hoaw

It is supported because it is accepted, especially in places like hacker news, to not be scientifically literate. In fact it is so obviously problematic that you would to a large degree have to be obnoxious to support it without reserve. Which is why you see all these rhetorical arguments, sarcasm and hostile engagements in this thread. Of course from a reasoned perspective this would indicate that you were wrong. But if you have already realized that they aren't going to win with arguments, it is instead seen a good thing that the discussion isn't about that.

> If you have no access to better credit, payday loans are often the least-worst option.

Just isn't a very relevant argument. The reason you regulate things are because they provide, often strong, value to one or multiple parties but overall negative effects. Either eventually to the parties themselves or society at large. It is essentially a way to control externalities. So you would have to argue that these benefits are greater than the negatives.

> The only credible solution is to improve access to credit for the poor [...]

If payday loans are legitimate there is unlikely to be a need for such a solution.

It is an important distinction. Contributions pay for employees, taxes pay for a successful society where companies can be successful. When companies end up not paying much tax, the feedback loop between successful companies and a successful society is broken. Society therefor no longer has an incentive, or even ability, to provide new opportunities for people. Instead you end up in a unsustainable situation where the incentive is to try and capture what is already there and not to creating new things.

I think little of the advice so far is that useful.

What happens when you burn out is that you engage in a unsustainable situation, often for some time, until the effect catches up with you. To not burn out again you need to regain the connection between e.g. working to much and a decrease in performance. You need the realization that engaging in this unsustainable situation will hurt you again.

Also burn out is often a nice way to say that you are essentially having mental health issues caused by the situation you are in. Not generally something to take lightly. And not something you want to experience repeatedly.

I haven't read it yet but "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work" might be a good start.

Right. I am saying that if you take time off you end up being at odds with much of society. You realize that many things, even leisure activities, now only exists in relation to work. And after not working for a while few of these things are exciting anymore.

So I am not saying it isn't a good idea. Just that it is hard from a practical perspective. Which is why younger people who take sabbaticals often end up in e.g. Asia.

I am not sure it is. At least not in a bad way. Things like sleeping, eating and showering are universal. There is a quite defined line, in terms of space, where things gets fundamentally worse. Even in terms of pure functionality, as in e.g. functionalism, you just can't make things smaller at some point without significant downsides.

I mostly agree and think there are a number of points to be made.

1. There is nothing wrong with living small, but there is a point when every square meter/feet makes a lot of difference.

2. We really should be getting better standards of living over time as manufacturing gets easier. Most people should be having even modest vacation homes bigger than this.

3. Even if you don't believe in these things, it is to some extent at least an ideal. Maybe especially in the US giving up this ideal is a significant decrease in prosperity.

Ultimately one has to ask themselves "for what?". I can in many ways see the appeal and I am interested in things like house construction. But ultimately it is also a result of the absurd situation where we aren't producing new opportunities anymore. And you can't really compensate for the changes in the bigger picture.

If you didn't take much vacation you basically cut your own salary by 10% compared to "limited vacation" though?

Not unlikely, which is why I wrote somewhat vaguely. Ironically I don't have time to read your resources at the moment. My point is that there just isn't that much room for other things these days. So many things, from a $5 coffee to housing, is based on the idea that everyone is working all the time. You can of course quit working, pay the same rent and lock yourself in a room trying to forget the outside world until you can't. But I am not sure that is a road to happiness either. I mean, many people can barely achieve "weekend glory" these days.

I think that is a very weird conclusion. In Europe, because there is a safety net, there is mostly nothing to "climb out of". Working a menial job and/or playing video games before going on to university or getting a career is mostly ordinary. At least half the people I work with don't have bachelors degrees. The US actually has as high, and often higher, amounts of degrees per capita compared to European countries. Also none of my friends who were into computers growing up are doing badly relatively speaking. Which is largely a factor of the tech industry and not society.

Only a couple of minutes ago you were saying that effort was the measure, not resources or risk. Which are entirely different concepts. I don't really see the point of arguing if we don't even have common understanding of different words.

I have done similar things and it generally isn't. Or it is getting very hard to make it so.

Western society has become much more hierarchical in recent years. It is harder and harder to find any "cracks in system" on a fundamental level. Even if you would consider leisure to be neutral, and not in need of meaning, most people aren't even starting from a neutral point. So if you do something else you end up being underprivileged rather than in leisure.

That is a selective view of the free market. For any company under pressure to succeed there are others whose expertise is extracting, rather than producing, value. Failed projects, both private and public, are often run by such companies that are successful in what they do, just not in what they deliver.

I think if there is any comprehensive reason why companies like SpaceX, Tesla or e.g. Amazon are successful is because they are vertically integrated. The limited the amount of activity, and responsibility, not under their own control. These days the government is often prevented from doing this, and large companies often want to cut cost in the short term.

These companies have understood that their is less of an information gap these days, so there is little reason to let others take care of you core activities.