111–120 of 265 posts
Seen so much of this bullshit while travelling around SE Asia. I swear 90% of nomads are dropshipping/life coaches running ponzi schemes, and the other 10% are geeks like me who lucked into remote-friendly coding gigs. Sprinkled with some truly fascinating folks who genuinely discovered some new and interesting way of making this work for them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd say 95% of digital nomads are just online marketers It’s strange ‘cuz I’ve been working in digital nomad hotspots for years and have met very very few people like that. Lots of translators, programmers, and then a complete mishmash of other people, but very few people selling courses, and the ones who _were_ selling courses generally nothing to do with being a digital nomad
Same here. I’ve been nomading for ten years. I haven’t met a single person who was not legit doing something of value. The closest I came to one was an online poker player in Chiang Mai back in 2010. Maybe we just hang out in the “right” circles? It’s probably just like in real life. I have never met anyone offering me a generic (non nomad) Ponzi scheme. But I sure had several legit investment opportunities thru my c…
The most i've ever been able to do was half a year. How can you choose to be without a real home that long?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've fantasised about the vanlife, living the nomad lifestyle out of a van. When looking for build inspiration videos on YouTube, I ended up seeing a lot of vanlife "influencers", but what I notice is many videos just have a few thousand views, which is surely not enough to make a living..
I also fantasized about vanlife. Eamon & Bec is an awesome channel if you want to learn about that sort of thing. They certainly grew their channel enough to be comfortable.
I think one of the biggest issues is that tech people are "know it alls". They make lots of money, they must be smart right? So when a friend disagrees the person doesn't consider it. And unlike their Engineering counterparts they won't search for proof. If you need to see real world examples, look at who buys brand name. It's telling.
Tech people are pretty smart, on average. It's a somewhat demanding professional career. There's a hell of a lot of difference between "smart" and "infallible".
Death to the halo effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect
I think one of the biggest issues is that tech people are "know it alls". They make lots of money, they must be smart right? So when a friend disagrees the person doesn't consider it. And unlike their Engineering counterparts they won't search for proof. If you need to see real world examples, look at who buys brand name. It's telling.
I think we all remember which group of people green-lit Soylent.
This should gets it's own article. So many products and services totally unremarkable but survive simply because they've managed to peddle a brand image whereby it is fashionable to talk them up and unfashionable to say "I blew a bunch of money on them and the results were crap".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tesla was built by a billionaire. There was little to no risk involved.
Musk had about $140 million when he ~started~ bought (sorry) Tesla. That's a pretty far cry from a billion. On top of that, there was no guarantee that electric cars would ever be embraced, especially by Americans, who traditionally, love ICE muscle cars.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For a classic example, just look at /r/wallstreetbets -- young people are frustrated because there's no end to this tunnel That's a bad example. By many measures retail investors have outperformed institutional investors since March. The simple reason is that options have a built in exit strategy, the thing that's missing when most people lose in scams - including Ponzi schemes! On the flip side, why then do they o…
> That's a bad example I don't think it's a bad example, because if you spend some time on that subreddit, you'll quickly realize people are literally gambling with their life savings. In no small part due to disillusionment and cynicism with the current economic realities -- we can no longer work at a stable company, marry a pretty wife, have a couple of kids, retire 40 years later, and live off of a plump 401k.
This is what nearly everyone in tech who isn't spending their free time shitposting about their side projects and the nuances of programming languages is doing. Sure you can't work your whole career at one company anymore but that's just a reflection of macroeconomic conditions, the stability is still there for the people who's skills are in demand. Pretty much no competent programmer, or electrician for that matter, is unwillingly unemployed for long enough to matter.
This article is fantastic. I think "get rich quick" schemes are so much worse when it comes to my generation and beyond (millennials/gen-z). People have been endlessly screwed over: graduated college during the 2008 economic bust, lived with parents until their 30s, fired/laid off during the 2020 pandemic -- so I fundamentally understand the mirage of Instagram fame and endless sacks of money for doing basically noth…
> For a classic example, just look at /r/wallstreetbets -- young people are frustrated because there's no end to this tunnel That's a bad example. By many measures retail investors have outperformed institutional investors since March. The simple reason is that options have a built in exit strategy, the thing that's missing when most people lose in scams - including Ponzi schemes! On the flip side, why then do they o…
The average retail investor might have outperformed institutional investors, but it's a leap to suggest that wsb outperformed institutional investors. Foe one, the average retail investor isn't buying otm options like wsb users are.
> The simple reason is that options have a built in exit strategy, the thing that's missing when most people lose in scams - including Ponzi schemes!
Not really? Options can have their value go to zero if they remain unexercised, just like if a ponzi scheme goes bust.