Ask HN: What would you do if your income was taken care of? - samcgraw
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millzlane
I live in Baltimore. My city just broke 318 homicides. To give you an idea our
record is 353. Our police are catching kids as young as 12 with firearms. Kids
as young as 14 in brutal armed robberies. If I didn't have to worry about
income. I would create arcades all over the city. Complete with huge computer
labs and tons of video games. My goal is to create a positive environment that
kids WANT to be in. They'd receive help with school and home work, have access
to the internet, tons of video games books and movies.

I really just want to get the kids off of the street. There are lots of kids
here that don't have two parents that care if they succeed or not. Teach them
things like how to deal with their emotions and things like conflict
resolution. When I was a kid I had "play all day" arcades for $5. I can't
imagine the trouble I would have gotten into if I didn't have that arcade or
our library wasn't accessible. I'm in a position now where I can either leave
the hood and fend for myself and my family. Or I can try and do something to
make a difference. I've even considered quitting my job to pursue this. If
income was no worry, I would do this.

~~~
badrabbit
I disagree with your solution. Less guns and more discipline at a young age
would go a long way. Why should a kid take your lecturing and conflict
resolution seriously if he/she hasn't been raised knowing their actions will
lead to very real and immediate consequences. The prison and juvenile
detention systems encourage criminality not correction. Maybe the needed
education is for parents. Social shaming of abandoning your child raising
spouse might help too. I'm just saying,it's always best to address the disease
instead of the symptom and that at the foundation of a child's life. Just my
humble opinion.

~~~
millzlane
>I disagree with your solution. Less guns and more discipline at a young age
would go a long way.

Agreed, But until you can outlaw owning a gun and criminalizing bad parenting
we won't see any realistic change.

>Why should a kid take your lecturing and conflict resolution seriously if
he/she hasn't been raised knowing their actions will lead to very real and
immediate consequences.

It because the incentive would be admission to the center. It would be part of
the experience. If they're not taking it seriously or behaving inappropriately
privileges will be revoked. My hope is that they will receive this type of
risk reward reinforcement at the center.

>The prison and juvenile detention systems encourage criminality not
correction. Maybe the needed education is for parents. Social shaming of
abandoning your child raising spouse might help too.

Agreed. Maybe national ad council money can be used for this social shaming of
sorts. But sometimes it's not as simple as everyone abandoning their children.
But again no one criminalizes bad parenting.

>I'm just saying,it's always best to address the disease instead of the
symptom and that at the foundation of a child's life. Just my humble opinion.

Agreed. We needs to attack the disease and not the symptoms. Things like
passing more gun laws aren't going to help this city. We have some of the
strictest laws in the country. Criminal don't follow laws. This is known. The
key is to reach these kids before they're picking up guns. We need to find out
what drives their urge to rob, maim, and kill. Sure we can say it's bad
parenting but it also goes a lot deeper than that. I had bad parents, grew up
in a single parent home, and I don't feel the need to rob or kill. Sure it's
anecdotal but it just a small piece of evidence that some kids turn out fine
with shitty parents.

~~~
GFischer
" criminalizing bad parenting "

We have an equivalent of Child Protection Services here in my country, and
what they do is take away the children from bad parents.

It's not a great solution, there's a massive overpopulation of children in
foster homes if lucky, group homes if unlucky.

I wish they did something to the parents (my radical solution would be some
kind of reversible sterilization until they prove themselves able to raise a
kid)

BTW there was a thread where people complained that Child Protection Services
threatened some HackerNewser parents to take their children away because they
left them to play in a park alone, yet they don't do anything in Baltimore?

~~~
millzlane
Technically I was a free range latch key kid. I'm not sure how involved CPS
here is involved in the bad parenting cases. They're probably overwhelmed with
drug addicted parents and kids who's parents are criminals.

I think bad parents should be punished but I'm wouldn't go as far as to say
they're criminals. It's a very slippery slope. I feel like a voluntary
reversible sterilization subsidies from the government would be a pretty good
idea.

------
OkGoDoIt
I would spend more of my daytime outside in the sun. Also more impromptu
travel. Those are probably my two least favorite things about having a day
job: I’m inside for the best part of the day and I have to plan my travel far
in advance around crowded and expensive holidays rather than taking random
midweek trips when things are cheap and empty.

I’d probably keep programming, because some programming is fun. And I’d spend
more time working at my theater even though they don’t pay me because I care
about it in a way I will never care about my day job.

