131–140 of 358 posts
Hang out with people who aren't rich and you'll notice they're just as happy as everyone else.
I happened to grow up with classmates whose parents were both billionaires and cab drivers. There's research that suggests beyond a certain threshold you won't get happier from any extra money and that certainly seemed to be the case.
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Money is an insanely toxic mental, political, and social poison, for exactly these kinds of reasons. It's also a social reward function that privileges egotism and narcissism over empathy; exploitation, scamming, and rent-seeking over creativity, curiosity and invention; and short-term gain over long-term damage. Like the hardest of hard addictive drugs, it's an almost irresistible modifier of behaviour and attitude.
There's plenty of creativity in tax avoidance and financial engineering. Now, I'm not saying that is the kind of creativity you want to promote, but it certainly is there. There are many people who have fun doing this kind of work.
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> in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again This statement strikes me as very disconnected from the reality that the vast majority of people on this planet live in, and honestly, a little bit irritating. I'm well aware that many here on HN would be millionaires, but as somebody who grew up in poverty and is now a full-time uni student with no savings in t…
> If somebody were to give me a hundred thousand dollars to invest, I am quite certain I could live comfortably for the rest of my life This shows a pretty big disconnect. And is something no one in their 30s+ would say. The common rule of thumb is you can live off of an investment at 4% indefinitely(assuming 6% return and 2% inflation). This gives you $4,000 a year. Crappy insurance: $4,200 a year. Crappy 300 sq ft…
Yes it does. That was my point.
For starters, you're assuming I'd want to live off the investment, instead of continuing to work.
Regardless, I shouldn't have mentioned the arbitrary figure of $100K, which has made it so much easier for people to ignore my point, that many people are comfortable with much less than $10M.
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$100k wouldn’t be a reliable safety net for long. A good network of people who trust you to execute reliably is worth way more than $100k — see: business owners who have repeatedly survived bankruptcy. I understand how ridiculous this may sound. There’s a presupposition of access to capital / employment. A large chunk of the world doesn’t have access to that, to no fault of their own. But don’t discount yourself that…
I appreciate your comment. I know that having more than $100K in the bank would be a better safety net. Hell, having $5K would feel fantastic right about now. My point is merely that many people feel happy and comfortable with so much less than $10M, and it's absurd to believe otherwise. Most interlocutors here seem to have latched on to my pretty arbitrary figure of $100K and forgotten or ignored that original point…
It’s obscenely difficult to get there, but an entirely reasonable and well-defined goal for people who are willing to compete (and, with high likelihood, fail) in the market to get there.
It’s up to you to decide if you’d like to pursue that path. There are plenty of paths to stability without setting that goal; you’ll just find yourself arguing with a self-selected subset of people targeting it when you post on a place like HN.
You shouldn’t wish ill upon them, and they shouldn’t wish ill upon you. We’re all just figuring life out on our own, but if you’re in a professional career in your ~30s you’ll hear “$10M” (USD, or in North America) as a pretty standard target for a “dream amount.”
But isn't it the well oiled marketing and advertising industry that is keeping us constantly unhappy and forcing us to compare our own (projected) shortcomings against others? My hypothesis is that wealthier people are even deeper in this trap, as once you can afford nice clothes, accessories, cars, houses etc., you are immediately exposed to others in the same (or higher) wealth bracket, thus exacerbating these feel…
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Similar situation here. I live on 7000 GBP p/a and any other income I can find elsewhere which isn't guaranteed. There was a post on Reddit personal finance sub the other day asking for advice on whether they should leave their 320k USD p/a job for a 325k GBP p/a job as an entry level analyst for a hedge fund. Most people just have no idea what it actually is to live close to poverty and so 10 million is easy to come…
FFS that $10m figure isn't about being comfortable. It's about never having to work again and never having to be concerned about paying for things in an upper middle class lifestyle. You might be happy as a PhD student, but your housing and life is entirely dependent on the university. You are one academic violation away from that all being in jeopardy. What happens if you get a spouse and child? Will your current ho…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again This statement strikes me as very disconnected from the reality that the vast majority of people on this planet live in, and honestly, a little bit irritating. I'm well aware that many here on HN would be millionaires, but as somebody who grew up in poverty and is now a full-time uni student with no savings in t…
> If somebody were to give me a hundred thousand dollars to invest, I am quite certain I could live comfortably for the rest of my life This shows a pretty big disconnect. And is something no one in their 30s+ would say. The common rule of thumb is you can live off of an investment at 4% indefinitely(assuming 6% return and 2% inflation). This gives you $4,000 a year. Crappy insurance: $4,200 a year. Crappy 300 sq ft…
A while back I noticed that my HN karma was rising at a rate that would put me on the leaderboard, so I decided to make an effort to submit content and post quality comments just to see if I could crack the top 100. After a few months I did it, and kept rising up to a high of 85 (today I'm #88). Then I realized I was spending way too much time on HN, and how easy it was to fall into this trap of thinking I was doing…
This might sound odd, but there is some real health benefits in perceiving oneself as having high social status. A few of those are better immune system, successful aging, lower stress hormones, lower risk for illness and depression, faster recovery, and just general higher energy and confidence. It can have a very strong positive effect on ones social network. It is a very powerful and deeply biological aspect of li…
But isn't it the well oiled marketing and advertising industry that is keeping us constantly unhappy and forcing us to compare our own (projected) shortcomings against others? My hypothesis is that wealthier people are even deeper in this trap, as once you can afford nice clothes, accessories, cars, houses etc., you are immediately exposed to others in the same (or higher) wealth bracket, thus exacerbating these feel…
Regardless of what other people are trying to get your to do, unless they actually force you, you're the only one responsible for your decisions. Stop trying to find a scrapegoat.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...
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Similar situation here. I live on 7000 GBP p/a and any other income I can find elsewhere which isn't guaranteed. There was a post on Reddit personal finance sub the other day asking for advice on whether they should leave their 320k USD p/a job for a 325k GBP p/a job as an entry level analyst for a hedge fund. Most people just have no idea what it actually is to live close to poverty and so 10 million is easy to come…
FFS that $10m figure isn't about being comfortable. It's about never having to work again and never having to be concerned about paying for things in an upper middle class lifestyle. You might be happy as a PhD student, but your housing and life is entirely dependent on the university. You are one academic violation away from that all being in jeopardy. What happens if you get a spouse and child? Will your current ho…
I really like the peace of mind that gives me and everyone, even if that means I have to pay more taxes.