Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

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> Reading the classics is productive because it's enjoyable, even though it doesn't help with your work

It's productive in that it is hard and a sign of high intelligence. Don't believe me and swap it out with Candy Crush. Is playing Candy Crush productive?

This obsession about people with disabilities is weird. Yes, people with real disabilities exist. But focusing on pathologizing every day life is extremely harmful. This constant focus on "mental health" ironically worsens mental health. For instance, any mild discomfort is "anxiety". Most of these things are pretty normal range of emotions. Roughly 20% of undergraduate students at Ivy Plus institutions (including Harvard, Brown, and Cornell) are registered as disabled and receive accommodations. This figure has surged dramatically over time, rising from fewer than 3% at Harvard and under 6% at Cornell in 2015. This is obviously partly cheating the system, but it's also this harmful over-focus on "mental health"

Hard work is a good in it of itself. People pay lip service to the idea that we shouldn't be productive or measure our "worth" (whatever that is) by productivity but they don't live it. For instance, I don't know any parent that doesn't push or at least hope their children work hard at something. Anything. Do something hard. Play a sport. Learn an instrument. Study math. This is common sense.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/26/opinion/mental-health-exe...

> Roughly 20% of undergraduate students at Ivy Plus institutions (including Harvard, Brown, and Cornell) are registered as disabled and receive accommodations. This figure has surged dramatically over time, rising from fewer than 3% at Harvard and under 6% at Cornell in 2015.

That seems to check out with the period people started getting more addicted to social media, pandemic side-effects and increased awareness of mental health issues

I believe the amount of people dealing with crippling anxiety these days is higher than that 20% figure, and we are still under-diagnosing it

> Hard work is a good in it of itself.

Hard disagree tbh but that's more of a personal values discussion

> Hard disagree tbh but that's more of a personal values discussion

I'm curious about this. Do you have children? Do you look at someone who does nothing hard in his life with indifference? Someone chooses to spend their life playing video games in their parent's basement. Do you think that's an equally admirable life than someone that spends his life doing hard things?

> Do you have children?

Not yet, but hopefully in the next 3 years.

> Do you look at someone who does nothing hard in his life with indifference?

I look at such people with admiration. Being in peace with not trying to improve their own productivity all the time is a beautiful virtue.

> Someone chooses to spend their life playing video games in their parent's basement. Do you think that's an equally admirable life than someone that spends his life doing hard things?

I'd go further and say it's more admirable than someone spending their life doing hard things. If they reached their goals with less effort, I'm happy for them - that means more time and energy to spend on the pursue of happiness.

> I'm curious about this.

Why did that catch your attention, if you don't mind me asking?

> Roughly 20% of undergraduate students at Ivy Plus institutions (including Harvard, Brown, and Cornell) are registered as disabled and receive accommodations. This figure has surged dramatically over time, rising from fewer than 3% at Harvard and under 6% at Cornell in 2015.

I think it's naive to assume that this phenomenon reflects an actual increase in disability rather than a cohort who has been raised to pathologize every human difference as a sign of some disability and then use those diagnoses to secure advantages in systems meant to help people with actual special needs.

There's clearly a lot of pretending going on. On the extreme end look at the numerous DID[1] "influencers". These folks are plainly pretending to have a debilitating mental disorder (which strangely never prevents them from going on podcasts and YouTube interviews) to curry fame.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder

Agree completely. Its hard to tease out what percent is a cheating response due to increasing accommodations and actual pathologizing.

Some personal observations, I would say about 90%+ of "emotional support dogs" are fake. And I can't remember the last time I saw someone that was actually disabled use a disabled parking spot. They always have the proper license plate or mirror tag, but every time I've seen someone enter their vehicle it would appear that they do not need special accommodations afforded by the preferred parking spot.

> Is playing Candy Crush productive?

If you enjoy it, then yes.

> Hard work is a good in it of itself. People pay lip service to the idea that we shouldn't be productive or measure our "worth" (whatever that is) by productivity but they don't live it. For instance, I don't know any parent that doesn't push or at least hope their children work hard at something. Anything. Do something hard. Play a sport. Learn an instrument. Study math. This is common sense.

Hard work is good insofar as you enjoy it or it leads you to things that you do enjoy. Do those things if you enjoy them. Hard things are enjoyable too. I stopped doing most of them because I didn't enjoy them.

If you consider Candy Crush as productive I guess words just don't have meaning anymore so there's no point arguing.

I highly doubt you actually believe this, but I have been wrong before.

> If you consider Candy Crush as productive I guess words just don't have meaning anymore so there's no point arguing.

I'm using the word differently to you. It's productive insofar as you enjoy doing it.

Just to make a point, have these two definitions from Wiktionary:

> Capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile.

Capable of producing enjoyment, yup. I'd call playing Candy Crush productive if enjoyment is your goal.

> Yielding good or useful results

The good result here is, again, the enjoyment of whatever. If you enjoy playing Candy Crush, then playing it gives you a good or useful result, namely the enjoyment of playing it.

> I highly doubt you actually believe this, but I have been wrong before.

If someone truly finds Candy Crush enjoyable to the point they do it everyday or whatever, and we're not talking addiction (so they're not actually enjoying it, but rather feel compelled to do it), then more power to them. I wish my desires were so simple.

Oh come on. Parent is right, at this point, words have no meaning. By this logic, everything produces something, therefore everything is productive.

YES I am vegan and YES I eat meat. We exist

> By this logic, everything produces something, therefore everything is productive.

Yes. That word is only useful insofar as you say or imply a goal. Candy Crush is not productive in gathering food.

Most people imply the goal to be money. I'd rather imply enjoyment. See my OP.

And yet, you seemed to have been using it the way the rest of us are in this discussion, right here:

You are worth so much more than your productivity.

I think the issue here is that everyone else is having a discussion about economics, how we efficiently allocate scarce resources as a society, and the role that individual productivity plays in that allocation. You're having a discussion about enjoying your life. Which is great, if you want to play Candy Crush all day and call it "productive" because that makes you feel better, go for it.

But I'm not interested in paying your bills so you can.

Even if you're bad at productivity, even in the sense of producing enjoyment, you're still worth so much more.

My OP was explicitly about not taking economic productivity as the be-all-end-all of someone.

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