But also define “taken care of”. Currently I make more money than my parents
combined yet I can still barely afford a one bedroom apartment in San
Francisco. Any nationally reasonable level of universal basic income wouldn’t
be nearly enough to get by with a comfortable life in the city. So maybe I
would have to move? Not the worst thing in the world, but something to think
about when people propose universal basic income, what’s the definition of
universal?

------
muzani
Just enough? Work on mobile app gaming, mostly things people haven't touched.
Converting TVTropes into a story generator. Gamifying productivity apps.
Minimalizing popular PC games like X-Com, roguelikes and Transport Tycoon into
something that can be comfortably played on mobile without squinting.

If I had more money, I'd love to do an accelerator to invest in marginal
ideas. These dumb ideas that have no intention of going past $1M. The kind of
things that regularly appear on Indie Hackers, like Ghost. They may not be
growth oriented, they can have single founders, they can be done part time and
more importantly, without an expensive team. No pressure to become a unicorn.
I think it's an untapped market that also doesn't have to worry about
competing with Silicon Valley.

~~~
boredyeti
That's a good idea! An accelerator for side-jobs or single-founder companies
that aren't looking for more than a monthly salary and want to be their own
bosses. They'll be getting an investment of a minimum yearly salary to just
get by for 20% of their company. Nice.

~~~
RepressedEmu
I've been thinking along these exact lines lately too! Giving a boost to
solopreneurs who can churn out 6-10 MVPs a year and then accelerating the
projects that survive into a growth stage. Do you know of anyone already doing
anything similar?

------
MrQuincle
There's so much to do!

Set up businesses:

\+ Wireless charging at distances of 2-3 meter. This will start a revolution
of chip-based things for real. The main obstacle now is that no one wants to
charge these all the time.

\+ Artificial meat. It has the potential to reduce animal suffering
tremendously.

\+ Aquafarming. Create robotic infrastructure at sea that autonomously harvest
algae. The 3D space potentially grows many more crops than on land.

\+ 3D farming on land. If we don't rely on green houses and normal land we are
much more resilient against the sun going dark by supervulcanos or comet
impacts. I also think we should keep fossil fuels as a backup plan for those
dark days.

\+ Combine road, solar, and shadow infrastructure in North Africa. Tap the sun
in such way that it benefits the continent.

Legislation plans:

\+ Organizing UAV airlanes above roads. By licensing these to private
companies the government can get a lot of money as with the 4G auctions. Plus,
we finally can get to autonomous flying in logistics.

Write books

\+ One popular science on tech. One attempt of literature.

Learn Arabic and Chinese.

Try to make Europe democratic again.

Fly to talk to people I admire and spend time with them.

------
jasonkester
First step was to take the kids out of school and go traveling through
Southeast Asia for half a year.

But from a long term perspective, I just take a much more relaxed attitude
towards what should be a work day and what should be a day off. Sometimes, I
have weeks where I'm in the office 3 days in a row. Other times, like when
conditions are right for bouldering in the forest, I go entire months without
doing much more than answering the odd customer email.

I still have the two main SaaS products that replaced my day job salary
ticking away in the background, but they're feature complete and have long
been automated to the point where they don't take up any time to keep running.
I can dev out new features when the mood strikes, but nothing is ever all that
pressing.

Mostly it's all about finding the things that are important and making them a
priority. It's basically just the lifestyle of most retired folks, happening
25 years earlier.

------
ribasushi
If my debts/rent/food were truly and reliably taken care of?

I would invest all my energy and anger, 25 hours/day, using every contact and
connection I have, in an attempt to displace the current shitshow of "software
engineering" with a true engineering society[1]. Or to put it in another way:
I would not rest until the vast majority of HN readers are out of their job
writing software. Too much is at stake.

I expect to get on this in 5~10 years either way: I sadly had to take a break
from tilting at windmills when my debts crossed into 6 digits. Hopefully it is
not too late by then.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_ethics#General_pri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_ethics#General_principles)

~~~
devbot9
In your opinion, what is the biggest failing of software engineering now that
you hope to correct with a "true" engineering society?

~~~
ribasushi
In short ( and in very broad strokes ): there is virtually zero respect for
the enduser's time[1]. And there are no incentives ( regulatory or otherwise )
for things to get better on this front.

[1] Note - I literally mean "time". Not security/privacy/safety/property, but
more fundamentally and simply "time". Or in way better words:
[https://youtu.be/upu0gwGi4FE?t=1548](https://youtu.be/upu0gwGi4FE?t=1548)

------
Hamatti
I would do what I do now with much less stress.

1) I teach programming to beginners and mentor juniors to help them bridge the
gap to become employed faster and in more interesting jobs. I currently run a
pro bono mentoring program and would expand that a lot.

