If you work most jobs, whether cognitive or manual labor, after some point you can't do them anymore, due to physical and cognitive decline, medical issues, and the plain fact that you can do that shit as a hobby if you really like it, but you shouldn't need to go to some fucking office or greet people in your local Walmart in your late 60s and 70s just to survive.
We call this stopping of work at that point retirement.
Right, and a nice thing about software is that retirement doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you used to do.
I’m retired (I know, I’m very lucky), and I’ve done as much or more coding since retirement than I did in my job. But to be fair, AI has really changed how I’m going about things, and I’m not sure what the future is going to bring. I really worry about my adult children and their careers.
Only if your life is so insignificant and your interests and social circle so narrow that your paid gig determines the whole of it and is your sole purpose.
It is some point where you just shut down your brain and feed yourself to the fishes?
Not being an US person I'm struggling with this. How? Unless one loses congnitive capability due to organic brain damage how is this even possible?