my dad passed away within a year of retirement. I remember there being studies at the time saying this was common, but the research doesn't seem to hold this up as much any more.
But I agree that "purpose" is critical to life. I tend to think of it as having a meaningful role in our "community" - but there seems to be wide flexibility in what defines a community. I was certain for a very long time that we had to work to live meaningful lives, and I think I've drifted slightly away from that notion over the last year. We just need to be important to at least one other person. There is great deal of "work" involved in just doing that.
Accountability is especially beautiful when self directed. It isn't us holding the cat accountable for the vase. That is pointless. The cat holding itself responsible, that is what makes our relationship with them possible.
When you get into "animal morality" I think there is near-consensus now that "animals can be moral" but huge disagreement over exactly what that means!
Like whether they are cued by your feelings (I don't think so in that case where I found falling off a horse often isn't very painful or scary, like the geometry is usually favorable for you and it's not like you are falling in free space but you are in contact with a body that can slow down your fall... and you might very well smack it in the mouth with the bit or yank its head with the reins) or a violation of the script, or maybe just "common sense" empathy.
It's a running gag in our family that people are writing papers proving horses, dogs, cats, corvids and other animals have various cognitive-social capabilities, particularly regarding "theory of mind" because if you have dealings with animals it is pretty obvious that they're socially intelligent, probably about as much as us. Doing the experiments are hard though because of things like
I love the story of Clever Hans, which says so much about humans and so little about horses - I get the point that it makes these experiments very difficult.
I work for a small start up. We often work with corporations. It does, from a distance, seem like giving a shit separates the two. I feel that. But you look inside big companies, and lots of folks inside care a great deal. I've also been through incubators and accelerators. And some of those people didn't give 1/2 a fuck.
Corporations aren't people. LLMs aren't people. Personification of these things is the source a great deal of trouble.
You may have said it better than I, in shorter words. An LLM in the hands of someone with expertise is life changing, and in the hands of someone without it - it's a bit dangerous, but also wonderfully empowering, even if they can't make a good chair on their first try.
This matches my experience exactly. I came back to coding
after 20 years away — the expertise I brought wasn't Go
syntax, it was product thinking and architectural discipline
from years of project management. That turned out to be
exactly what the AI needed to produce something coherent
and maintainable. The tool amplified what I already knew,
not what I didn't.
Spent a delightful weekend in Quebec last month. Beautiful city, great culture, friendly people, best damn duck I have ever eaten in the a resteraunt they must having teleported from southern France
Great tool for a Makerspace - really appreciate the ability to use the same tool for laser cutting, 3d printing, and CNC. These are big jumps for people typically - having a familiar tool would help people transition from one area to another.
Makerspaces and education are two areas of focus. no SW install, fully loads in under a second. through the Onshape integration and ability to run on Chromebooks, it's made its way into high school and university STEM curriculum.
What brings me back to hacker news are these posts that ask questions yanked unexpectedly directly from my own soul, in words more articulate than I could manage. And then somehow manages to answer those questions. Thank you.
12 years ago I got divorsed. My wife and I had a company together, and she kept the company. I hadn't spent time with family in years, had few friends outside of work. I did independent contract work out of my house. Deeply isolated times, interspersed with part time custody of my son. I ended up starting a Makerspace , renting a building and setting up a 3d printer. That was all 11 years ago. We now have 6k square foot building, 8 different guilds, from pottery to black smithing. I count myself beyond lucky for the community. Like the author, I sent too many years discounting the most important part of life .. Our relationship with other humans.
That's a really interesting story. Did you really start it with just a single 3D printer? I thought about doing this a few times.
I don't necessarily need it for the social aspect (although I love meeting people), my work has me engaging with people all the time and travelling nationally and internationally 6+ times per year.
In my case, if I had to identify motivation, I would say that I have an interest in attempting to recreate the experience I had for many years as a mentor for our local FRC (high school robotics competition) at an adult level. The other motivation is this idea I have that retirement should not be a passive experience where you go from having a mission and work every day to watching TV and fishing with no purpose in life. I have seen how the latter degrades people and I have zero interest in being a part of that club. I can see a maker space potentially being a way to continue to socialize at some level (even if most of it is somewhat transactional and superficial) and keep busy physically and intellectually.
I own a lot of interesting manufacturing equipment, from multiple 3D printers all the way up to a full Haas industrial CNC vertical machining center, welding, manual machining, etc. In other words, if I contribute all of this hardware, I could start a pretty nice maker space with almost zero investment in tools.
Curious about your experience and, in particular, if there are any negative aspects that you might want to warn against.
But I agree that "purpose" is critical to life. I tend to think of it as having a meaningful role in our "community" - but there seems to be wide flexibility in what defines a community. I was certain for a very long time that we had to work to live meaningful lives, and I think I've drifted slightly away from that notion over the last year. We just need to be important to at least one other person. There is great deal of "work" involved in just doing that.
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