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A comment on Ask HN: What age do you expect to be able to retire?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What age do you expect to be able to retire? by monsieurbanana on Thursday November 30, 2017 @08:15AM (#15815426)
Maybe in a hundred years it will be insane, once society catches up with technological progress.

For now, what's insane is thinking that society can survive with people not working in their able-bodied years.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: What age do you expect to be able to retire? by Veratyr on Thursday November 30, 2017 @10:25AM (#15816424)
If I were working in a field that required an able body I might agree with you but I'm not performing manual labour, society would get just as much value from me overall if I had my retirement now and spent my 40s and 50s writing code instead.

It's already silly that I'm spending my 20s and 30s writing code.

Plus the code I write doesn't do anything for society's survival. We could just about switch the entire tech industry to maintenance mode, cut jobs by 90% and society would get along just fine, as long as we figure out a way to distribute necessities like food and housing without money.

The same can be said about an enormous chunk of the workforce. We're forced to work for survival but the jobs we perform aren't truly necessary, they're ultimately derived from an illogical and unsustainable obsession with growth.

Most of society doesn't _need_ to be working at all and society would get along just fine if it wanted. It just doesn't want to.

[ Parent | on HN ]