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Comment by drooby | Hacker News Reader

Interesting read. Though I can’t see how the general claim is true, “you can’t optimize for rest”..

Surely, you can. Many people do. It’s called FIRE.

I think a better title might have been "Society can't optimize for rest". FIRE is a myth, only a small percentage of people will ever have the ability and means to do it. A few can optimize for their own rest, on the backs of the rest of us who cannot and will have to work until close to death.

I think the only way you optimize society for rest on the whole would be to determine how much and what kind of time off humans need at the maxima, and then figure out how to schedule humans for the work that cannot be automated based on that. Suppose a human needs to have a month of time off per 6 months of 20 hour a week work, then we should assume no human can work for more than 20 hours a week 10 months a year, minus some other safety margin. I don't think there is ever going to be a day where society is able to optimize for rest to the extent that it's really needed, the pendulum will never swing as far as it needs to.

> FIRE is a myth, only a small percentage of people will ever have the ability and means to do it

And many of the early proponents of FIRE have been going back to work. Recently, Financial Samurai posted that he was going to return to work for various reasons (one being he's going to have to save up to pay for his kid's education).

fire may be a myth, but rest is occasional remote work, heloc, section 121, and moving every 2 years. usa only. ymmv. housing go brrr.

Can you describe more what you mean? Are you suggesting one could live by selling their home and purchasing a new one every 2 years, and doing something with credit secured by the home(s)? How does that relate to rest?

The last part hints they're probably just mocking that viewpoint, it's a reference to https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/money-printer-go-brrr

Jacob Fisker Lund, the original FIRE grandaddy proved that, with lifestyle changes, you can retire in five years on $80k salary.

No. They are optimising for financial independence. They may use that to rest, but they may use it for travel, community projects, time with family. Not necessarily restful activities.

> They are optimising for financial independence.

And WHY exactly would someone do that? So that they don't _have to_ work. Optimizing for rest does not mean resting 100% of the time. That will also lead to depression. IMO, optimizing for rest means having the freedom to work or rest as much as you need to be happy. Financial freedom provides that because one can choose to work or rest whenever they desire.

Perhaps this is a dispute over the definition of rest.

Rest is not an antonym of "employed". Just because you aren't working toward money, doesn't mean you are resting.

For most people, that involves working until they reach retirement age. For most people, working their ass off isn't working; they will never reach financial independence no matter how much they work, or they will never reach a point where they're content.

Then they hit burn-out, and wonder how it came to this.

Seriously, chill out. It's fine to have side projects or to keep building up your career or whatever, but you need the rest as well.

Think of it this way, you can't perform well if you don't take care of yourself; this means rest, sleep, eat, and enjoy.

Yeah and it's at the expense of QOL for the younger years of your life.

Even for shallow definitions of "rest" vs the deeper dive the article attempts I think that's only so true. Work or financial need are not the only sources of unrest in live.

If you have a partner, is that more or less restful?

If you have children, is that more or less restful?

Is living in a city more or less restful than on a farm?

I think the answers to these questions oscillate frequently over the course of one's life in the modern world.

I'd even go as far to say that they "oscillate" daily and hourly. One hour, it's restful that I've got a loving wife and kids, and the other, it's hard work ;-)

The point of rest and restful moments is to have enough of them, and certainly more than the non-restful ones.

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