[_delirium]

Step 1 is not really true for a large number of middle-class Westerners, though, and even less true for middle-class Westerners with tech skills. There are a lot of unpleasant things that would happen if I stopped making money tomorrow, but it would be a long time, if ever, before I starved. Between savings/friends/parents/foodstamps/etc., I would have to seriously run through about 20 fallback plans before literally not having food.

And in particular, it doesn't solve the independent-motivation problem. There are a lot of people who can work a regular job who have trouble, at least initially, getting into a productive self-directed work mode. If someone is trying to figure out how to transition from regular employment to self-directed productivity, telling them that their motivator should be money-making to eat misses the point, because they could do that via the "failure" option of just giving up and going back to a 9-5, too.

[planetguy]

If I stopped working tomorrow, it would be months before anyone even noticed. Probably much longer before they got around to stopping my pay. This doesn't help with motivation at all.

This doesn't help with motivation. You folks who are living on the edge of starvation have it easy!

[capex]

"You folks who are living on the edge of starvation have it easy!" Where did you assume that from?

[jiggy2011]

I think it's a joke.