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Comment by euifii | Hacker News Reader

This is what I really don’t get about these types of folks. Do they really want to remember their life’s work as “kissing ass and playing politics”? I get the “work to live” and all that, but you’re basically tossing away half your life…for what, money? How much money do you need!?

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Because that's not how they perceive their works. Instead it is "advocating for one's own team and passion", "helping others advance their career", "networking and building long-term connections".

Well you can "work to live" in a nice big house, with a nanny, eating steaks, flying business class to ski in the alps or scuba in the Galapagos... I think it takes a lot of money before you feel like you don't need more money.

Not at all. Most people can be super happy with less than the average tech salary (at a point where they don't feel they need more if it comes at the expense of work life balance, time with family, job satisfaction, etc).

I’ll never understand this WHY X - BECAUSE Y - WELL Y IS TOO MUCH, Z IS MORE THAN ENOUGH comment trifecta. Obviously a lot of people are not super happy, otherwise they wouldn’t kiss asses and play politics to get more money.

You are responding to a "money != happiness" comment with "people kiss asses to get more money because they're unhappy". Just saying.

Other than the big house, which can easily be achieved in much of the country, nothing in the list above incentivizes me to either work harder or kids ass.

Sure, lots of people don't care about those things and therefore don't shape their careers to get them. But some do, and that's what we're talking about.

Though to be clear I should have said "it can take a lot of money..."

Just that all of those activities you mention feel like a useless life compared to spending time with your own children in a house big enough for everyone to have their space, but small enough to force you to feel you're living with each other, seeing them grow and thrive, and going around your closest nature patch.

Not much money is needed to have a fulfilling and worth-living life.

It feels unsavory from the outside, but politics is also the art of getting stuff done. It’s not throwing your life away if you can point at an org chart and a roadmap delivered and say “I helped build that”. Leadership is just as important as implementation.

You need to have the right personality. Either actually enjoy the game, or have an unsatiable (fear-driven?) need for status, or something else of this sort. We don't get to choose our personalities, though some limited modifications are possible - see treatments for personality disorders, for example.

> actually enjoy the game, or have an unsatiable (fear-driven?) need for status, or something else of this sort

Ie. Somewhat serious mental disorders as requisite for leadership.

I wonder how we got onto this darkest timeline?

Evolution. It is a brutal process.

If it's adaptive it's not a disorder.

sweet , a new way to justify addiction

Humans were like this since the inception of times. Chieftains, Khans, Czars, Kings, etc.

I question this every single day. Constantly the argument arises that if I played politics and ass-kissed, I might receive more opportunities to create bigger impact to help people / entertain people / provide some valuable service or product. Yet it feels painful to have to self-promote (even if framing it as "documentation of your work").

It is akin to musicianship in a sense. How many of the absolutely, obscenely, most talented musicians have you come across in completely obscured settings? At the pub, the hole-in-the-wall jazz club in a C-tier city, deep on the internet with 13 plays on SoundCloud. But we all know that pop music doesn't necessarily reward technical musicianship.

It's similar in life & career.

Well, I think that it depends on perspective and motivations.

Kissing asses/politics can be treated as skill used for different purposes. Imagine your ambition is to build bridge, skyscraper or fancy opera house.

To be chosen as the one for such projects, you must play many games including politics.

(I assume good intentions, selfish ones are possible too, but are they worth discussing?)

Depends where you want to live, but $5M to $10M would help with enough passive income to future proof one’s family and their kids.

For some, that's not only their competency but they enjoy it.

Is building relationships and status less worthwhile than building code or bridges or houses or painting pictures?

People get to choose the game they play.

> …for what, money? How much money do you need!?

"more" seems to be the answer to many.

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