[daviddaviddavid]

Probably worth noting that Wittgenstein and Weil both came from relative affluence. Wittgenstein's father was one of the wealthiest men in Europe. Famous composers such as Brahms would perform at their house. While not close to Wittgenstein, Weil's father was a medical doctor.

[patcon]

Kinda makes sense to me that the wealthy might be the astronauts of this thinking.

My experience being voluntarily without home (and living in parks) tells me that erecting a barrier between your work and your material needs, that allows you to more objectively assess the personal value of the work. You need to run experiments of sorts, and imho it's hard to have that liberty to truly A/B test unless the requirements of normal work are relieved (whether through wealth or minimized needs).

In some ways, I felt more kinship with the wealthy and retired when I was being a hobo of sorts.

[fezfight]

Agreed. Without the pressure of 'do this or die', these wealthy men can enjoy work. Because at any time, they can simply leave.

Kinda like Mike Rowe waxing on about Dirty Jobs and work ethic. It lacks the full weight of the cost of failure.

[bongobingo1]

> Kinda like Mike Rowe waxing on about Dirty Jobs and work ethic. It lacks the full weight of the cost of failure.

Or every "CEO mans the grill for a day" garbage. Easy to find service work satisfying when you're not stuck doing it.

[colechristensen]

But it is also subtle life advice.

Set yourself up so you can leave and you’ll have a much better time at work.

[fezfight]

Yeah, but it's only speaking to a small subset of the lucky folks who can do that.

[colechristensen]

How much do you have to earn before you can live below your means? This is all that is necessary really, spend less than you make so that you can continually build savings in order to build up fuck-you money so quitting your job and taking a few months to find a new one isn't scary.

I know waitresses who do it and have sizable amounts in savings.

There's always someone who has a similar life situation and makes less money than you. Just live life like you make 10% less or whatever. There are definitely people who live paycheck to paycheck on that much less than you earn, you can spend that much money and keep the 10% for when it is really needed.

People get mad when you suggest this and have a list of "but I have to X..." which isn't valid because there's always someone who earns less than you who also has X. You don't earn the absolute minimum amount of money for someone in your situation, that's just silly to think like that.

There are people who have serious issues like disabilities or whatever were it is quite hard, to be fair. But it isn't just the "lucky few" who don't.

[swatcoder]

Sure, but the Venn diagram of those "lucky folks" and the people on this site has unusually high overlap.

It doesn't hurt to remind some of the stressed out and overworked among us that living below one's tech-industry means can pay off in work satisfaction, even if it means foregoing some more immediate pleasures.

[fezfight]

Ah, I see. If it helps you, that's great. Apologies if my comment hindered that for you.

Unfortunately it just makes me indignant/kinda depressed.

[throwaway22032]

Basically everyone can do it, they just don't.

[RonaldRaygun]

Do you honestly believe that everyone is born with the same inherent abilities and talents? Or that lacking the ability to achieve at a high level is some sort of choice or moral failing?

[y42]

Not sure if this is ironic or serious.

[Xeronate]

It is good advice. My job is way better knowing I can leave whenever I want and don't feel pressure from unreasonable demands.

[colechristensen]

Serious.

[hospitalJail]

> Wittgenstein and Weil both came from relative affluence.

I've seen this come up many times in Philosophical discussion. The words to live by are those of privilege, who have rarely experienced the lifelong hardships of slaves.

However, plenty of people have read the words of (stoic) philosophers and have adapted them to extreme environments like torture. They say it worked and got them through. Do we need a modern day slave to independently come up with the same philosophical conclusions to call them a universal nature? Or can we derive them from logic and possibly data?