other things being startups?

My guess is that the hidden psychological motivation is the same: to avoid addressing personal problems.

Exercise can help but even there, it depends. If you keep moving your body around forcefully for extended periods you risk heart disease and stroke, e.g. dancing plague of 1518.

Working on my startup could easily drag me into a 8-10 hours race with only a few tea breaks.

I suspect those of us electing to work upwards of 60 hrs/week at startups have other issues to work out beyond the allure of money.

It's hard to find statistics for indoor climbing, but for outdoor climbing there is a death for every 320,000 outings. If you go on two outings a week, your chance of dying is around 0.03% per year [1].

Getting the proper amount of exercise (compared to being sedentary), though, can decrease the total risk of year-over-year mortality by a factor of up to 4.5 times [2]. The overall risk of death for e.g. a middle-aged man is something like 0.2% [3], so any significant reduction to this factor compares very favorably with the risk of death from climbing.

So, basically, if your options are either a) be sedentary or b) get adequate exercise by rock climbing, it is better for your health to choose b. This comparison looks even better if you're doing only gym climbing (which is much safer than outdoor climbing).

[1] http://www.allclimbing.com/archive/2009/01/data-on-climbing-...

[2] http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/107/1/e2.full

[3] http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

Compared to how much you can benefit from the exercise, the risk of falling and dying is really insignificant, to the point that I don't think it's worth debating between climbing and any other common form of exercise.

[EDIT]: Fix an incorrectly worded statement about expected value.

My uncle played football in high-school, broke his knee and it's bothered him ever since. He didn't die.

Everything we do has risk, and we shouldn't let it consume us. But I'd also not focus on death in isolation.

> the benefits of exercise massively outweigh the risks of even a dangerous activity like climbing.

In other words, the risks of heart attack, diabetes and other diseases are worse than rock climbing, even if you go climbing twice a week.

humbledrone, I doubt that's the choice most climbers are making. I'm also a frequent climber (mostly outdoors). If I could not climb, I would not be sedentary - I'd do something(s) else (I already do other activities, too). If I couldn't do anything other than take a stroll every day, I would do that, because I feel better when I move around. Most of the climbers I know are clearly this way - people who can't stand not to be active.

I am pretty convinced, myself, that I'd be better off walking for an hour on safe sidewalks every day instead of rock climbing. I think rock climbing, and other activities in which I partake, put me at higher risk for serious injury or death than a nice healthy walk. How much higher, I'm not sure.

But it's a free society (I live in the USA) and we can do what we want, so I climb, because I'm kind of addicted.

Given the direction that health insurance is taking, I do wonder if people who admit to participating in higher-risk sports will some day be penalized by higher premiums, as smokers are.

Things like that could easily make you more sedentary for the rest of your life.

I'm not sure about climbing, I just don't think the math is as easy as that :)

(a related issue that really annoys me is when they compare the dangers of ectasy and heroin using the death rate, when the quality of life destruction caused by ectasy is 1% compared to the horror that happens to a junkie)

Anyway, 6 hours a week at the climbing wall is hardly an addiction. That's more like a hobby.

Making a distinction between time spent playing video games and time spent doing other leisure activities is fairly pointless. Managed properly, there's no real physical difference between playing a video game for 20 hours a week and reading a novel, watching TV, commenting on HN, programming or any other fairly motionless activity. I know that I (as a relatively fit 21 year old) spend quite a lot of time sat in front of a computer. Physically the activity is fairly irrelevant.

Perhaps the only thing that video games have that the other activities I mentioned don't is that they have a fairly high potential to be addictive. I'd imagine most people who've played video games at any point know what it's like to play for 10 hours straight for an entire weekend. You don't have to do that, but people do.

Regardless, a sedentary lifestyle with no regular exercise will lead to health problems which increase the likelihood of death. That's something we've known for decades. Don't count "time spent playing video games", count "time spent sitting down".

Depends on the activity level and all that, but in general, even a few hours a few days a week is the most a person's likely to do.

And I know some ... reasonably well balanced people who do markedly more than that.

One thing about dying during exercise: you're going out doing something you enjoy. And which I suspect puts you in a good place.

You could probably make the first argument in favor of, say, gaming binges, drugs, etc., but not the second.

