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Comment by LesZedCB | Hacker News Reader

I enjoy X, but 'working doing X' is infuriating.

I would bet that most people feel this way. Maybe we should consider alternatives to wage labor that better meet the needs of people instead of the needs of the capitalists...

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Why do so many threads always have to devolve into a bizarre condemnation of capitalism? If you don't want to code for a living, then don't code for a living. Do it for fun and make money some other way. If you're upset that you have to work to survive, well, then maybe you need to have a reality check.

It's not bizarre. There is a long historical culture of criticism of capitalism. It's just been squashed in recent decades.

I am a particularly privileged individual because I have a choice of what labor I can do, and even how much to an extent. Most people don't have the choice of just switching careers because they feel like it, and even fewer have the option of even realizing that there is some sort of activity that would be more fulfilling than what they do to survive.

I believe the reality check needs to occur in the people who are too used to their own comfort that they can't even lift their blinders to look outside their own social environments and see the injustice that is happening on a massive scale in the world.

> I am a particularly privileged individual because I have a choice of what labor I can do, and even how much to an extent. Most people don't have the choice of just switching careers because they feel like it, and even fewer have the option of even realizing that there is some sort of activity that would be more fulfilling than what they do to survive.

This is poisonous thinking. Programming is one of the most accessible industries on the planet that doesn't involve physical labor. If somebody has the desire, they can learn how to program and land a job for FREE.

People seem to be squarely divided into two groups in this world: those who believe life happens to them, and those who believe that they make life happen.

> This is poisonous thinking. Programming is one of the most accessible industries on the planet that doesn't involve physical labor. If somebody has the desire, they can learn how to program and land a job for FREE.

Not when you spend 8+ hours doing a demanding but low-paying job (like most are) and then have to come home (+1-2h) to take care of the spouse/children/parents. And even without the latter obligations, there's only so much one can do after being exhausted doing the day; life is not just about working, and many (most?) people can't psychologically sustain doing only work for longer periods of time.

Boy, you're right, it is hard. I guess that's good enough reason not to try.

Some people try. Some of them even succeed. It's worth to try, but let's not act surprised when the aggregate results look poorly.

Issues like this are, like it or not, best viewed globally, not locally. If you raise the bar until, say, 20% of people can't handle it anymore, then you can go and preach about willpower all day long, but it won't change the fact that every fifth person simply won't have it, and it's not really their fault.

Hey, thanks for not taking the bait there and snapping back.

This sort of neutral, put-things-back-on-topic reply is a great example for all of us. You made it look easy!

It's hard to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps if you weren't born with them (and not everyone in the world is). Acknowledging reality does nothing to dissuade people from trying their hardest, but sometimes one's hardest isn't enough.

There are several aspects of life that are not fair. However, there are countless anecdotes of people psychologically sustaining to learn something new and improve their station in life.

I will say, I support opening opportunities to learn. Not everyone has a computer - help foster an environment that gets people access to one.

You cannot force someone to have the willpower to work on this, the _best_ you can do is offer opportunities.

No, that's not the best you can do. What we can and should be doing is questioning the systemic inequalities and structures that cause poverty and wage dependence to exist in the first place. Whatever conclusion you come to, if you don't first put in the effort to see if there actually is a reason for existence to be this way, then yes, maybe all you can do is offer opportunities to a select few.

It's a double-edged sword, IMO.

On the one hand, yes, you can get the education to become a programmer for free.

On the other hand, programming requires a semi-decent computer, which can set someone back a few hundred dollars.

And of course it's time vs money: sure, you can spend a lot of time and zero money to become a great programmer, or you can spend a bit of money and much less time to become a great programmer.

Some people can't afford that money to save the time.

'Needs of the capitalists'... You mean like plumbers, grandmothers, schoolteachers, homeowners, and software developers?

What? Have you ever participated in a criticism of capitalism before? Capitalists are by definition people who own and profit from private property (which includes things like small businesses, large businesses, land that is rented out, etc, and does not include things such as your personal home, your car, your laptop). All the people you listed are likely not capitalists in any sense, other than your simplistic analysis that anybody who lives in a capitalist society is a capitalist.

Those people that you all mentioned are the working class. They are the people who are obligated to trade their time in labor for wages which are used (usually 100%) to pay for their own needs such as food, housing, and savings for retirement, which will also be spend of food and housing, just later in life.

nit: Lots of plumbers are also business owners and employ sub journeymen employees. Those plumbers are capitalists.

I think your point is that people who make money off their labour/time (as opposed to their assets/employees) are not capitalists.

Generally your point stands though.

pension funds are the largest owners of companies - generally owned by middle class

Pension funds (as far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong) are financial instruments which are meant to be used for future consumption during retirement. They are not financial investments that are used to generate more capital. This makes them distinct from capitalist investments which are used for the purpose of increasing their capital wealth, most of which is unable to be consumed.

Some of the alternatives that seem to work are better capitalism such as YCs "build something people want" model. I'm not sure socialist approaches work very well for programming apart maybe from academia.

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