
Why time is not running out - paraschopra
http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/why-time-is-not-running-out.htm
======
sneak
The TLDR here is that the OP is a nihilist and all that really matters is your
own happiness.

He ignores the fact that some of us aren't happy unless we are doing something
that stands to make a double-digit percentage of humans on Earth happier,
cleaner, safer, healthier, or more efficient.

We, the readership of HN, are privileged beyond imagination. For the most
part, we are rich white educated American males. This affords us leverage in
almost everything we do - some of us have actually achieved what I've
described and it is not unreasonable for just about any of us to believe we
can do the same...

...PROVIDED WE STOP WASTING TIME AND GET TO WORK.

~~~
WA
You are under an illusion if you believe that you could improve life of humans
on earth by a double-digit percentage.

I cannot think of a single product/thing/whatever that accomplished the goal
you mentioned.

The "dent in the universe" bullshit is such hypocritical thinking that it
makes me sick.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
Google and Facebook. Like it or not those two are already in the double-digit
percentage.

~~~
WA
And they do exactly what? Cleaner? No. More productive? In which terms? Safer?
Nope. Happier? I have my doubts that people were less happy before Google + FB
were invented.

~~~
sneak
Facebook has made hiring safer. And probably dating, too.

------
alecst
The only way I can put my mind at ease is to realize that when I die I'll be
no more human than dolphin, dust mite, seashell, moon rock, or electron. In an
abstract sense my contributions to humanity mean nothing. So it makes little
sense to fret about my impact on humanity, and in addition I do not strive to
"live on" in the minds of humans (whatever that means) or any other beings.

If you buy this philosophy then the importance of time vanishes and there is
no need to pretend that you have all the time in the universe. Choosing to
waste time is not objectively worse (though it may be boring) and on these
grounds I agree with the author.

However by the author's same reasoning it is not important to be happy either.
After you have died it will not matter how you felt while you were alive. So
to me the conclusion is silly.

But I nevertheless enjoyed the article. I do ponder my own life from time to
time and I like reading about how other people deal with the finiteness, or
rather infinitesimal-ness- of it all -- just the idea terrifies me. (So does
the idea of living forever -- a pretty unfortunate Catch-22.)

~~~
paraschopra
You misinterpret my conclusion. It's important to be happy because
psychologically (because of the way our brain is wired and evolved over
thousands of years), we _must_ seek happiness. Even if it doesn't matter after
you die, why would you want to live an unhappy life? However, the same
conclusion doesn't apply to spending time on "worthwhile" activities.
Evolution _per se_ doesn't care if we strive to write a new compiler, go to
professional conferences or work hard at a bank earning millions. All it cares
about (apart from our reproduction) is our happiness.

Apparently, happiness is also linked to reproduction and many "worthwhile"
activities are ultimately linked to happiness. But I'm digressing here...
Brain seeks happiness and in absence creates discomfort that is by definition
undesirable and that is why (so obviously) it is important to be happy even if
"nothing really matters" ultimately.

~~~
dbaupp
> All it cares about (apart from our reproduction) is our happiness.

This isn't quite true. All evolution cares about is reproduction, that's
literally it. It only tangentially cares about happiness/earning
millions/whatever if it improves reproductive ability (which they probably
do).

~~~
mindcruzer
This also isn't quite true. Evolution cares about nothing. Evolution just
happens.

~~~
pyre
In these discussions, just translate "cares about" as "is affected by" or
"consists of".

------
Jach
But time is running out! Unless we find a way to effectively create energy, or
we find a way to upload onto a reversible computing substrate, or Dust Theory
is real, or we learn how to do alpha-point/line computing, or something else
that fixes the problem, our light cone of the universe is not going to be
habitable for that much longer and every planck time step counts. While I
can't speak for anyone else who wants to live well past 100 years, indeed well
past a billion if physics permits it, at least for me it's quite the
disturbing conclusion to believe "time isn't running out, just be happy and
focus on the present mon!"

I reject the notion that "being happy" is a binary thing or some plateau of
state of mind one achieves for some duration, though I think the concept of
happiness as a fuzzy cluster of feelings that make one say "I feel happy" is a
useful simplification. There are many forms of happiness of many durations,
some quite complex and dependent on many variables or past states of mind. The
chemical soup in a happy brain has many possible configurations. Even when I
feel super-happy I still wonder if perhaps there's a higher form of happiness
I could achieve, and then I wonder what sorts of happiness I'd experience with
a different mind design (which is why I won't wirehead indefinitely even
though wireheading would give all possible forms of human happiness).

To me this post really comes across not as championing "happiness is what
matters", but rather the more depressing "be content with your lot in life."
No sah! That's for religious folk and for people who just crossed Atheist
River but haven't finished questioning all their religious indoctrination! A
better message I think is simply "If you aren't feeling the way you want to
feel, change something. You don't have to feel that way you know, even if
changing is really hard and takes years." But that's not really profound...

~~~
paraschopra
You're right we have to distinguish what happiness is and it may be different
for different people. The rush one gets during a party may not be happiness.
While boredom for some may be happiness. Profound or simple, what I aimed to
talk about is the anxiety associated with time and our interpretation of it.
It doesn't mean you have to settle in life, all it means is that don't kill
yourself with anxiety if you fail to make changes. I'm _not_ arguing for
inaction, rather I'm arguing for not (unnecessarily and habitually) fretting
about results.

