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I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

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Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do I want to pay off my house? Because its the poor-man's version of F-You money. It instantly and dramatically lowers the monthly takings to have to make to keep your household going, and noticeably shifts the balance of power in all financial negotiations in your favour. Try it. Trust me.

It's kinda crazy that people think you can only get this by being rich. Why don't we just eliminate the market in housing and make it super cheap to live? We have more houses than people.

Housing exists at a particular place, so there is always scarcity of location. More people would want to live across the street from (say) Disneyland than can physically fit, so a market will exist no matter what.

If you mean cheap or free housing should exist as a public works project, that is possible... and what you get without a profit motive is Soviet style apartment cinderblocks.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no, see, once you actually have money you stop caring about other people and just want to protect what you have. "Got mine, fuck you" and all that. At least, that's how it seems from all the advice that gets thrown around about people who suddenly come in to wealth. Weirdly no one gives advice related to the documented ways that people tend to change when they suddenly have much more money than the people around t…

> the documented ways that people tend to change when they suddenly have much more money than the people around them Please share said documents. (Genuinely)

The study that comes immediately to mind is Paul K Piff's Monopoly experiment. In it, one participant of each game was given twice as much starting money, twice as much Go money, and twice as many dice as the others. Consistently the "affluent" player would become more aggressive and less polite as the game went on. Other experiments conducted by Piff indicate a lack of empathy associated with increasing wealth. High wealth individuals being shown to be more likely to cut people off in traffic, lie during job interviews, cheat on tests, and in one experiment even more likely to steal candy from children.

One could, however, claim that Piff is biased, and for sure Psych studies have come under fire in general for being irreproducible. So I guess take it all with a grain of salt.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#193

The friend/family perception is real and one thing, but really i think this silence creates yet more separation creating ever more loneliness. Ultimately, my fear for lottery winners is akin to discovering cheat codes in early video games. Turning on "Infinite Money" in $GAME was great... until it quickly sucked all of the joy out of the game. The limited resource challenge disappeared. I don't know anyone who has wo…

I wouldn't worry about life itself. Life is not like a single-player games, the challenges thrown at you usually are not meant to be fun.

The more worrying part is the deteriorating social network. You go through life surrounded by friends and family, who are mostly in similar circumstances to you, face mostly similar problems. It's one of the biggest group-binding force. After a big windfall, you'll no longer have the same problems as other people in your life. That'll make it tricky to maintain relationships.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they are struggling with money issues and you want to help them? Or what if they are struggling with money issues in silence and you don't know about it? Also... what if they find out about it later and you never told them? Wouldn't they think that you are a selfish doosh?

What if their money issues are their own doing (they live way above their means)? If you give them money, you're an enabler.

As long as you aren't giving them money to piss away on drugs or something similar, so what? You would give your family and/or friends an easier and happier life.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they are struggling with money issues and you want to help them? Or what if they are struggling with money issues in silence and you don't know about it? Also... what if they find out about it later and you never told them? Wouldn't they think that you are a selfish doosh?

> Wouldn't they think that you are a selfish doosh I never cease to be amazed at how terrified people commonly are of trivial confrontation and worthless opinions. A life spent placating other people to live by their low value opinions, will be a life very poorly lived. Rather than spending the effort on fretting about their low value opinions, that effort should go into mentally reducing the incorrect value being pl…

> I never cease to be amazed at how terrified people commonly are of trivial confrontation and worthless opinions.

So... you don't care if your family never talks to you again? I would.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how Peter Singer condemns comfort while living comfortably enough to have the time to write and publish a dozen books [1]. That time could've really helped a lot of people. Wonder what his thoughts on hypocrisy are. For me, other people's problems aren't my problem. If I won a billion dollars I'd probably donate to things generously out of mild interest in trying to make the world more to my liking, but that's…

He donates about 30% of his income. He freely admits he still lives comfortably. Would you have a higher opinion of him if he didn't donate any money instead of "only" 30%? Peter Singer doesn't claim to be a martyr. I'm not sure where you get that. He is a philosopher/ethicist -- it is his job to think about moral issues and present his conclusions, right or wrong.

I would have a very high opinion of him if he lived by his own standards. It's not special or rare; there are plenty of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, (etc) ascetics who renounce everything from income all the way to even clothing altogether.

Or if he acknowledged his own hypocrisy, like another philosopher (Diogenes? don't remember) who said something like "if you ask me directions, I'm not obligated to go down that way myself."

I made my comment because I find it worthless to reference someone who doesn't practice what they preach. You might as well quote Bezos or Zuck for some PR statement about how it's important to love your fellow man and donate. It's just cherry-picking a quote from somebody with status that already fits with your predetermined conclusions.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kinda crazy that people think you can only get this by being rich. Why don't we just eliminate the market in housing and make it super cheap to live? We have more houses than people.

Housing exists at a particular place, so there is always scarcity of location. More people would want to live across the street from (say) Disneyland than can physically fit, so a market will exist no matter what. If you mean cheap or free housing should exist as a public works project, that is possible... and what you get without a profit motive is Soviet style apartment cinderblocks.

Soviet apartments were constrained by resources (the economy was balancing guns and butter for a long time). I think we can do better.

Also worth mentioning, much of our housing stock, especially rentals, are totally falling apart and unmaintained. Soviet housing was of higher quality to at least some of our existing stock -- especially in poor areas.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how Peter Singer condemns comfort while living comfortably enough to have the time to write and publish a dozen books [1]. That time could've really helped a lot of people. Wonder what his thoughts on hypocrisy are. For me, other people's problems aren't my problem. If I won a billion dollars I'd probably donate to things generously out of mild interest in trying to make the world more to my liking, but that's…

How Peter Singer lives is completely irrelevant to the argument. The argument stands on its own regardless of the provider. Google "Ad Hominem".

Peter Singer himself is completely irrelevant. At the end of the day it's just an opinion.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how Peter Singer condemns comfort while living comfortably enough to have the time to write and publish a dozen books [1]. That time could've really helped a lot of people. Wonder what his thoughts on hypocrisy are. For me, other people's problems aren't my problem. If I won a billion dollars I'd probably donate to things generously out of mild interest in trying to make the world more to my liking, but that's…

> For me, other people's problems aren't my problem. If your luck runs out, we'll be here to help you.

I highly doubt that you, specifically, or any other commenter in this thread will do anything to help me if I run into trouble. And if one were willing to do something, I would hope that they'd choose to channel their help towards someone their know deserves it like a loved one; not me, who as far as you know could just make up a fake sob story to con selfless strangers on the internet.

Re: I won over $55M in the lottery, but didn’t tell my friends or family

#200

I made 25m with crypto over the last 10 years. Never told anyone, not my friends, not my gf, not my family. Half a year ago I quit my job and now everyone thinks I am unemployed. How to stop my friends sending me job offers for full-time php developement?

It's probably how you telegraph it to them. For example, you chose the username "brokeAF" ("broke as f***"), it could be a fun play with irony, but for someone who doesn't know about your wealth, it would just seem like you might be desperate for money.

I would suggest making up a white lie, like you found a gig to edit travel articles, so it's a remote/digital gig, and a benefit is you get discounted travel. If you don't travel, find something that works with whatever it is you do with your time.

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