Hacker News Reader

This sort of thinking is the same thing we see in economics as well. Overextending your debt to bet on the future. The problem is, nature always is payed what it is due. Always.

You can skimp on sleep, skimp on eating, skimp on personal relationships, but you WILL pay for it someday, and in spades. Maybe not today or tomorrow but this sort of 'deficit spending' when it comes you your health will absolutely come back and bite you.

View on HN

This is correct. The problem is that so many people, including top decision-makers within society, are too short-sighted to care about this notion of deficit. "Someone else" will clean it up. Externalized costs and myriad variations of deficit spending (widespread layoffs despite the long-term costs of an underemployed nation; education cuts; environmental damage; ramping up social inequality on both the national and world scale, setting us up for violent revolution and national dissolution) are being tapped for short-term profit even when it's completely unnecessary. That a sizable portion of people are going to disregard their health, working insane hours and using substances of dubious long-term safety, isn't surprising in the least.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com