2) I run a meetup group for frontend developers and would spend bit more
resources on growing that and creating more opportunities for developers in
the area to learn from each other.

3) I organize a tech conference and would continue doing that, devoting even
more of my daily time for it.

4) I help young entrepreneurs with their ideas and offer mentoring for them
(and access to my network of contacts) but hate when I have to say no due to
not having enough time.

5) I would also spend more time playing board games and enjoying time with my
game buddies.

------
eucryphia
That's about to happen to me, I'm about to retire on a defined pension. I'll
pick up some easy contract work to make an additional $10k a year to spend on
travel. I'd like to develop some simple small businesses but I'd be wasting a
lot of my time battling Australian Govt. red tape. There is an opportunity to
set up co-working spaces in small regional towns and affordable quality aged-
care facilities but, again, the Govt. regulatory overreach would not make it
much fun.

------
quickthrower2
For a few months: Relax, watch netflix, eat out alot, do a few holidays. Then
after that do a Phd.

Are you offering?

------
erik_seaberg
I'd try to contribute to something like formal verification and denotational
semantics. I don't believe everyone's software needs to be as terrible as it
is, but I don't see much investment in working on the problem or openings
without a graduate degree.

Also more Dwarf Fortress.

------
Someone1234
My kids would have two full time parents.

Once they're at school or similar I'd likely return to school myself "just
because." I cannot answer more fully without understanding what my income
situation really looked like (e.g. how secure, static vs. inflation adjusted,
etc).

------
IpV8
I'd start off super productive, but realistically I'd probably end up staying
home all day playing video games and working on projects around the house
until my social isolation left me wallowing in depression.

------
jmnicolas
I would walk to Santiago De Compostella and back home, a bit north of 4000
kilometers.

I can't say what I would do after, since this kind of experience changes
someone deeply (and I'm saying this as a non religious person).

~~~
framebit
Howdy, in a former life I co-edited this documentary:
[https://www.travelightfilm.com/](https://www.travelightfilm.com/) It's been
doing the festival circuit and should be released digitally in 2018.

I didn't walk the trail myself, but it was amazing to steep in these stories
during the editing process.

------
irremediable
Probably academic research (similar to what I do now), but in more of a
moonshot attempt. A bit more mathematically involved than what I currently do.

More open source contributions.

More larpwriting and fiction writing. To some extent this one's always sunk by
procrastination, though. :P

Visit my family more. I should do this anyway, but I'm on a lowish income and
it's expensive to visit them.

Oh, more political involvement! All the current meetings of my local party's
group are scheduled immediately after work. Free time would really help with
that.

------
playing_colours
I would study full time mathematics and work on mathematical software. I
really want to help Julia with libs.

In addition, I ll spend more time doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and improving my
body.

------
ambivalents
I would write a book, cycle a lot, and improve my drawing and music skills. I
would fill my entire day with creating, exercise, and people to love.

------
notaboutdave
Exactly what I'm doing right now. Money doesn't change anything.

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0xfaded
I'm working on making my BlueROV an AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle). Boils
down to making monocular SLAM work underwater on a raspberry pi or similar.

I think I have a path to commercialising the software, but if money was no
issue I'd probably build a lionfish vacuum cleaner and gobble the suckers out
of the Atlantic. More fun than hull inspections.

~~~
mlevental
1 why rpi? 2 why monocular? 3 seems like you'll never be able to do vio slam
because there's nothing in the ocean to track with optical flow.

------
hanniabu
\- More time in the sun

\- Help causes for endangered animals

\- Design basic utility systems for 3rd world

\- Design more efficient hydroponic systems

\- Research & document hydroponic best growth conditions based off various
variable such as apparatus, medium, and plant

\- Design better ecology systems for land restoration

All these would be done over a lifetime as they're all pretty in-depth and
timely endevours.

------
maxharris
The entire question is based on an invalid premise. Specifically this notion
that there exists a vast sum of money without strings attached. Ever hear the
expression, "he who pays the piper calls the tune?"

When something is "taken care of," that implies that someone _else_ is doing
the thinking and choosing. Look at where this leads:

What would you do if your meals were taken care of?

What would you do if your clothes were taken care of?

What would you do if your travel arrangements were taken care of?

What would you do if your hobbies were taken care of?

What would you do if your home were taken care of?

What would you do if your reading was taken care of?

What would you do if your romantic life was taken care of?

What would you do if your choice to have and/or raise children was taken care
of?

What would you do if your whole _life_ was taken care of?