------
xdev
I doubt he can be a nihilist if he in turn values his own happiness (after all
if nothing matters than why should it matter if I am happy or not). His
philosophy seems more egoistic:

"it makes absolutely no difference to what you are doing as long as it makes
you happy (ideally, while staying within the bounds of morality and not
impinging on others)."

Which is not to say that it's bad, but it's not nihilism -- there is a belief
there, it's what makes me happy has value. Which is fine, but simplistic.
There are different types of happiness, happiness from immediate gratification
and happiness from long-term goal reaching (ex. learning to play the piano).

If you try to make yourself happy all the time, I think you'll find yourself
seeking (or reaching) immediate gratification too often, when the long-term
goals are hard, difficult, but worthy of your effort. I started running the
past year, and incrementally it's difficult, uncomfortable, and painful
(especially at 7:00 AM at 30 F) -- but I feel so much better and consequently
happier then I did a year ago.

My point is to not ignore the fact that time is running out, but to absorb the
point, come to terms with it, and act with it (sort of mental Judo if you
will). I prefer to understand that my time-span is limited, to accept the
reality of that, and let it influence my judgment.

Not in that I'm adjusting my will everyday, or worrying endlessly about the
issue. However, I do make important decisions with the knowledge that my life
could end tomorrow, or the next day, or next year - and how would I feel about
that decision given that context.

------
rpm4321
So, I'm starting to read this and I'm thinking he's making some good points.
My inner monologue goes "Maybe 35 isn't too late to reassess and turn things
around?" Then I read:

"I’d have nagging thoughts such as these: ‘Oh god, I’m 25 and I haven’t..."

f u c k . . . .

~~~
chucknelson
Hah - same feeling here. I couldn't tell if that line was poking fun at how
young that is for worrying about that sort of thing or not.

Just in case it is _not_ a joke, I hope we all agree 25 is no where near any
"I have no time for any more life experiences!!!" point...

~~~
kokey
I remember when I was 14 and cried myself to sleep since I was in a panic
about what to do in life, I realised I had so many options from going into
mathematics, medicine, engineering or music but probably never being able to
be great in more than one at a time. I felt I had to choose.

I'm 35 now and I still get that feeling sometime, but I have changed focus in
my career often enough to know that you can have small successes and
appreciate them.

------
s3b
Similar article : [http://rahulbijlani.com/essays/you-are-not-running-out-of-
ti...](http://rahulbijlani.com/essays/you-are-not-running-out-of-time-essay/)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2778342>

------
henrik_w
There is a quote I like:

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

------
codewright
Time spent fretting about time is time misspent. Stop misspending your time
worrying about misspending your time so that you can stop misspending your
time and

start living.

------
paganel
As a guy at 32 I realized that there's not enough time to read crappy books.
So I've since started reading only stuff that makes me understand the world
around me a little more, step by step, either by reading a Philip K. Dick
Novel or going through Locke's "Treatises of Government". I've discovered that
trying to making more and more sense of the world around you gives you a sense
of fulfillment.

~~~
kokey
I have kind of cut down on reading fiction for that reason. The problem is
that I seem to engage with factual material in shorter and more ad-hoc forms
(e.g. while researching something) than reading entire books. A good balance
for me would be fiction with a strong factual background. I'm looking out for
recommendations of books of authors that does exactly this. In other words,
recreational reading that accidentally expose me to useful facts and concepts.

~~~
sbarlster
I would be wary of cutting out too much fiction as some great minds put down
their thoughts and ideas through fiction. e.g. Hemmingway, Orwell or Steinbeck
- there are probably many others. But yes be selective.

------
gaving
That "list of things I’d want to do by the time I turn 30" list is so utterly
cringe-worthy.

Go to the moon? Reduce India’s poverty by at least 10%? Really?

~~~
kokey
I always thought my goal should be to become a millionaire by the time I am
30. Failing that, put money away in a pension plan in a serious way.

Then 30 happened and I was a millionaire, in the currency I grew up with and
that wasn't worth much (average annual senior tech salary in a 1st world
city). Expectations change, as well as the understanding of money, inflation,
etc. Most importantly, that it's cheaper to hedge your bets earlier rather
than later.

~~~
GFischer
It could be worse :) you reached your goal ! Now the goalposts have moved.

For comparison, I'm 31, and my net worth is about 10.000 dollars :P . I
definitely made a lot of suboptimal decisions along the way, but I think I'm
finally on my way up.

While I'm a nonbeliever (no afterlife for me), I think that the blog post
misses the "experienced happiness vs remembered happiness" point that people
like Kahnemann and others have talked about:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_exper...](http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html)

[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-good-
life/201010/exp...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-good-
life/201010/experienced-happiness-and-remembered-happiness-having-it-both-
ways)

------
tled
I suggest people in their twentysomething should read this book: "The Defining
Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now" -
[http://www.amazon.com/Defining-Decade-Your-Twenties-
Matter/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Defining-Decade-Your-Twenties-
Matter/dp/0446561762)

------
alexfarran
TL;DR

~~~
paraschopra
Here's the summary: if the passage of time makes you anxious that you aren't
doing enough in life, consider that no matter what you do, there will always
be more to do and possibly many other better and interesting things to do. So,
relax and choose to be happy irrespective and in spite of what you are doing
right now.

