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Comment by m3kw9 | Hacker News Reader

“ everything you did doesn't really matter, but at least you enjoyed your time while it lasted”

Problem with this statement is that what matters after someone does really doesn’t matter to that person after only before, also, on a long enough time span nothing will matter after. Does what most people did 3000 years ago matter? 10000? A million? I wouldn’t chase legacies

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I don't think people 'chasing legacies' are generally concerned with whether 'most people' are remembered, that's exactly the point isn't it? Standing out?

A better 'problem' to point out might be the timespan over which few legacies that are remembered originate. 'I want to be the Tutankhamen of my time' is all very well, but there's no reason to think there will even be one.

Some people have tamed fire, invented wheel and overcame population bottlenecks. We don't know their names but their legacy is profound.

As a counterpoint, if they hadn’t done it, someone else would very likely have done it. Individual artworks would be a more unique legacy.

Quite clearly if population bottleneck wasn't dealt with noone else would be left to do it.

Sure, someone else would have overcome it. Could have been just around the corner. You don't know.

Exactly. Inventions, knowledge, and other things are all inevitable--rediscovered and recreated from scratch each time. Art is our only unique contribution/feedback to the universe.

If you subscribe to determinism, all art pieces are also inevitable.

> overcame population bottlenecks

Their names were Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch.

Was more thinking about the Toba eruption bottleneck 75k years back, but sure :)

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