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

The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

seanmcclure.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 83 posts

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#41

Post by borski »

sumtechguy wrote: post #28
jayski wrote: post #19

invest all the time you use penny pinching into making more money. youll have a lot more in the end and be better liked. if youre worrying about wether your part of the check is $7.23 or $11.17 because you didn't have wine, you're not in the right mindset to make money. i follow the rule: if im going to argue over money, its because im going to sue you. if its not enough to warrant a lawyer, i just take the L and for…

Interesting take. For a 'one off' I would not worry about it. But if they are doing it to you a few times, speak up. They are just taking advantage of you. It is not the 5 bucks. It is the fact that you are doing it to you...

If they can cover, and never do, they quickly stop getting hung out with. This is generally true, in my experience.

If they can’t cover and never do, that’s fine - you simply take the L and call it an “investment” in the experience of sharing time with someone you care about.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#42

Post by tristor »

leoedin wrote: post #38
motohagiography wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they wouldn't be as budget constrained if they were easier to invite places? I can't invite my teetotaling and vegetarian friends out to many of the casual things I enjoy, and their purity issues create a self-imposed artificial constraint on their life opportunities. Someone with an actual medical issue learns to adapt to life and live it, where someone with a purity constraint selects for oppotunities where t…

> I can't invite my teetotaling and vegetarian friends out to many of the casual things I enjoy I'm curious about this. Why not? I'm not vegetarian, but I go out for dinner with vegetarian friends all the time. They order a vegetarian dish, I order a meat one. It isn't an issue. Similarly with drinking. As long as they want to be there, why would I care if they drink? If they're judging you for drinking, that's a tan…

> I'm curious about this. Why not?

I also have friends that are on restrictive diets or who don't drink and I invite them out with me regularly. The reality though, is that many people take personal choices and turn them into a religion that they then feel the need to proselytize. I simply don't spend time with people like that, but I can imagine those are the sorts of people grandparent has in mind when they wrote that comment.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#43

Post by terracotta942 »

It seems that many people are overly focused on examples in the article. Rather, isn't the main point of the author that some people don't accurately value their time in relation to life outcomes?

People spend too much time thinking about some things relative to the marginal benefit of each second/minute/unit of time spent on that decision. Conversely, people spend too little time on some decisions whose outcome will be greatly improved by spending another second/minute/hour...etc.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#45

Post by thraxil »

wink wrote: post #12

> But then you stop and think wait a second, this person is alone and wearing a mask. Isn't that odd? In fact it seems downright ridiculous. Why would anyone wear a mask in their car when they are alone? The author has clearly not spent a lot of time in normal mode around people who have to wear their mask for their full shift. Yes, those people forget. Not us keyboard warriors who put it on twice a day for a few min…

I'm a keyboard warrior who only puts on my mask when I'm out in crowded places but I've (more than once) walked all the way home (about 10 minutes) from the grocery store and found myself in my kitchen unpacking my groceries before I realize that I've still got my mask on. Some of us are just scatterbrained...

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#46

Post by megameter »

Another way to frame the dichotomy for the CS-inclined is greedy versus backtracking solutions. A penny-pincher is taking the best locally optimal choice at each step, just like a greedy matcher. A "backtracker", while not always able to exhaustively explore, approximates it by testing alternatives when given multiple runs.

In the realm of direct interpersonal credit, greedy solving often seems like "the answer:" you study for the test if you want to pass it, follow the polite mannerisms of your society, and take logical steps presented to you by your environment(like following signs and signals to navigate traffic). Situationally, it can work. And top performers in competitive fields are extreme examples of the greedy solution working: monastically training to be the best at what you do with regular drills, harsh lifestyle modifications and risky medicine does get results.

But everyone who's lived long enough without losing their head knows that the greedy path falls off a cliff eventually. You can't "just" follow the advice of professionals and scholars to be healthy, wealthy and wise. And neither does getting the gold medal give you the happy end. But as the article points out, there isn't an easy story to apply to a complex framing of life.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#47

Post by tshaddox »

wink wrote: post #12

> But then you stop and think wait a second, this person is alone and wearing a mask. Isn't that odd? In fact it seems downright ridiculous. Why would anyone wear a mask in their car when they are alone? The author has clearly not spent a lot of time in normal mode around people who have to wear their mask for their full shift. Yes, those people forget. Not us keyboard warriors who put it on twice a day for a few min…

It could also just be that someone deliberately wanted to wear a mask for literally any reason whatsoever. It’s just ludicrous to judge someone for that or to consider it “ridiculous.”

You might as well say “have you ever seen someone wearing a hat in their car even though they’re inside a climate controlled car and don’t need sun protection on their head?”

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#49

Post by Jiro »

kirse wrote: post #39

It means that the nitpicking, planning, penny pinching behavior that preceded the loss was pointless Maybe the author is struggling with some sort of penny pinching behavior that preceded a life loss, but this is an incorrect conclusion. Sometimes life just happens. And it has nothing to do with the validity or value of your preceding actions, but it's certainly a commentary on the futility of many of our efforts. Th…

I don't remember where I saw it, but there's a version of that: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.

Re: The Rich Don't Penny Pinch

#50

Post by goodpoint »

wink wrote: post #12

> But then you stop and think wait a second, this person is alone and wearing a mask. Isn't that odd? In fact it seems downright ridiculous. Why would anyone wear a mask in their car when they are alone? The author has clearly not spent a lot of time in normal mode around people who have to wear their mask for their full shift. Yes, those people forget. Not us keyboard warriors who put it on twice a day for a few min…

Taking the mask on and off introduces risk of infection when touching it. And risk of forgetting to put it on when needed.

If you just keep it on you avoid the risks - and you get to breath less pollution and allergens as an added benefit.

Post reply on HN