That being said, spending an exorbitant amount of time devoted to exercise is generally better than spending an exorbitant amount of time devoted to passivity.

I for one am an avid gamer and I would rather game than quite a large number of other activities that people find rewarding or fulfilling, but I don't go write on some blog saying that they're wasting their life away jogging down the street or writing Dragonlance novels.

Everyone should keep their negative opinions about gaming to themselves, much less people die playing video games than pretty much every other activity on the planet.

So, obviously, we have no choice but for some people contribute to society. Is there a fair way to decide who has to contribute, and who is allowed to opt out and play video games all day?

On an entirely different note, gaming probably causes a very significant number of deaths, due to its sedentary nature. Being sedentary is perhaps more dangerous than smoking: http://www.naturalnews.com/001547.html .

Not really, but we have a way anyway, and it's called money. It's the same way we use to determine who is allowed to opt out and read all day, who is allowed to opt out and go on lots of vacations, and who is allowed to opt out and study something abstruse in college for four years.

College is one of the last bastions of learning for the sake of learning. As programmers who often exalt creation for the sake of curation -- and discovery for the sake of discovery -- I think its better we commend that, rather than condemn it.

It was clear from the article that spawned this discussion that he was employed and simply took some time off like I did to play D3.

Secondly, I don't have negative opinions about gaming -- I play a lot of video games myself, in addition to other hobbies. I have negative opinions about obsessions, whether its an obsession with gaming or an obsession with work. (By negative opinion, I don't mean that I judge those with such obsessions poorly; merely that I consider them unhealthy.)

I'm sure a few people die rock climbing, but it's mostly going to be people who get confident, and put themselves in positions where a mistake (or even bad luck) is fatal.

Well said.

Premature optimization is the root of all evil -Knuth

One day I imagine we'll be able to map real world problems to video games, in a way that doesn't require knowledge of the solution to create the mapping.

Programming itself is very similar to a game. If someone could make it into a virtual world, where I "write" code simply by putting together various machines in 3D space...well, that would be fun :)

Now then, that doesn't apply well to a real world problem, but there are definitely parallels.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/09/minecraft-users-go-wild-b...

Well, if you're a successful day trader I'd say rather that the normal rules for not letting work consume you, rather than play. If you are unsuccessful, then it probably does fall more in line with a gambling problem.

Most of my friends consisted of people whom I gamed with -- I barely made any friends in college. And of course, most of those gaming friendships never developed into any sort of deeper connection. Having made friends "IRL" with whom I have deeper connections than playing video games, I can't tell you how much more enriching that is.

Also, I now have all sorts of interests that require lots of something that I once had but now don't: time. In college, I now understand, I had so much time with which to learn and create. Instead I squandered it all away. I did graduate cum laude, so it's not like I was a total slacker, but I could have spent my time in ways that would have been far more interesting and rewarding than clicking, clicking...

Furthermore, I now have problems with my left hand as a result of holding down WASD so much. That's not something that can necessarily ever be fixed, which is frustrating to me as someone who once played musical instruments. I gave up being able to play guitar and violin for what? For video games?

Yes, I have Diablo 3 and I see that many of my friends are on Hell difficulty now and level 55 or whatever. They did that in 2 or 3 days while I still haven't beaten normal mode. And even though I'm having a bit of fun playing Diablo 3, it can never compare to the enjoyment that I once had playing instruments. And what's sad is that _I knew this_ at the time, but it was so much _easier_ to play games than to do any of these other more rewarding but more challenging activities.

Was I addicted to video games? I don't think I've suffered from any of the more classical addictions like alcoholism, so I can't fully compare. But in retrospect, I think that I was. I was always interested in games as a kid (playing NES), but I think that I really turned to games after a particularly traumatic event in my life. From that point on, gaming became an outlet for psychological stress and personal insecurities. And as time went on with me using gaming as a bad coping mechanism, additional negative effects accrued: for instance, I lost that drive in life which boredguy8 mentioned.

Well, I'm rambling a bit now... but what I wanted to convey was that if you find that what I said about my relationship with gaming resonates with you, please take some time to reflect upon yourself and the way in which you are using the gift that is your unrepeatable life. Examine yourself and see if there are perhaps deeper problems with which you need to get help, problems which are being masked by gaming. And if you can't figure this out through self-examination, please find someone who can help you. There's more to life than playing games.

