111–120 of 527 posts
And you start seeing mini prisoners dilemmas in all interactions. Maybe dated, but still loads of fun: Game of Life John Conway's Winning Ways For Your Mathematical Plays
https://annarchive.com/files/Winning%20Ways%20for%20Your%20M...
I'd add probability theory to the mix. Computer Age Statistical Inference is a modern classic
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Do you have advices for young people in long term investments ?
Don't listen to risk-averse engineers. You are young, invest in high risk things you believe in. Make it an active investment if you can. Recognize who is giving you boring advice(index funds), look at the risk levels in their life, and then disregard them if they don't take chances on anything. At a young age your risky investment % should be at it's highest. The exact amount will depend on your appetite.
I know very few people that got rich without getting lucky and none of them would have been rich if they had followed this list. The majority of them simply went into finance, consulting or real estate at a young age and invested their income smartly (retrospectively!). After the first million rolls in if you're young enough compound returns will take care of the rest if you can postpone altering your life-style.
Find out where high-status or wealthy people congregate for recreation. Pay close attention to their culture, mannerisms, language, and dress. Practice emulating them until sufficiently skilled. Frequent the same places as them until some begin to recognize you and believe you are one of them. Then, make them actually enjoy your company.
In modern times, this would probably be called “networking” or “sales”.
And, then there is marriage. Another ages-old strategy. But, pretty much the same strategy as above.
The rest of the wealthy people whom I personally know worked hard at software companies before the 90s and reinvested in equities, and later, real estate. (These cases could be considered luck, though. They had to be in the right place at the right time. And, that same strategy didn’t work only a decade or so later.)
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Don't listen to risk-averse engineers. You are young, invest in high risk things you believe in. Make it an active investment if you can. Recognize who is giving you boring advice(index funds), look at the risk levels in their life, and then disregard them if they don't take chances on anything. At a young age your risky investment % should be at it's highest. The exact amount will depend on your appetite.
Easier said than done. What high risk (low effort) investment opportunities are there for non accredited investors? I guess there's real estate but I don't know if that qualifies as 'high risk'... And cryptocurrencies, but I'd call that 'gambling' not 'investment' :)
I’m going to take a contrarian view and say: figure out why you want to be rich, first. For most people, money is a proxy for respect, status, power, security, social skills, romantic attraction from others, free time, or otherwise. If you can ignore the constant “only rich people are meaningful human beings” message that is blared 24/7 from western culture, you might find that it’s easier to just go after what you w…
Here is a list of reasons that "enlightened" (i.e. not scrooge) people would want to be rich: - The ability to secure the best medical care for yourself and your family in a country where this takes money to do. - The ability to walk away from abusive employment relationships without a second thought or any stress. - The ability to engage in high-level economic actions, the kind that aren't designed for your failure.…
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> I know too many people that use their money to consume. All those dumb poor people wasting their money on food.
Well, if you really use money only for basic food and essentials, I think you can survive with very, very little money. I did that when I was a student. Life can be just quite dull if you eat that kind of food from day to day. What I see is that most people just appreciate the luxury today more than the savings which would enable more luxury tomorrow. I think there's nothing wrong with that. You might die any day in…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_discounting
The hedonic treadmill is, in a nutshell, the reason we become complacent to newly acquired luxuries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
So not only do we want fancier things now, but we don't really appreciate them when we have them! Humans are silly.
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But one important part of their success was to invest their income. I know too many people that use their money to consume. Investing early in your life is what makes the difference. It's very easy to spend it on little things and claim to not have anything to invest.
> I know too many people that use their money to consume. All those dumb poor people wasting their money on food.
Consume here means non-essential needs such as always buying latest gadget (while previous one still works), changing your car early for no good reason (less than a few years), or even buying one if you don't need one, going out often at expensive activities etc...
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Live in country which has generous welfare system (scandinavian countries). Here I think people have all the basic needs pretty much covered. You can only get your things messed up if you get hooked up on drugs or alcohol. Though to me living here it seems that people are still all the time complaining and demanding more and more, though we have more safety nets than about any other place on earth.
This has a flipside though. If you do manage to find success (and say, own a profitable business or have an exit), you'll be taxed into oblivion. It might not be the popular opinion on HN, but I would hate that. Make sure to structure things properly from the beginning so that you can leave when appropriate.
I’m going to take a contrarian view and say: figure out why you want to be rich, first. For most people, money is a proxy for respect, status, power, security, social skills, romantic attraction from others, free time, or otherwise. If you can ignore the constant “only rich people are meaningful human beings” message that is blared 24/7 from western culture, you might find that it’s easier to just go after what you w…
Here is a list of reasons that "enlightened" (i.e. not scrooge) people would want to be rich: - The ability to secure the best medical care for yourself and your family in a country where this takes money to do. - The ability to walk away from abusive employment relationships without a second thought or any stress. - The ability to engage in high-level economic actions, the kind that aren't designed for your failure.…
> The ability to secure the best medical care for yourself and your family in a country where this takes money to do.
I can only speak to the US but this is much more an insurance issue than a wealth issue. When I made $30k a year I had a ~$75k surgery and it cost me about $1200 all in, including follow-up copays with the surgeon, because I had good insurance through my employer. I probably had $15k in credit card debt at the time and rented a $400/mo room in someone else's house - certainly not rich by any stretch.
> The ability to walk away from abusive employment relationships without a second thought or any stress.
This is all about skills, not wealth. Most folks on HN could leave their job today and walk into something making 95-120% of their current salary without much issue.
> The ability to engage in high-level economic actions, the kind that aren't designed for your failure. (Buying a few franchises vs. buying a payday loan)
You don't need to be rich to get a franchise loan.
> The ability to, fundamentally, own yourself instead of being forced to act according to the interests of people with the money to pay you.
This is so esoteric it's hard to even know what you're trying to say here. I'm sure you could find plenty of people with $10+ million net worths who feel beholden to act a certain way in the interests of certain people.