Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

Just to continue on this riff:

Outside, with other people building some tangible thing together. Something that years later we can point to and say yep, it was tough, but we did that.

Not only are we stuck with our heads stuck up computers, in 50 years everything we've done will be superceded by something vastly more cool and interesting. Within 100 years it'll all be gone.

There was an article on HN recently about video game addiction. You don't have to be addicted to video games to spend your entire life in front of a screen, being a slave to IM and email, and miss out on all of the important things.

ADD: Instead of 50 and 100 years, make that 20 and 40 years. We'll still be here when it all vanishes.

View on HN

> 50 years everything we've done will be superceded by something vastly more cool and interesting. Within 100 years it'll all be gone.

Which professions don't have that property? Not many. Science and writing/art give you a chance for that kind of longevity, I suppose -- although even then, doing something that has any real impact 50+ years later is difficult and very rare.

Architecture and Civil Ingeniery. Try to stick to cathedrals and transoceanic channels (like the Panama channel). They tend to last for centuries and get well maintained. Just try to avoid the places where a big war is likely.

If you choose for example math, if you are very lucky you will get your own course in a math degree, like Fourier or Galois. The problem is that "your" course will cover not only your work but also the improvements of the next generations, and your exact work will be only a small part. Another problem is that there are only about 10 places for a full math course with a mathematician name, so it's a very difficult to enter this club. (It's easier than building a transoceanic channel, but much difficult than building a cathedral.)

What's funny is that "the important things" can happen in front of a screen. This sounds a lot like the reverse side of the usual troll's refrain "It's just the internet, don't take it so seriously".

Relationships are created, prolonged, and destroyed every single day online. Business deals, friendships, everything, and that integration is only going to get tighter as time goes on.

The idea that no "important things" are happening in front of a screen, in 2015, doesn't even pass the laugh test.

If it's only worth doing things that last decades, why do people care about fine dining?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com