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

Happiness is earning $60,000/year

mymoneyblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–116 of 116 posts

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#111

Post by hugh3 »

Aetius wrote: post #64
hugh3 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forget who it was who said that money is like sex: you only think about it when you're not getting enough of it, and if you are you find something more interesting to think about. I also forget whether this was supposed to be a commentary on money or a commentary on sex. In any case, if you're getting enough of both you're probably pretty happy.

Felix Dennis http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article1084093.ece

Ahh, thankyou. I remember reading this article a few years ago. I also remember the bits about flying, floating or fornicating. I didn't remember it had come from the same article though.

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#112

Post by SapphireSun »

electromagnetic wrote: post #92
SapphireSun wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met a chain smoking guy with lung cancer. He was not happy.

I bet he was until he got diagnosed though, and if he had never been diagnosed and died from old age like 1/2 of smokers do, he'd have been happy. My point is that when I'm told eating red meat daily will increase my risk of colon cancer by 300%, it really doesn't give me great concern when it's really raising my risk of developing the disease from 1 in 10,000 to about 1 in 3,333. Considering the mortality rates, it'…

It is if you care about the future at all. A mild prohibition (don't smoke) causes me very little grief, and I can find other things to make me happy. If I do enough bad things for my health, eventually I'll give myself enough chances to "win" the lottery. It's not about just eliminating smoking, it's about being healthier and happier over all time.

Knowing that I'm avoiding cancer makes me happy by itself. :P

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#113

Post by ippisl »

Aetius wrote: post #86
dandelany wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, it seems a little presumptuous of you to believe you have the foresight to determine which fields are extraordinary and which are simply respectable, don't you think?

You're right. It is very presumptuous,almost to the point of pretension. I would change the post if I could. I don't actually know what field will be extraordinary and which will be simply respectable. However, I can understand AI and robotics, and from what I've seen, there isn't extraordinary work being done (please feel free to prove otherwise). There are only incremental advances being made that improve our lives…

automated customer support via phone(impressive demos): http://smartaction.com/Resources.htm

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#115

Post by jimbokun »

Aetius wrote: post #86
dandelany wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, it seems a little presumptuous of you to believe you have the foresight to determine which fields are extraordinary and which are simply respectable, don't you think?

You're right. It is very presumptuous,almost to the point of pretension. I would change the post if I could. I don't actually know what field will be extraordinary and which will be simply respectable. However, I can understand AI and robotics, and from what I've seen, there isn't extraordinary work being done (please feel free to prove otherwise). There are only incremental advances being made that improve our lives…

"What I can't understand is biology; it is unimaginably complex"

Not understanding it does not imply mean that extraordinary work is being done in biology, either. My guess would be that only "incremental" advances are happening in biology, too, just because that is true of most fields of human endeavor. It is only looking backwards at the cumulative progress of many incremental steps when you can see that an amazing amount of progress has occurred.

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#116

Post by jimbokun »

mikeyur wrote: post #80

I recently spent a few hours figuring out how much I need to be happy. Happy to me is living comfortable with enough extra cash to go out or take periodic trips without going into debt. I'm currently living at home and paying off some debt (I'm only 19 so it's still socially acceptable to be living with mom and dad :P). I wrote out the cost of necessities (rent, phone/internet, food, transportation, healthcare/insura…

"On top of the basics I want to save $500 (minimum) each month and have $2k or so in the "misc" category."

I would recommend swapping the save and misc amounts.

Post reply on HN