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Comment by leetrout | Hacker News Reader

Careful there -- relaxing or enjoying something mundane is not wasting time.

We have been conditioned to call things like this a waste of time but it doesnt mean it is. Not for everyone. Capitalism would have us believe we must constantly be delivering value that is defined by external standards but that is a dangerous game.

4000 Weeks is a pretty good book with more on this topic.

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Gaming, and watching TV sometimes may not be complete waste of time. But both are addictive, and can easyly make your life miserable.

This isn’t really relevant to the current discussion about how much extra time is spent on “work” beyond normal working hours. Working ~40 hours a week and choosing to spend most of your other conscious hours consuming media is a different situation from spending most/all of your hours on the latter.

https://i.redd.it/3hn1jb4p3ih41.jpg

Not sure I see your point. "Choosing to spend most of your other conscious hours consuming media" is certainly choosing to waste a significant part of one's lifetime. Doing it all the time is wasting most of it, and likely being broke (with exception of rare edge cases). The question we touched in this particular branch: whether extra work constitutes a better alternative to more gaming/media in the absence of other obligations/fields of activity (such as family)

Please see your comment I was replying to for context on this thread. Addiction is what I was referring to, which is a different issue than whether one is wasting time to any degree. I have no real issue with folks debating on the latter.

You are not necessarily producing value, you are ensuring you are capable of producing value in the future.

“Capitalism would have us believe that…” if you were lazy in a hunter gatherer tribe they’d just no give you food, otherwise punish, or exile you. Some things are more fundamental than capitalism

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