------
PascLeRasc
I'd spend a lot of time cycling every day and try to compete. It's what I've
always wanted to do but I'll never have the 5-6 free hours/day and full energy
to really commit to it unless I win the lottery.

~~~
randomsearch
Don’t you think you could work part-time and do this? It may require
sacrifices, but if you know what you want to do then don’t spend your life not
doing it.

~~~
PascLeRasc
I'm hoping to be able to do that soon. Right now school keeps me busy 8am-1am
so there isn't much free time.

------
cm2012
Play Starcraft for the rest of my life. Never do anything resembling work
again.

------
curiousgeek
A similar thread from earlier:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12018713](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12018713)

------
ilaksh
I have multiple projects I would like to do. Not sure it would be feasible to
do them all at once, but if there was extra money (interpreting 'taken care
of' loosely) suppose I could hire people to help me with some of them etc.

I have a lot of specific ideas for sustainable affordable housing, artificial
muscles, AGI, a 3d programmable libretro frontend (already started), a skid-
steer hotrod, and a new type of restaurant.

Right now the Bitcoin trading startup takes most of my time though.

------
SirLJ
Mine is already taken care of, but I still work my day job, because I love my
team and don't want to leave them yet... Every year is my last year (and I am
buying a boat to ravel the world), and here I am still leading the team... So
be careful what you wish for, sometime it is not that easy and obvious...

------
fairpx
I’d keep building and tinkering on projects. Probably with less worries about
monetizing

------
chamza
I'd focus more on my music, fine art, and try to make a hand-drawn animated
film.

I'd spend more time growing my own food, tending to the garden, and raising
animals.

I do all of this in my spare time anyway, it'd be nice to dedicate more time
to it though. Alas.

------
jetti
I would want contribute to more Open Source projects, probably pursue a PhD
and maybe a few more Master's degrees. But honestly, I'd probably get pulled
into the trap known as PS4 and accomplish nothing.

------
cottonseed
Pick up where I left off with arachne-pnr [1] and work on open-source EDA
tools.

[1] [https://github.com/cseed/arachne-pnr](https://github.com/cseed/arachne-
pnr)

------
drakonka
I would run either a cat or farm animal rescue shelter full time and work on
my snail simulation in my spare time.

------
matchmike1313
Spend 6 months traveling the world and then I would get back to what I am
doing now. I love to code and I don't ever want to "retire" from it.

------
fian
Research and development on something likely to improve lives or benefit
society. Non-profitable pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, environmental
restoration etc.

------
noir_lord
Program for charities/non-profits, cycle more and go back uni to finish my
degree.

I'd probably consider doing another degree after in either history or
politics.

------
tmaly
I would create something for early learning and creativity for young kids if I
was in a situation where my income was taken care of.

------
bluejellybean
The dream I have is to 'retire' early and contribute to open-source full-time.
Hopefully I'll get there some day.

------
ryanjmo
I ski a lot and work very lightly on things that interest me. I would like to
have kids as well.

------
jenkstom
Attempt to resolve the rural EMS divide with software, remote training and IT
services.

------
cafard
Teach (as I do now, ESL in a parish program, but maybe more), tutor, travel.

------
matt_the_bass
Travel more with my kids.

Teach more workshops at community maker spaces and training programs.

Mentor more kids.

Scuba dive more.

------
autotune
Play music professionally, contribute to Ansible or Chef in the downtime.

------
billylo
Help build a high-throughput, low-latency brain-computer interface.

------
minikomi
Finally ascend in Brogue, then go bike touring indefinitely.

------
nurettin
I would ask for more.

------
partingshots
Computational biology, protein simulation specifically.

~~~
corporateguy5
Yes! Protein folding could unlock huge areas of human progress

------
digitalpacman
I'd spend all my time making a digital product.

------
relaxman
Work on achieving human biological immortality.

------
tedmiston
Travel and write more

Improve data literacy / education

------
tonmoy
Use the extra money to fund a scholarship

------
zaptheimpaler
I would travel until i found home again

------
democracy
What a Miss Universe stage you got here. Yet my funny "2 chicks" comment
(which is an Office Space quote) got flagged? Damn!

------
efferifick
I would probably go to art school.

------
alasdair_
Finish my book. Change the world.

------
hkmurakami
Same thing I'm doing now.

------
ptr_void
Study philosophy of mind

------
M00nF1sh
love my girl, and travel with her for the rest of life

------
ademup
Fix. Health. Care.

------
africasiaeuro
Hypothetical question - inspiring though. Travel more, writing books, being
more selective in general, with people and countries visiting , meet Emily in
person ; boost my ig Nicecotedazur1 , play Golf, live healthier yet , spend
more time in prayer .. That's all folks

