[TapWaterBandit]

It is fairly easy to understand the hostile reaction to this.

This guy did exactly what he said and something many, if not most, of the people who comment on HN would have the means to do (take some time off, live frugally on savings, attempt something he had passion for). His success was by no means guaranteed but he had the guts to take the risk and make it work. And as he said if worse comes to worst, he can always go back to his old career/job (which is likely true of everyone here).

Most people are not risk-takers and are mainly status-seekers. They live their lives in ways to reflect this and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there is always the niggling feeling for many (I am one) that while I may be making the "smart" choice the real reason I don't do something like this is that I am afraid. I don't like having that pointed out, and so react with hostility.

This isn't to say the path taken by this author is for everyone (especially those with dependents etc), but for many it grates that it would be something they could easily do if only they had the guts. It is also quite telling to see how many of the biggest successes of Tech did something similar to what this guy is saying (Elon Musk as mentioned, Jeff Bezos quitting his finance job, Mark Zuckerberg dropping out of Harvard, Sergey Brin/Larry Page abandoned their PHDs, etc).

TL;DR: People don't like being told that their "smart" life choices are as much made out of fear of failure and status-seeking as from calibrated decision-making.

P.S. To anyone reading, none of the above is a personal attack on you or your circumstances. Everyone is different, everyone's story is different, everyone's circumstances are different. But this is still a valuable piece imo as there are plenty of us out there who could quite easily do what is mentioned and probably benefit from the experience but don't due to fear or just following a comfortable groove.

[glimshe]

There is a lot of goodness in this article. I can see why many people don't enjoy the style, but its essence is inspiring and positive.

You don't need to risk bankruptcy to follow the article's main idea, which is to try to use your available resources to invest in high risk, ambitious projects. Criticizing the article as speaking of "privilege" misses the point entirely - this is starting from the assumption that you are able, through networking, excess savings from previous jobs, family connections, etc, to amass the resources for this kind of investment.

Most people in this "privileged", or well deserved, position DO NOT invest their lives and talent in these big projects. Instead, they increase consumption and get tied to over-insured, materially comfortable lifestyles. And I'm not talking about the ultra rich here, but simply the top 20% in disposable income of the developed world. Tens of millions of people could use the article's ideas to better themselves and the world around them by spending a part of their life invested in high risk, high potential benefit projects.

The author sees their magazine as one such project. Maybe they are right... Who knows? I think the world is a tiny bit of a better place because they are trying to do it.

What about those who can't afford to do this? I don't think the article is for them (yet!), and that's okay. From time to time I see articles here about web development, these don't do anything for me because I'm not a web developer. Not every idea needs to benefit every person.

[alex504]

I agree with everything you are saying. I'd like to share my perspective.

I quit my job for about 2 years, thinking I would never go back to full time. It was extremely liberating but also a somewhat scary experience. The reason for this is I think delusional thinking unfortunately plays a big part in what happens to people who stop working for long periods of time.

There are many, many people in my experience who stop working at some point, have nonwork become a big part of who they are, and never go back. They realize their current mode of work and life are making them miserable, so they throw out work complety instead of finding something more balanced.

I've met probably a dozen people like this and most if not all of them are in a deep state of laziness that is probably also a certain category of depressipn. Its quite sad when they realize they are 50, have no money, no way of making money, and no family because they couldn't afford one.

The author to me seems like a very delusional person. I hope I'm wrong but it just comes off as very naive. Is this magazine going to somehow change the world? How is he going to make money? How long has he not been working? How much savings has he lost in opportunity cost?

There is nothing more liberating than not working and convincing yourself that you don't need to work. For every 1000 people who think they are going to do this about 1 succeeds, and 100 manage to support themselves by living cheaply, contributing nothing to society, and mooching off of their relative, friends, and social safety nets.

I should also say I think taking time off, even long periods of time, is one of the best things that people who can afford to can do. It changed my life. I just wanted to point out there is a dark side to this, that a lot of people fall prey to. I could be reading too much into the article but I thought I'd give my perspective as I've thought a lot about this.

[jart]

Not working a job simply reveals your inner character. When you work a job, you're an instrument of the will of your bosses. When you don't work a job, you're free to have a will of your own. So what you choose to do reflects completely on you. Sadly due to oppressive hierarchies many people have needed to exist in environments where willfulness is punished. Since all their past experiences acting of their own volition resulted in punishment, many people become afraid to do things, once there's no longer anyone responsible for telling them what to do. That makes it difficult for the person's inner creativity and independent motivation to emerge. There's nothing delusional about that. It's just a sign of how unfairly people in our society have been victimized. If you want to help such people, then rather than telling them to get a job, you may want to consider helping them to conquer their fears.

[alex504]

There are many people who have conquered their fears, and are simply bad at whatever they are trying to do. Either that or they aren't really trying to do anything except enjoy themselves, and they don't care / are oblivious to the fact that their lifestyle is a net drain on society that will eventually land them in a very bad spot.

[bawolff]

> Is this magazine going to somehow change the world?

Maybe?

Its impossible to know what will change the world. If i had to guess, probably not significantly, but every action does a little bit.

Nonetheless, there's something admirable about making the earnest effort, even if it fails. We only have one life to live after all.

[maxduckworth]

How do you think about the risk of turning into one of those non-work people but also valuing long periods of not working?

When you initially quit, were you thinking you'd find a new position that you were passionate about and then it didn't materialize, forcing you to go back to your previous life?

[alex504]

When I initially quit, I thought I was going to do something similar to what the author here was trying to do, after taking a couple of years off. I had some fantasy of being an artist. I don't believe the notion that there is a position in tech that I would be passionate enough about that I would really care all that much, but I work remotely for about 5-6 hours a day now and have plenty of time to do the things that I care about.

