Hacker News Reader

Comment by lr4444lr | Hacker News Reader

The loss of work for its centering, routine, mental challenges, socialization across the generations, and sense of accomplishment is harmful to mental and even physical health.

Sure, a construction worker can't be climbing the rafters at 80 years old, but this idea that we just transition to leisure and getting together with friends at a certain point is both fairly novel and of dubious value.

View on HN

> Sure, a construction worker can't be climbing the rafters at 80 years old, but this idea that we just transition to leisure and getting together with friends at a certain point is both fairly novel and of dubious value.

Peopled died and killed for the right to a pension. And many more are still fighting for it around the world. To disregard that so costly-gain right so lightly seems quite a privileged position.

A cosy job, stress-free, well paid, creative... may be worth keeping if you do not have hobbies nor family. But that is not the case for most people. Rich people lives longer than the poor, job conditions is one important factor.

How exactly could those people get the right to a pension from the unborn? A scam is a scam, but all Ponzi schemes blow up in the end.

The idea of retirement is literally thousands of years old at this point. Hell the Roman Empire even had the idea of pensions though it wasn’t that common at the time.

Aging inherently means being unable to be an independent productive member of society at some point. (Ed: well past what we consider retirement age.) Historically in agrarian societies few people reached this point so it wasn’t generally a significant burden to support them. What changed is lowering the retirement age and increased the number of people who live long enough to see it.

> Historically in agrarian societies few people reached this point so it wasn’t generally a significant burden to support them

This isn't true.

https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2024/08/15/three-scor...

> ...in England, average life expectancy at birth varied between 35 and 40 years in the centuries between 1600 and 1800. It is a common misconception that, when life expectancy was so low, there must have been very few old people. In fact, the most common age for adult deaths was around 70 years, in line with the Biblical three score years and ten.

Yep, infant mortality skews the average and has often led to this kind of misconception

You misunderstood what I was describing. 70 year olds can be quite productive doing manual labor in a way that basically no 90 year olds can.

Except for, perhaps, Clint Eastwood.

I was thinking about John B Goodenough

Or Michaelangelo.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, didn’t survive to 90.

I don't think that's contradictory to OP though. You can find enrichment and fulfillment in work, while also maintaining balance with the other aspects of life.

> The loss of work for its centering, routine, mental challenges, socialization across the generations, and sense of accomplishment is harmful to mental and even physical health.

Most jobs aren't any of these though. With automation and the shift to a service economy jobs have became more and more alienating

I have enough hobbies/interests/projects and community engagement that I’m not super worried about what I’ll do when I retire. This isn’t true for everyone but it would be good for society in the US if we focused less on work and more on joy.

There are options other than working to the exclusion of other fulfillment right up until a specific age cutoff and then having zero work.

Honestly saving all of that until retirement is not a great idea when you look at how many people die in their 60s and 70s and that if you have children and raise a family that's going to happen well before retirement as well.

You can also find routine, mental challenges, and socialization across the generations without "working" in the traditional sense of a full time job for an employer or your own business.

There are lots of ways to balance these things out, and to find that balance along the way instead of hoping you'll find it in some theoretical future retirement.

That Samsung exec that died suddenly recently at 63 from cardiac arrest[0]?

You wonder: yeah, this guy made a fortune, but did he get to enjoy his life? If he had just stepped back and said, "I'm going to take a break and take it easy" on his 60th, would he still be alive?

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/tech/samsung-co-ceo-han-jong-...

There is still a rather large area of things that you can do that are not passive sitting-on-couch/sipping-cocktails "leisure" but are nevertheless not classed as "work" because there is no monetary compensation (hobbies being a nice example). Especially if you are self-motivated, you don't need monetary compensation and a boss to tell you what to do, and still enjoy all the benefits of "work".

You can work, can do all that, without big w Work as the only format. Surely if society can compel people into work as a means to accomplish those positive ends you mentioned, it can be made in a way that still pushes towards those positive ends without many of the drawbacks our current system comes along with.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com