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I am rich and have no idea what to do

vinay.sh

351–360 of 1001 posts

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#351
I studied philosophy in college and grad school, mainly because I was raised extremely religious and couldn't figure out what was real and what was bullshit.

Every time I read something like this I think to myself 'just please go get a degree in academic philosophy.' It teaches you how to think.

The type of folks who were incredulous about the idea that someone would study something so useless and naval-gazing, I see many of them unsatisfied with life because they have taken the world as it comes, and haven't taken the time to read the existentialists, specifically the ones who wrote about success. I would recommend Tennessee Williams "The Catastrophe of Success": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catastrophe_of_Success

Understanding existentialism, understanding absurdism, these are really useful things to being able to live a satisfying life but in abundance and in a lack of abundance. My partner is really into yoga and meditation and stuff, and much of what I've read about buddism is basically just religious existentialism and absurdism.

All the best to the author, I hope you are able to do well. Life is hard, and success isn't always what we wanted.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#352

I don’t get it… you can do whatever the hell you want now. What’s the problem? Surely you like do _something_? And if you only want to do something for 4 weeks at a time then do that. Where’s the despair coming from? Also, this person loves capitalism so much because it worked for them. But then the way they say like it’s the greatest gift ever seems so out of touch.

The problem is too many options and so he is stuck in analisys parallaisys. He could spend all is time trolling my posts to correct my spelling or start a company or ... so many options.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#353

As a young(ish) man with retirement level wealth personally I don't understand this primarily I suppose because my main passions in life are not profitable. Great, so now I don't have to profitmax every single thing and can rely on my investments. That means I can study pottery, languages, learn about cars, guns, travel, spend time with my old mum, family, start a small business, whatever it is, without care for whet…

[flagged]

Do you also look at charts? I look at charts. Charts fun charts not fun. Line go up down.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#354

I mean if you're looking for a todo list, travelling to third world countries and tipping just like $5 for normal service and seeing people's eyes light up is fun.

You don’t need $60m to do that.

I’ll bet literally every person here in the comments can do that.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#356

> I should work for Elon and Vivek at DOGE and help America get off its current crash to defaulting on its own debt I’ve got an idea: take some good economics courses so that you learn how government spending actually works.

I think you missed the point of DOGE. This isn't a problem about navigating and optimizing a complex bureaucracy, it's to call out that massive bureaucracy exactly where it comes at a high cost and little, perhaps even negative, value. This is a managerial problem and a political problem at its core. We should all be rooting for them to succeed and table their findings, in plain speak for all the public to see. Then…

DOGE is BS.

Civilian bureaucrats - in fact pretty much all discretionary spending - are line noise in the federal budget.

By far the largest components of spending are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and defence.

Cutting social security means that old people get less money in their retirement, no ifs, ands or buts. Good luck with that one.

By American standards, Medicaid and Medicare are pretty efficient. So any cuts are going to mean that either doctors get paid less or fewer health services are provided. Yes, politically, Republicans can get away with cutting Medicaid, but it’s the much smaller piece of the pie compared to Medicare. Good luck with either one of the options above with Medicare.

As for defence, procurement is a giant money tree for defence contractors, but a large part of the reason why it remains a giant money tree for contractors is that they build plants in every single congressional district there is, so trying to apply some sanity to the defence procurement process is politically untenable. Beyond that, are you going to be the one to tell the Marines they don’t need their own aircraft carriers?

Of course, tanking the American economy by removing a significant chunk of its labor force (undocumented immigrants) and increasing costs (by putting tariffs on things) is just going to make the problem harder by crunching revenue.

The right of politics has forever claimed that they can painlessly cut taxes, and it’s always nonsense.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#357
post #306

Regarding the part of breaking up with girlfriend shortly after a winning startup exit, I'm reminded of a friend. (Different situation, but something to think about.) She saw her bf through the difficult process of a developing a creative work, and eventually he completed it, won a prestigious reward... and he broke up with her. He got invited to the White House because of the award, and I think missing out on that r…

Yeah, I found that quite shitty. Some vague Bollywood BS about finding oneself and no meaningful reasons for ending a 2yr long relationship.

Not surprising for someone who describes post-acquisition colleagues as NPCs. They do have a modicum of self-awareness around wanting to be Elon, so perhaps there's hope. I'm only realizing now how empathy goes a long way in giving a sense of purpose.

It reads like the first act for a movie that can go in one of many directions: a drama about a middle-aged, coke-fiend Miami "baller"; a tragedy about a bad Ayahuasca trip that leads to a psychotic break; or a heartwarming romantic comedy about an asshole with a heart of gold who finds themself (and true love) in Hawaii, with a quirky, doe-eyed British tourist as the love interest.

Edit: curious to know that the DOGE has ramped up and staffed with SV geniuses to be set loose on complex systems with long feedback loops. The next four^w few years will be interesting.

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#358

As a young(ish) man with retirement level wealth personally I don't understand this primarily I suppose because my main passions in life are not profitable. Great, so now I don't have to profitmax every single thing and can rely on my investments. That means I can study pottery, languages, learn about cars, guns, travel, spend time with my old mum, family, start a small business, whatever it is, without care for whet…

Congratulations on having a level head on your shoulders. Sincerely, I hope you have a nice life :)

Thank you! I try! You too!

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#359
Vinay - would love to chat about what you learned about robotics. I am in the process of starting a robotics company (focused on software), and could use any advice you might have. Talked with plenty of investors, but talking to founders is much harder with this being my first startup. Is it alright if I email you?

Re: I am rich and have no idea what to do

#360
post #151

I didn’t have DOGE on this bingo card (though Mt Everest certainly was). It now sounds even more like a hobby club for Silicon Valley ultra-rich who have no interest to learn anything about how government works. Once they finish their beautiful “reinvented from first principles” decks of PDFs and Keynotes, they won’t get a second look from the elected politicians whose support they absolutely need to deliver any of t…

Mount Everest is 2km higher than 6800m. Go walk for 25-40 minutes, and then imagine going that distance straight up instead. Trying to climb it without any training and getting anywhere close to succeeding is probably at best suicidal and at worst endangers/kills a rescue team or some portion thereof. Not a mountaineer, but relatively well read on the subject.

There are enough abuses, litter and other bad things you would contribute to if you climb it. I've concluded that a photo is all I need. I'll try to climb mt fuji which I understand is isn't abused - though I would double check that if I ever have opportunity (i'd have to live 2500 years for that to make it to the top of my todo list)
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