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Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

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Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#191

Post by C1sc0cat »

johnchristopher wrote: post #138
belorn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My intuition tells me the internet social status doesn't provide the same health benefits than real world social status for people who have not much of it.

The op was referring to perceived status for example I used to work at a former "proper" civil service telecoms company in the UK.

Because of the inherited status of M&P grades most of us where quite happy to take our toil - though this depended on your family's status as well.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#192

Post by [deleted] »

antognini wrote: post #32

There was a well written comment on Reddit a few years back about how your life changes at different levels of wealth: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i... The main gist was that in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again. In the $30-100 million range you can start doing "rich people" things like have a private jet (though this m…

[deleted]

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#193

Post by goodcanadian »

Sorry, no citation, but I remember reading of a study years ago that basically determined that no matter how much income a person has, they feel that they need about 10% more to be truly happy. This was consistent across a wide range of income. Honestly, I think it is simply normal human psychology to keep us striving. Complacency is not an evolutionary stable thing to do.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#194

Post by roenxi »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #97
rv-de wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of machine learning money is the opposite of regularization. The more money the less regularization the more over-fitting to your specific self-chosen environment. A not rich person will have to learn to cope with obstacles. A rich person can remove obstacles. But it is impossible to remove all obstacles which will lead to increased hostility towards those remaining annoyances - like for example with SUVs in…

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.

'Trying to do the right thing' is a quirky human heuristic that works well in the small but scales terribly. It is evidenced in things like the legal system where 'intent to commit a crime' is often a consideration in the sentencing in addition to the actual outcomes of a criminal act.

With that in mind, it makes a lot of sense why money (and the economy generally) rubs people the wrong way. We have here a powerful system in which if you act rationally, selfishly and with intent to maximise your personal outcomes (but within the law), others will benefit. Intent is explicitly not part of the equation of who gets to be wealthy. But the whole thing hangs together because of the intuitive fact that a clever person acting with selfish intent can usually do more good than a clever selfless person acting with noble intent.

There is an irony that working to maximise your income looks, in real terms, a lot like dedicating your life to the betterment of others with personal perks. The people who get rich under capitalism do not spend their time sitting in idleness.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#195

Post by CamTin »

skookumchuck wrote: post #88
Wh1skey wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I enjoy making money is because I think of it as creating value for others. For some reason, I just enjoy creating value for others.

In a free market, money is made by creating value for others.

...or by owning the means that other people use to provide value.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#196

Post by peterwwillis »

nf05papsjfVbc wrote: post #187
dang wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's against the rules, so please don't: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Plenty of explanations about why: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

I'm afraid I do not see this part of the rule explained enough. Why is the identity important there? Wouldn't the content of the messages suffice? Often I do not even look at the name of the poster.

They're saying identity is important because only relating to an identity creates a community. But that's wrong of course, as many anonymous communities prove. I don't recognize 99% of the posters here either; it is indeed the content that makes the community.

I believe the real explanation of why identity is important to them is a bit of social psychology. The theory is that identifying with people makes them less mean to each other. So they probably want consistent identities so people will be more civil, which is one of their stated goals.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#197

Post by murukesh_s »

eertami wrote: post #177
murukesh_s wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you are having this thought process because you are still a student where you can afford to live frugally. Once you get a job, your social status get raised and you would need 100k a year to live comfortably. So even $1MN is not going to take you far if you stop working, i would even suggest $10MN is also a risky bet, unless you invest it wisely as inflation can easily wipe out a large chunk of that value in f…

>your social status get raised and you would need 100k a year to live comfortably Haha come on. You know that is not true. I live a pretty good life where I get to move country every few months (in Europe), have expensive hobbies, ski 100+ days a year and after currency conversion make closer to 50k. For what it's worth, I only work 2 days/week, if I "needed" 100k USD I could go to a full time position but I don't se…

It also depends on the culture and country. I am in a country where there is no social security, and therefore I have to support both my parents, my spouse and my kids with my income. The society expects me to pay for my kids tuition fees, their future marriage expenses, my family medical expenses, other loans I have taken etc.

Also part of the 100k goes towards a retirement fund (investments in bank savings, real estates etc) and saving for any unforeseen circumstances. I can't imagine living in united states with less than 100k per year and paying for tuition fees for your kids, house loan/rent and have a decent savings. If the medical is free, and i have an option for retirement and not that much strings attached, 50k would suffice..

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#198

Post by beaconstudios »

simonh wrote: post #179
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

capitalism turns this motivation to accumulate more than others (greed) into a drive to produce goods and services. This has good and bad qualities, and focusing on one or the other doesn't paint a complete picture of its effects. This mechanism also breaks down in some ways when you can generate money without providing anything, which is becoming more prevalent nowadays.
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