or Santa Fe?

Hitchhiking to Alaska is very cheap.

In fact driving a 4x4 from Alaska to Argentina only cost me the same as it did to live in a city and go to work everyday ~$1200 per month for everything

The time for discovery is childhood. As the trend is to extend adolescence more and more, maybe we need to cut back on regimented schooling during that time.

Aw fuck. well at least I made a bunch of money I guess

We don't deserve Moxie. What an inspiration

This made me feel some despair. The young people in my field are similar to me, and have interests and passions outside of work, but the older folks seem to have little in their lives which is enviable to me. Many of them are out of shape and hunched over from decades in front of their screens. They don't have strong interests in anything, and they seem to spend a lot of their time and energy thinking about their money: how to spend it, how to grow it, how to save it. They have families, but seem to view them as an obligation and a burden which they'd rather avoid.

I do know older people who retired from tech relatively early and live adventurous and inspiring lives. Maybe the key is just to get out before the career saps your vitality too much.

This is sad. My advice, as an older person, is find a job that doesn't suck, or even is actually fulfilling. Public sector did that for me. Some weeks will drain you, that's what we get paid for, it just needs to be, not all the time :) Then early retirement is less "necessary". This is perfectly compatible with kids (albeit not in a high cost of living area). While kids are young, adventures will be put on hold to some extent, but then having kids and watching them grow up is a delightful adventure in itself :) And you get to share adventures with them later on. I'm glad I travelled and stuff when young, but seeing others without kids, their life seems a bit boring and same-y to me, but that's a personal thing. Important to some to have kids, important to others not to have them. Those "ground down" people you describe probably need a decent holiday to recharge, they also may need to think outside the box , get off the treadmill and realise that chasing promotions and money is a trap, and in fact a middle-of-the-road tech salary combined with some intelligent frugal habits gives a great standard of living despite today's brutal house prices etc. (only caveat - in USA health costs can be major problem for people with certain conditions)

Not having kids makes early retirement and an adventurous life much more practical. With enough money I suppose you could try both at the same time?

Try both what, kids and early retirement?

I think it could be done, especially if you're willing to relocate somewhere with reasonably low cost of living.

More realistically, I think I'll try to scale back work significantly if/when I have kids rather than fully retiring. Maybe part-time consulting.

Have kids later. After early retirement if you can.

I don't recommend having kids in ones mid 30s or later. It's been quite difficult for us. YMMV.

There are definite, unambiguous downsides to having kids when you're older.

Same for having them when you're younger, the downsides are just different.

I honestly completely disagree. We had kids young and honestly it was so much easier in our 20s than it is now with a baby in our 30s. Despite having more money, babies are just harder as you get older. It's the moderate things. With our first, I was so active and nimble. Now I have slight back pain and stuff but it makes me noticeably less active with my third.

By the time my oldest is an adult, I will be in my early 40s. That's still young enough to do whatever you want to do. I encourage people to have kids young. Honestly, we should normalize having kids in college (free daycare, etc). This would be great for young women especially. Yes, it might stretch out how long it takes them to get a degree. But if dad completes it in four years and starts working, by the time dad starts working, the child is school aged and now doesn't need daycare. Then mom can complete her degree while dad works full time, and graduate with a six year old and job prospects. Kind of jealous of all my mormon friends at BYU who did this lol. By the time their kids are grown they'll be 40 year olds with professional careers, ready to do whatever they want, with the bonus of money.

On the other hand, the first-time parents I know in their mid 30s are struggling. It's harder. You're more tired. Also, by the time you're done you're getting ready to retire.

Most of my friends had kids young. They were busy working and hardly saw them grow up. A few were fortunate that the mothers could and wanted to stay home. The others all had their kids raised by daycare workers. When they found out what was happening in schools all they could do was scream about it. When covid hit and the schools shut those parents were buried and their kids suffered setbacks in their education. That's the standard routine. No thanks.

> The others all had their kids raised by daycare workers.

I'm not sure this changes when parents are older. all the older parents raising kids I know also send them off to daycare workers.

Then they're doing it wrong. The idea is that you grind when you're young to set yourself up for more free time to spend with your kids when you're older. You can afford for one parent to stay home, both if you've really nailed it

This is gold: it resonates a lot with my own experience and of those around me. Thanks for sharing. Looks like it was published right when I graduated, sad I missed it. Though I did end up doing some of the things on his list, and they were by far some of the most meaningful periods of my life.

If you have anything else like this article, please do share

That is a world class article, thanks for sharing it. Saving to share with anyone in the future that needs advice.

>They are the future you. Do not think that you will be substantially different. Look carefully at how they spend their time at work and outside of work, because this is also almost certainly how your life will look. It sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how often young people imagine a different projection for themselves.

Hasn't the SPE been criticized as unscientific and basically fraudulent? Makes it hard to read this article if that's the main literature it cites to draw conclusions from.

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