Comment by Avicebron
15 hours ago
Escapism and making a concentrated effort on something are two different things. Yes it would probably be good if you could flip a switch and use the small windows of time we look at our phone per day to study OCaml, but it's not really realistic..
People who are asking these questions are saying "will me spending my time learning OCaml help me land that job that pays six figures and has health insurance so I can not rot away living on the margin". They aren't saying "I only do things that will make me money".
>use the small windows of time we look at our phone
again, it's not a small window. It's six hours. That's almost half your waking day. People spend virtually their entire leisure time rotting away on low quality entertainment.
>will me spending my time learning OCaml help me land that job
that's a pointless question for one you never know if something will land you a job, new opportunities don't open up before you do something, secondly the relevant question is, should I stop doing X and start learning Ocaml, or Chinese, or take a welding class because all of that even if it doesn't work out beats scrolling through Instagram.
I don't even take offense with the idea that you engage in activity that makes you money, because pure selfishness on that front would be an improvement to what most people are doing now.
“Low quality entertainment” is a very elitist thing to say. Most don’t have time or luxury of even being introduced ( via an east coast liberal arts college ) to read Tolstoy or appreciate the finer motions of Tchaikovsky. Instead the Druski memes will do just fine, mixed in with the AI slop. Or maybe they’re physically or physiologically incapable of enjoying the outdoors or sport. Point is, my gen played strategy games and first person shooters and listened to Eminem, this one marls TikToks until their thumbs have RSI.
As for OCAML vs not, I think the vast majority of even intellectual and studious people would be better served trying to AI max and build some kind of agent serving businesses than trying to get a job at, uhh, Jane Street. 1% of the best engineers in the world get to work in that language, so yeah the parent makes a valid point