Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Degrees of Wealth

jaapgrolleman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 85 posts

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#61

Post by hackyhacky »

bluGill wrote: post #56
hackyhacky wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have other things they're stressed about. Sorry, but I don't buy this. Equating stress about whether my company's stock price stays about $200 with stress about whether I will be able to afford a meal for my children is simply not on the same level. Billionaires may choose to be emotionally involved in their financial situation, but a person in poverty has no choice. A bit of mindful meditation will solve the…

I don't know about billionaires, but I do know couples who between the two are earning nearly a million dollars per year - yet because their spending has grown to match their income they are stressed about having enough food to eat the last few days of every month - even worse than poor people I know who have almost nothing. Sure they both are driving new cars, living in a large house (near mansion?), their kids are…

I don't understand the point of your comment. Am I supposed to feel sorry for the irresponsible upper middle class who spent themselves into debt? Do you think that equates at all to actually poverty?

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#62

Post by jandrewrogers »

tensor wrote: post #15
credit_guy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is not a terrible measure of good life. "Money does not bring happiness" is a trope that rich people would like poor people to believe. I don't think poor people fall for it, though.

Wealth is objectively a poor measure of a good life, past a threshold. Scientific studies have shown that yes, up to a level of wealth (e.g. being able to not worry about food, shelter, and future security), improving wealth improves happiness. After that, reported levels of happiness do not really change with wealth.

I think it is a mistake to optimize for happiness instead of life satisfaction. The latter is more durable and manifests as more productive social outcomes, since it is strongly correlated with self-actualization. There is no upper bound on life satisfaction with respect to income.

Overfitting for happiness is actively destructive to people being able to achieve their individual potential.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#63

Post by steveBK123 »

choutos wrote: post #50
steveBK123 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do worry that the “app / gig economy” independent contractors with weak i9 verification is basically trying to import the developing-world inequality permanent underclass service sector here.

Do you mean in terms of a loss of employment rights?

Yes. These services allow mass employment of people who are more on the margin of society without any of the protections around minimum wage, working hours, benefits, etc because they are "independent contractors".

Uber alone supposedly has 1M "independent contractors" in the US. Quick google searches would put them as the 3rd biggest employer in the US behind Walmart & Amazon, if they were actually classified as employees.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#64

Post by gabesullice »

So many parallels with my experience moving from the US to France. Things aren't as easy to get done here. I'm pretty hot today with my struggling, portable AC. We have to wait for our laundry to air dry. I miss having a garage for tools and equipment. I missed American customer service. But: I can stroll to a bakery here. The vegetables taste. I walk my son to school and we hold hands and talk. It took me a while, but I don't start panicking when someone in the family needs to see a doctor or visit an urgent care center. And that customer service I missed? I realized that it often (but not always) manufactures a feeling of (in)superiority. I now assume loud cracks are engine backfires, not gunshots. On the other hand, I recognize that I was lucky to start life in the US. I wasn't the best student and I dropped out of college (albeit for financial reasons I may not have had here), but I was still able to get a good job in software development—credentials aren't as important in the US as they are in France, in my experience.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#65

Post by mywittyname »

tensor wrote: post #15
credit_guy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is not a terrible measure of good life. "Money does not bring happiness" is a trope that rich people would like poor people to believe. I don't think poor people fall for it, though.

Wealth is objectively a poor measure of a good life, past a threshold. Scientific studies have shown that yes, up to a level of wealth (e.g. being able to not worry about food, shelter, and future security), improving wealth improves happiness. After that, reported levels of happiness do not really change with wealth.

Sounds like your argument is that wealth is objectively a good measure of a good life. Below some level of wealth, your life sucks, above it, it's great.

You're just pointing out that it's not linear, but sigmoidal. There's a range at which small changes in wealth rapidly improve or deteriorate ones life, but outside of that range, being much poorer makes your life suck only marginally more, and being wealthier makes your life improve marginally more.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#66

Post by BizarroLand »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #35
tensor wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is objectively a poor measure of a good life, past a threshold. Scientific studies have shown that yes, up to a level of wealth (e.g. being able to not worry about food, shelter, and future security), improving wealth improves happiness. After that, reported levels of happiness do not really change with wealth.

And better studies later have shown that the threshold is just the knee in a log curve. Happiness improves with wealth on a logarithmic scale.

There's a dramatic difference in having the kind of money that allows you to look forward to retirement and having the kind of money that allows you to alleviate the boredom of you and your closest 5 friends by taking a 6 week retreat to Bali.

Re: Degrees of Wealth

#70

Post by jaapgrolleman »

aklemm wrote: post #9

This is the error I get trying to load the page (Firefox): Secure Connection Failed The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified. What can you do about it? The issue is most likely with the website, and there is nothing you can do to resolve it. You can notify the website’s administrator about the problem.

I think it's too much traffic from HackerNews onto the website
Post reply on HN