My perspective now is that there are two ends of the work/life balance spectrum you should avoid. The first is not working at all, or working as little as possible. This would include doing something far below what you are capable of like working at a grocery store just because there is no stress and you can manage to get by on that type of income. Lots of people fall into a lifestyle where they realize they don't want to be materialistic, so they never get a career going, and then they pay serious consequences as they get older and have no money or freedom.

The other end of the spectrum to avoid is materialism. Measuring your self worth in status, or seeking status, especially through money, is a challenging thing to avoid at least in the US. Being close minded and materialistic, in my opinion, is robbing yourself of experiencing life in the way it can be experienced, because it makes it hard to build good relationships or empathize with people. Materialism is a huge huge issue in our society and it is something that too many people who start making lots of money take for granted, and this is ultimately rooted in fear and insecurity.

I think I was pushed down the path of materialism by default. I was an insecure twentysomething who was working hard at something that didn't make me happy, and everyone was telling me how well I was doing and to keep at it. The more I made it a part of me the more unhappy I became until I eventually quit.

When I quit and started hanging out with people who had also quit (or never started) I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me and that I was now living the dream. Eventually I realized how lucky I had been to have the career I had, and backed off of the path I was on by starting to work again, but with a much better sense of balance and perspective.

[mstipetic]

So you’re saying that everybody that makes money contributes to society?

[alex504]

Definitely not saying that. I would also argue that I am contributing less than a majority of my non tech friends, who all make less than me aside from a couple of doctors.

[yakshaving_jgt]

How would that not be true?

[mstipetic]

Lobbyist lobbying to make submitting taxes difficult is a net positive?

[yakshaving_jgt]

You have changed your argument.

First you challenged the idea that everyone who earns money contributes to society.

Then you changed your argument to challenge the idea that everyone who earns money is a net positive to society.

Those two things are not the same, and moving the goalposts in this way is intellectually dishonest.

A lobbyist contributes to society insofar as that they spend their money in their local community on food and shelter, and in most cases also pay taxes. Whether or not every earner is a net positive to society was not my argument.

[loa_in_]

It's really really uncommon to use "contribute to society" in any sense other than "contribute positively/constructively to society". It's clearly a misunderstanding here.

[mstipetic]

How is contributing and net positive not equivalent?

[mlatu]

a game that my parents like to play: never have i ever: - owned an emerald mine. - been born to one of the largest landowners in Texas. - looked on as my child swindled their friends out of a project to get rich quick and kept looking when their business model became a danger to democracy.

i dont think musk, bezos or zuck are good benchmarks for people taking risks.

i imagine them having about as much anxiety about which project next to fund as i have choosing socks. the striped ones that go over the knees but slip a little and have to be tugged upwards every now and then, or the short cute kitty socks that are a bit cold though?

[sidlls]

Asserting most people choose the "smart" path as much out of fear of failure as by making a calibrated decision seems more like projection than observation.

[maxduckworth]

Why do you say that?

[sidlls]

The GP wrote, "But there is always the niggling feeling for many (I am one) that while I may be making the "smart" choice the real reason I don't do something like this is that I am afraid."

He or she seems to be projecting rather than observing. That is: it might apply to them, but there's nothing in the GP's comment supporting a more general applicability.

[blindmute]

The human experience as shown through art for thousands of years?

[NoLinkToMe]

> Most people are not risk-takers and are mainly status-seekers. They live their lives in ways to reflect this and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there is always the niggling feeling for many (I am one) that while I may be making the "smart" choice the real reason I don't do something like this is that I am afraid.

This very much resonates with me. I've built up healthy bit of equity (few hundred thousand), earn double the average wage, and own my own home (mortgaged), I'm still young and have no kids. I really do hold all the cards to take more risks, but I don't. And I very much feel like a status-seeker, not in the social media popularity contest sense, but in the sense that I don't want other people to see me as a failure. That makes the status of a senior job at a big firm, living in an own house in the capital city something to be afraid of losing.

It also resonates with me that trying to iterate on my quality of life, e.g. finding a bigger purpose, passions etc, probably isn't going to happen while working the job that I do. It consumes much of my week and energy, and I find I have little energy or interest to seriously pursue 'big thoughts'. I still enjoy my life quite a bit, but it feels pretty mundane.

So I can very much imagine that quitting my job would be the only realistic path to a different life.

I'm not at all hostile to these ideas, in fact I support them. And I'd gladly read about them in a succinct article. Yet I found the writer to come across as overly intellectual, self aggrandizing, and at times downright weird and full of nonsense.

Here's a direct quote from the article, I'm sure that it speaks to something and to someone, and I'm sure I can find meaning in the analogies and examples, but it's not the type of writing I appreciate:

> Yes, even the bane of Darwin’s faith—the humble ichneumon wasp that lays its maggots inside the living bodies of caterpillars to eat them from the inside and burst out on maturity like some alien xenomorph—is a beautiful creature with a sacred task. Like many parasites, its role in the great chain of being is to test the health and defenses of its caterpillar host population. Its predation weeds out the sickly, preventing the much uglier injustice of collective weakness and disease, and spurring the evolution of stronger and even more beautiful life. Even fearsome Nemesis, born from chaos via night and darkness, is ultimately the hand of God and the minister of justice. Even the supposed exceptions to justice prove its rule.

There's seven references to God, for example. I'm not just interested in this type of writing style or type of magazine. I think that's what most people trip over, not the basic message, nor half of the philosophising surrounding it.

[tejasvi88]

The quote resonated with me so well that I decided to read the article. It is telling that individual failures do not make _risk_ undesirable if it strengthens the community as a whole. OP is not communicating information but emotion which is _much_ harder task with language defined by the common denominator and for me as a reader, he is quite skilled at it.