<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>dang</author><text>Please keep nationalistic slurs far away from Hacker News, regardless of who you have a problem with.&lt;p&gt;In addition, please review &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;newsguidelines.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;newsguidelines.html&lt;/a&gt; and follow all the rules when posting here. They include:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that&amp;#x27;s easier to criticize. Assume good faith.&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;</text><parent_chain><item><author>AndyMcConachie</author><text>I hate this attitude among Americans. Like there is some strategy you can play that will make sure you won&amp;#x27;t get screwed over in life, and that if you do get screwed over in life it&amp;#x27;s because your strategy was wrong.&lt;p&gt;It has so much more to do with luck than I think people like you are willing to admit. Where is the compassion in your writing? This story is about people losing their jobs simply because they&amp;#x27;re old and used up by a society that doesn&amp;#x27;t give a shit. And here you are talking about strategies for success. It&amp;#x27;s gross.</text></item><item><author>apatters</author><text>If you&amp;#x27;re currently an employee, start thinking by your 40s about how you could become your own boss.&lt;p&gt;By 50, if you&amp;#x27;ve played your cards right, you have a lot of connections, a lot of expertise, and you&amp;#x27;ve become rather expensive to employ.&lt;p&gt;So you do attract attention from the cost cutters wherever you work. But it also means that you might deliver more business value as a consultant than as a full-time employee anyway.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen people who got ahead of this trend, they planned for it, and made it work. They prepared for a long time and then they left. Instead of treading water in the same job for another decade, they semi-retired into consulting.&lt;p&gt;You do it when you&amp;#x27;re prepared, you&amp;#x27;ve done your homework, and you can name a couple of companies where you have contacts that would probably be interested in retaining you. Often, your first customer is your former employer. Because if you were doing an essential job, they probably won&amp;#x27;t be well prepared for it, and they&amp;#x27;ll want to re-hire you on a consulting basis to oversee the transition.&lt;p&gt;You end up getting less total compensation from them, but you get paid at a higher rate per unit of your time. Then you string together a few other gigs. If you can&amp;#x27;t get as much work as you want you at least have some flexibility, maybe you end up spending the winters in a low cost country or something.&lt;p&gt;The key is in the preparation and paying attention to the right details while you&amp;#x27;re still in corporate. If you do it right, it can actually help your interests stay aligned with your employer&amp;#x27;s throughout your entire career. If they have cost pressures your switch to consulting can be a win for them too.&lt;p&gt;Like a lot of things in life, the key is to know when to quit.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Over half of older US workers are pushed out of longtime jobs before they retire</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/older-workers-united-states-pushed-out-of-work-forced-retirement</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>apatters</author><text>What you&amp;#x27;ve done here is create multiple strawmen, attribute them to me, and then rationalize this fictional version of me as a &amp;quot;typical American.&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s very insulting.&lt;p&gt;Nowhere did I say luck doesn&amp;#x27;t play a part. Nowhere did I say I lack compassion for the people in the article. Nowhere did I say that I think things are fine as they are.&lt;p&gt;The reality of the business world today is that employment is at-will. There&amp;#x27;s nothing stopping employers doing the things described in this article. So I offered up a way that people I know have managed to improve their career outcomes. Having several consulting clients is often a lower-risk approach to the later stages of your career than depending on one employer for all of your income. This is a forum dedicated to entrepreneurship so I think my comments are appropriate here.</text><parent_chain><item><author>AndyMcConachie</author><text>I hate this attitude among Americans. Like there is some strategy you can play that will make sure you won&amp;#x27;t get screwed over in life, and that if you do get screwed over in life it&amp;#x27;s because your strategy was wrong.&lt;p&gt;It has so much more to do with luck than I think people like you are willing to admit. Where is the compassion in your writing? This story is about people losing their jobs simply because they&amp;#x27;re old and used up by a society that doesn&amp;#x27;t give a shit. And here you are talking about strategies for success. It&amp;#x27;s gross.</text></item><item><author>apatters</author><text>If you&amp;#x27;re currently an employee, start thinking by your 40s about how you could become your own boss.&lt;p&gt;By 50, if you&amp;#x27;ve played your cards right, you have a lot of connections, a lot of expertise, and you&amp;#x27;ve become rather expensive to employ.&lt;p&gt;So you do attract attention from the cost cutters wherever you work. But it also means that you might deliver more business value as a consultant than as a full-time employee anyway.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen people who got ahead of this trend, they planned for it, and made it work. They prepared for a long time and then they left. Instead of treading water in the same job for another decade, they semi-retired into consulting.&lt;p&gt;You do it when you&amp;#x27;re prepared, you&amp;#x27;ve done your homework, and you can name a couple of companies where you have contacts that would probably be interested in retaining you. Often, your first customer is your former employer. Because if you were doing an essential job, they probably won&amp;#x27;t be well prepared for it, and they&amp;#x27;ll want to re-hire you on a consulting basis to oversee the transition.&lt;p&gt;You end up getting less total compensation from them, but you get paid at a higher rate per unit of your time. Then you string together a few other gigs. If you can&amp;#x27;t get as much work as you want you at least have some flexibility, maybe you end up spending the winters in a low cost country or something.&lt;p&gt;The key is in the preparation and paying attention to the right details while you&amp;#x27;re still in corporate. If you do it right, it can actually help your interests stay aligned with your employer&amp;#x27;s throughout your entire career. If they have cost pressures your switch to consulting can be a win for them too.&lt;p&gt;Like a lot of things in life, the key is to know when to quit.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Over half of older US workers are pushed out of longtime jobs before they retire</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/older-workers-united-states-pushed-out-of-work-forced-retirement</url></story>