[HN Gopher] You can't optimize for rest (2021)
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You can't optimize for rest (2021)
Author : headalgorithm
Score : 41 points
Date : 2023-06-01 10:19 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theconvivialsociety.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theconvivialsociety.substack.com)
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I got about halfway through, wondering, "how is he going to tie
| all of this into HTTP-based API calls?" before I realized he was
| talking about actual rest.
| dboreham wrote:
| Same thought. Although also tutting at the lack of
| capitalization.
| drooby wrote:
| 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.
| ok_dad wrote:
| 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.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > 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).
| nathants wrote:
| 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.
| jgauth wrote:
| 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?
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| Yeah and it's at the expense of QOL for the younger years of
| your life.
| truculent wrote:
| 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.
| drooby wrote:
| > 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.
| majormajor wrote:
| 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.
| basicallybones wrote:
| Optimizing for anxiety minimization and joy/meaning maximization
| is a pretty good alternative. I think it is a good way to be an
| admirable, productive person without burning yourself out to
| please others.
| whateveracct wrote:
| I've recently given up on setting deadlines, shooting for
| milestones, etc in my hobby programming. I now just do whatever
| is interesting or fun.
|
| I used to oscillate between highs of productivity and
| unpleasant lows of anxiety about not making progress. I just
| started my mindset switch (in progress) so we will see if I'm a
| generally more pleasant guy this way!
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| I maximize for my enemies' pain
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I assume you're joking... but it's hard to miss how much of
| corporate life becomes a game of chicken where managers try
| to find how hard they can push workers before the workers
| push back - or, to what extent workers will sacrifice rest
| and their own well-being for continued employment. Of course,
| the manager has a manager who's pushing them, too.
| kbenson wrote:
| There are likely many points in a work environment where
| the local minima and maxima of work output and employee
| happiness meet. The important thing is to remember that
| those are balanced in the small, and that a wider
| perspective may yield a better outcome on both measurements
| if you care to search for it.
| glitchc wrote:
| Does it maximize your pain too?
| antognini wrote:
| It's easy to do if you are your own worst enemy.
| hangsi wrote:
| "Irrelevant!"
| senko wrote:
| This is touched upon near the end:
|
| > the remedies to which we often turn may themselves be
| counterproductive because their function is not to alter the
| larger system which has yielded a state of chronic exhaustion
| but rather _to keep us functioning within it_
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(page generated 2023-06-01 23:00 UTC)