That is, is the difference between "good" and "bad" obsessions purely subjective and cultural? (Example of a good obsession: recently I read the book "Mastery", where the author describes his years of practicing Aikido almost nightly. Aikido is probably close to useless in real life but the author was greatly enriched by his training. And the enrichment wasn't despite the fact his training was often repetitive, it was because it was so repetitive and "dull").

Or is there an objective criteria for distinguishing between good an bad obsessions? Here's my criteria, good obsessions are good for at least one of:

- your health - your wealth - your social circle - etc

And bad obsessions are bad for at least one of those. So if you're an avid gamer, but you don't let it go so far as to effect your health, and you actively go to LAN parties or gaming expos and make real friends through that, then that's a healthy obsession.

Or if you're an online poker player or day trader that loses significant money, that's an unhealthy obsession (because it would be rational to stop). If you make money, then it's a healthy obsession. If you only lose insignificant amounts of money, then it's just a hobby and isn't really good or bad.

I actually only admitted to myself this year that I'm actually obsessed with startups. I realised that most close friends I made over the last few years had ever a strong interest or active involvement in entrepreneurship and instead of trying to fight it (eg, like thinking it was kind of lame that I've been to more tech conferences than music concerts), I should just double down on that and build a social circle out of my startup obsession.

My wife was a national champion in college soccer. She ended up switching schools, but for the time that she was playing college soccer she got nearly full tuition. She certainly was in top physical shape. These all seem like good accomplishments, but she always tells people that she wishes she hadn't done soccer. There are small reasons like the wear and tear on her body, and her feeling that she would have more greatly enjoyed piano (which she's since taken up again).

But ultimately, the thing that she says bothered her the most was the kind of person that competitive soccer turned her into. The effect upon her personality and the way she treated other people was very negative. I won't relate the adjectives that she uses to describe herself at the time, but what's important is that the dividing line for her as to whether all her effort in soccer was worth it or not was _the kind of person it made her become_.

I'm not a psychologist so I can't really go much further with this. It probably isn't the most objective criteria, as it depends on one's value system. Certainly there are exceptions, like an alcoholic who thinks that he is really enjoying life. But if we were to talk about what seems to be more subtle obsessions, as opposed to chemical addictions, the one thing I can see that is common to both my wife and I -- her having done something that most people would have valued and I having done something that didn't result in much positive benefit -- is that neither of us liked the type of person that our activities turned us into.

What's critical is that neither of us were able to understand this until we were able to step back from our passion/obsession and look at it from the outside, as if we were a third party. We had to be able to step apart from our activity, look at ourselves dispassionately, and ask, "Is this who I want to be?"

Now, the situation you describe is a little different. To succeed as an entrepreneur requires constant education, which necessarily includes making many connections with other entrepreneurs for learning and support. Certainly someone who spends all their time consuming music might not be making the most out of their lives, but someone who spends all their time away from their family at tech conferences will also be missing out on very important things. I don't know your personal situation, but I think it does come down to your psychological well-being.

Your wealth, your social circle, even your health and your life can vanish in an instant. Whether a recession destroys your 401k, your friends leave you for other interests, you are diagnosed with a disease, or you die in an accident, there is no guarantee that any of these things will continue to persist. That's not to say that they aren't worth laboring for, but recognizing the ephemerality of these things can help give us a new perspective. What I try and ask myself is, "If I died in the next moment, would I feel that I have lived?"* That question can help me choose between another hour of Diablo 3 and spending some time with my wife, for instance. :)

Edit: For the sake of being perfectly honest, my question is a little bit different as it is based on my value system, which I'm not certain the HN community appreciates. I tried to put forth a question that most people could interpret and apply to themselves. But for me, the question is, "Do I love my God, and do I love my neighbor as Christ demonstrates His love for us, even unto death?" There are all sorts of ways -- even in soccer and video games! -- that can help me answer this question with a yes. And that's why I think the question of passion vs obsession is a difficult line to draw. To not disclose this would make me feel dishonest, but I admit that I'm reluctant to fully explain this because of the way the tech/scientist community generally feels about religion.