Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

The other day I was discussing with a friend what would happen if there wasn't any need to work at jobs anymore, and whether people would be able to find fulfilment in their lives.

I think there would be so many new areas of knowledge being explored that we can't even imagine it. In my opinion, people don't find meaning, they create it, and they have an endless capacity for it.

V__ · 31d ago

There is a reason why a lot of science in the past happened to be done by clergymen or pastors. They had a lot of time on their hand and a secure income. I am certain science, art and the community in general would profit immensely if the modern workload would be reduced.

I think covid was a good example of this. So many people took up a new hobby or tried something new.

khy · 31d ago

I get the sense that a lot of science in the 19th century was done by the idle rich.

teachrdan · 31d ago

Charles Darwin was independently wealthy and largely funded his own research into evolution.

vessenes · 31d ago

Postage stamps are a surprisingly deep topic, overlapping with money, collectibility and bank notes. I’m not a postage stamp enthusiast myself, but it’s one of those “the universe is surprisingly detailed” type topics.

Your optimism on humans is appreciated, although arguably not backed up by history: it seems to me like most places times and economic systems turn out a similar percentage of knowledge explorers: ask yourself what percentage of the landed gentry in the UK did this, for instance, and what percent just leisured away. I propose with no data the numbers are largely invariant; what a society or economic systems does change is the ability of the x% to make progress and impact/implement.

kubb · 31d ago

I feel like 98% were fox hunting, gambling and whatnot, but the 2% gave us William Wilberforce, Charles Darwin and Lord Byron. If the number of idlers increases so will the number of productive ones.

vessenes · 31d ago

Yeah that’s my rough ratio too. Think Athens long ago: probably like max 5% in an ideal (well for male non slaves) society.

kubb · 31d ago

It’s kinda like startup math. Most will fail but the few successes will offset the failures.

KaiserPro · 31d ago

Firstly, this is an awesome website. I was looking for some high resolution stamp images a few weeks ago, these would have been perfect.

However the thing that really caught my interest is the font they are using. Yes its designed to look old, nothing new. But what is new is that the letters are not all at a fixed level, they move up and down minutely. Is that a product of the font, or something that is done in the rendering?

cenazoic · 31d ago

The font is IM Fell English:

https://fonts.google.com/specimen/IM+Fell+English

weiliddat · 31d ago

Glad to see a bit of Malaysian/Singaporean history in the form of post stamps featured on HN.

Personal anecdote: my dad grew up during the post-colonial Malaysian era, and attended some colonial schools that were still ran by the British Anglican missionaries. I guess that's what instilled some stamp collection habits, which he did try to impart to me. I recall waiting in line for first day covers in my early school years, or going to tiny local post stamp trading events. For some stamps that were still affixed to letters, we'd carefully try to dissolve it with water, dry them, and store them in collection books lined with plastic/paper. Ah the simple tangible hobbies of the pre-Internet era...

ayushrodrigues · 31d ago

timeless is a great word to describe this. almost impossible to tell what era these are from