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Comment by jostylr | Hacker News Reader

My view is that kids are exploring and loving the world. Adults are support mechanisms for kids (and elderly). But we have been stripped of community and if you happen to not have kids, you can be even more isolated. Being around (free) kids is a great way to feel meaning in life.

Adults are driven by our evolution to be useful to the community. Games are designed to allow humans (particularly kids) to master skills. Adults ideally should have already mastered much of the needed skills. Hence games cease to be interesting the more one gets older (in general -- there are always plenty of exceptions).

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I can definitely imagine that if I had been a farmer in middle-age I could have been happier, because I wouldn't have time to get bored, and I would be doing something useful.

In our modern world however, really useful stuff is done by robots or a tiny part of the population. Thus you have to find meaning on your own and that can be quite difficult.

In my opinion, there are plenty of useful things to do as a programmer. There are many non-profit organizations doing important work that would love to have a volunteer programmer. You could also teach math or programming to high school kids, etc. Paid programming work can sometimes seem far removed from "useful" work, but I think that's partly because of the complexity of society and all the abstractions that we have built. If you'd like to do something that feels more direct, I would suggest volunteering somewhere. But I do agree with your sentiment that finding meaning on your own can be quite difficult.

For your insinuation that adults can only be happy if they have children, you can kindly go fuck yourself.

I said around children, not having children. The two are completely disjoint. I know lots of people who have children but are not actually around them and are miserable. Conversely, I know people without children who are surrounded by the happy little critters and have a deep sense of fulfillment.

Being around children teaches you a compassion for others and yourself, something your comment points towards a desperate need for.

ummm... you might want to try re-reading your reply and reflect on the OP's observation... your overly sensitive read of their post and vicious reply of your own suggests to me that you are not happy... and thus, presuming you don't have kids, supports OP's point.

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