Bringing Edinburgh into the mix definitely reinforces this take. "I want to live somewhere that's not total shit, but a bit shit... all the time"

All this comunal reaction against OP's methodology makes me smile. After spending miserable weeks under, sometimes tree shades but, most of the time, hot Brazilian sun observing whet bulbs, anemometers and what not, during "Environmental Comfort" class at Architecture school, I could not help myself felling anything other than pure hatred towards OP's assumptions and overall lack of understanding of what "nice" means. So again, it doesn't come often, but HN people, you made my day, thank you.

Wait, wouldn't a trend towards micro-apartments and higher density make urban land more valuable? I suppose the trick is buying urban land in just the right place if things get more dense.

Fitting more units in the same space would drive up value, but a large increase in available units would have the opposite affect.

I'm a developer with an English degree from a liberal arts college and I do agree with the article on this point. When you're trying to dive into difficult literature –and learn how to analyze it in the first place– it's really, really helpful to have a professor leading you through it, and a room full of smart people discussing it. You can't just go fuck off to Bali with Ulysses and get anywhere near the same experience.

Coding is different. The only way to learn how to program is to program. Yeah mentors help a ton and speed things up but I think it's a lot more solitary of a journey.

Well this line of reasoning works beautifully for engineers, because solving the types of problems engineers love also HAPPENS to be extremely lucrative.

What if acting doesn't feel like work? Playing soccer? Hiking? It's extremely difficult to make money doing these things. "Follow your folly" career advice can work, or it can just make people feel terrible because they realize they're doing things they don't love because they can't make money doing the things they do love.

Besides the finding something that you enjoy part (and given that that makes you good at it) there was this second part - something that is work for somebody else. He probably should have mentioned that there is an implicit third part - finding and convincing somebody to actually pay you for doing this work, plus a fourth issue - the competition. However, there are careers in soccer, not sure about hiking though, that's more recreational, you might make a teaching business out of it though.

It may not be the most lucrative business for the person who loves hiking, but somebody has to write the guidebook.