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America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

nytimes.com

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Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#61

Post by joncrane »

dangwu wrote: post #16
strikelaserclaw wrote: post #6

- He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said. Sounds like a good wife to me, and this "pay cut" is making 500k-600k instead of 1.2 million, what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't…

It’s not about living on 500k vs 1 million. It’s about much, much earlier retirement.

For many readers here, and adherents to the FIRE philosophy, sure.

But to most people who actually make $1.2 million per year, it means giving up all kinds of status symbols and creature comforts. Many of which they are locked in to via mortgages, leases, etc.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#62

Post by gearhart »

flippyhead wrote: post #12
randomacct3847 wrote: post #2

I think there was a Blind post a few weeks ago where 40% said they were depressed despite most making $300k-$600k/year

I've always felt the key is to focus on how much you spend not on how much you make. I want to make a lot of money, but I'm always careful to never spend too much. It's consumption that ruins things.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#64

Post by QualityReboot »

I just don't understand this at all. If you can earn a million a year, do it for 3-5 years, never have to work again, and pursue your passions in life.

I think the problem for most workers is the lifetime of toil, not the meaninglessness of the work.

I'd happily dig ditches for 8-12 hours a day for 3 years if I knew I was completely financially independent with millions in the bank that. Actually, I'd rather do that than write code. At least I'd be getting a workout.

As it is now, I write proprietary software for much less than those featured in the article, work is miserable, and I've still got maybe 10-15 years to go.

Am I in the minority here?

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#65

Post by r00fus »

ForHackernews wrote: post #15
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life isn't fundamentally empty. It's the philosophical underpinnings of profit-worship that make life seem empty.

Life is fundamentally empty. Unless you're religious: you live for a while then you die. Maybe you successfully procreated, and your descendants live until something gets them too. Eventually climate change, or asteroids or supernova gets everyone left.

Unless we have a diaspora. Believing in the future of humanity is a thing.

Not all higher callings are religious.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#66

Post by acomjean »

akavi wrote: post #19

The article seems to be omitting an important piece of data: Are people who make more money less happy/equally happy/more happy than people who make less? It implies by its framing that they're less happy, but that's not actually supported by any actual data in the piece (though to be fair, on cursory googling I wasn't able to find any evidence one way or another).

There is a link between money to happiness according to studies. The trick is that it stops after you have enough. Basically its terrible being poor, that will effect you happiness in a negative way. Once you have enough you are happier. But even more doesn't effect it that much.

These things are hard to measure.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#67

Post by randomacct3847 »

StavrosK wrote: post #9
randomacct3847 wrote: post #2

I think there was a Blind post a few weeks ago where 40% said they were depressed despite most making $300k-$600k/year

I think this is a quintessentially American slash Protestant-work-ethicy sentence. Why is anyone surprised that people who work so much that they don't have a life, meaningful relationships to other people or a vibrant social circle are depressed? If you optimize for making lots of money, that's (hopefully? probably?) what you will achieve. But it's very misguided to think that having a lot of money is how you become…

The thing is I don’t think a lot of these people actually work that much. If you’re in a mid level engineering role at a FAANG you’re not usually working 50-60+ hour weeks. You’re actually probably underutilized and working on uninteresting tasks.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#68

Post by smacktoward »

JackFr wrote: post #58
smacktoward wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely it's about keeping up with the Joneses. If all your old school friends are making $5 million, it pains your status gland enough to "only" be making $1 million.

The funny thing is when you move from making $1mm to $5mm you pick up a different set of friends to keep up with.

It's true, the coke dealers don't really hang around until you reach a certain income threshold.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#69

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

ForHackernews wrote: post #45
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how being temporary means that a thing lacks meaning.

How could anything mean anything when pretty soon (in a cosmological sense) there won't be any such thing as a mind in which meaning could exist?

Well in that case, since the universe itself is ultimately doomed, why not delude ourselves into believing that there is, in fact, meaning in our lives so that the remainder of our life isn't spent in misery?

I submit that the "fake" subjective meaning and some "real" objective meaning are indistinguishable.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#70

Post by toasterlovin »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #6

- He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said. Sounds like a good wife to me, and this "pay cut" is making 500k-600k instead of 1.2 million, what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't…

So this dovetails with what I think is the most fascinating topic in evolution: the demographic transition in humans. If you're not familiar, demographic transition is the term used to describe what has happened to the demography of nations as they become developed. Which is that, rather than producing more children with their material abundance, people in rich nations have less children. This is not, at all, what biology would predict. More resources should lead to more offspring.

My personal hunch as to what causes the demographic transition is that we have an evolved system for determining whether we are doing well or doing poorly and that system calibrates itself by examining the people around us. But, because our current economic and social system sorts people by income and status (talented people migrated into the cities from farms, even more talented people moved into more expensive neighborhoods, etc.), and because advertising constantly shows us higher levels of consumption to aspire to, even people who are, in an absolute sense, raking in obscene amounts of money are surrounded by a peer group that are roughly at their level. So it never really feels like you're rich; even though you live in a $3 million dollar home, you live on a street with $8 million dollar homes; even though your kid goes to a $30k/year private school, you can't afford to spend $200k vacationing in France during the summer like some of their peers, etc.

Interestingly, this parallels my own experience. As a senior developer, I'm now making roughly 3x what I made before becoming a programmer. Back then I would have imagined that all of my wants would be satisfied by 3xing my income. Yet somehow I still yearn to make more.

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