Music can do so much more than just paying rent. You can impress your future wife with your playing or singing. It's a form of therapy for many.

It's true it won't pay the bills, but knowing one instrument is a good skill that differentiates you from others.

> "Everyone alive in the developed world today grew up in a wondrous period of history where the middle class had many luxuries previously only afforded to those with inherited wealth. There are signs that period is ending."

People have been freaking out about this pending doom for as long as we've walked the earth. Most of it stems from either old age or political hyperventilating (both symptoms of perceived displacement). Humanity's still grinding forward ... faster than ever.

I think becoming proficient in some form of artistic expression is very helpful for achieving self-actualization.

My biggest frustration, currently, is a lack of time and energy to devote to my creative projects. I still give them some time, but between a full-time job, child care, and other day-to-day responsibilities, it is not as much as I would like.

My wildest hope for society in my lifetime is that we will experience dramaticly shorter work weeks. Keynes predicted 15 hour work weeks by 2030 or so. If I could afford a modest life on only 15 hours of labor, and devote other time to family, friends, and art, I would feel so amazing. I'm skeptical of the claims of AI, but a society where a shorter work week is the norm would turn me into its biggest fan.

Anyway, despite my frustration, the time I spend with my creative projects results in my greatest self-satisfaction, after the time I devote to raising my children. And the creative outlets I pursue today are directly related to the artistic skills I developed in my youth (including music). So yeah, it probably won't pay the bills, but there's much more important things in life than bills.

I'm not suggesting a career. I'm saying those three things are always valuable to learn.

On the one hand yea, but on the other hand, society is trying to create a situation where the biggest necessities are less of a burden. The big 4 IMO are: food, water, air, sleep. I get water out of the tap. It costs a lot less for me to get clean water than it is costing people 500 years ago (on average). At least that's my guess anyway.

The traditional career for people studying music theory is acquiring wealthy parents.

Your college major doesn't determine your career path, and the sooner people stop pretending that they are necessarily correlated, the better.

That’s called strawmanning.

I didn't have that but I instead did a lot of music production as a teenager, hand dragging midi notes. It turns out, I have perfect pitch. But I learned that at 27 where a musically trained person noticed it. I make melodies all the time in my head.

It was a funny moment where she was like "you have perfect pitch!" "What is perfect pitch?"

I guess it's a shame, I could've been a great musician if I was trained.

In any case, if you want to meet up online, my email is in my profile. You sound fun!

None of the wealthy people I know had wealthy parents. Most of them had parents who didn't even have shoes for significant periods of time.

‘Hey, Claude, make me a painting of a sunset.’ Voila, you know how to make art. ‘Hey, Chat, write me a sonnet.’ Voila, you know how to write poetry. But you don’t really though, don’t you. Text-to-speech didn’t come into existence with the advent of agentic AI, and yet you will have a hard time getting any job or being part of most communities if you are illiterate. It turns out technology did not make literacy obsolete. In any case, we already know that putting screens in front of children is harmful, so unless someone advocates harming children, using a modern computing device (touchscreen slate, keyboard and mouse, etc) as a replacement for basic education is highly suspect.

What a zero-brain statement.

Literacy is way more than deciphering text into the words they represent.

Have you tried lighting a fire without matches? It's deeply satisfying.

As much as they'd know how to bake bread by buying a loaf in the shops.

Hey Claude, can you have sex with my wife for me? Voila, your wife now has an actual lover. Having sex with your wife can be as obsolete as real intimacy, with the advent of technology.

I dunno. Inside most families seems to be almost a perfect socialism. From each according to his abilities...

Scaling it up is hard, though.

Well that's certainly engaging with the meat of his comment, instead of the HN equivalent spamming stupid X clapbacks for likes. Bravo.

I guess you needed some validation today.

Lmao. This comment combined with the one above are just a microcosm of the worst HN has to offer.

What sort of socialism was at play when the British forced Ireland into famine during the potato blight? What about the British role in India’s famine? What about the many famines brought about by civil wars and ethnic conflicts in Africa? The Great Depression, famously brought about by socialist policies and definitely not gilded age wealth inequality decadence?

If you’re looking for a common thread, it’s authoritarianism, not socialism.

I don’t disagree, but I’m not seeing many other options here.

Modern Western European socialism has probably suppressed wages and increased unemployment relative to the US, but hasn’t led to starvation.