Imagine if people didn't need rest, downtime, brain shut down, or activities outside of work :o

I'm a bit snide here; I object to the "hustle" culture where people are guilted or self-flagellating for having downtime. I've seen too many of my excitable colleagues go too far there and end up with burnout, relationship problems, depression, etc.

Me, I've been chooching along nicely for the past decade and will need to do so for another three decades in all likelihood, and I'm enjoying my downtime (including playing Factorio) while doing so, instead of postponing it until the magical After.

In my personal experience, yes. Absolutely yes. In a way that chess, novels and geometry do not. I think there's a strong correlation (I'll even say causation) for me between spending less time on sites like reddit and sharing/cultivating my own intellectual potential in meaningful ways.

I think it all comes down to fulfillment.

Few of us particularly like how much time we spend on HN/Reddit or go “yeah really glad I’m spending my precious time in this way!” yet we do tend to feel fulfillment from activities like reading a novel or trying to write one or many of the activities we pretend are just the same as playing World or Warcraft and watching Netflix.

How many Steven Pruitts are out there who, instead of contributing in some way to human knowledge are just wasting away on Reddit?

And regardless of your personal opinion on the reliability of Wikipedia, I think we can all agree that the ability to quickly find a brief overview of any subject is insanely valuable to society.

On the other hand, I know if I weren't wasting time on HN right now, I wouldn't be doing anything productive.

> Imagine if all those people was doing something useful, or myself instead of writing this.

In my personal experience, reddit/HN has never been the reason I didn't do something useful. The reason was that I just didn't want to do it, and if HN didn't exist I'd just stare at the ceiling.

Do ceilings sap the intellectual potential of humanity?

Absolutely no.

At least those that already have a drive to know use reddit to sharpen their knowledge. As a research tool itself reddit is pretty invaluable.

Also, Reddit was absolutely great for me to sharpen my English debate skills. I was able to go from English being a poor third language to people refusing to believe it's not my first :)

Yup! It's fantastic place to write, organize ideas, and get responses from other people. And then respond to those responses. The chain structure of reddit conversations is very interesting, imo, and an invaluable tool.

I tend to use HN as a way to hone my writing skill. I'll play with length, wording, style, etc. The karma count gives me a bit of feedback on how well I've done, and comments back to me will further hone my writing.

So, for me at least, HN provides a fertile place to be productive, but mostly as a place to play around and sharpen my skill.

To be fair, special interest subreddits have given me a lot and are not a waste of time. Much like Hacker News! :-)

Imagining is more fun than almost anything else.

Touché. Well played, sir. :-)