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Ask HN: Why are we addicted to getting rich?
There is trillions of dollars in peoples hands that do nothing but buy luxury. What is this ancient desire to be rich? What amount will make you satisfied?
- bigmanwalter 9y agoIt is power. The more money you have, the further your influence.
- r0brodz 9y agoYes the basic premise of our condition: the desire to rule over nature.
- bigmanwalter 9y agoNot so much ruling nature but ruling other people.
- dasmoth 9y agoFinancial independence (in the "work becomes a choice" sense -- not necessarily after idleness...) is a pretty attractive prospect. Beyond that point, money has rapidly-diminishing returns for me.
- r0brodz 9y agoFreedom of choice to pursue passions without anxiety but to not be lazy, wasteful and banal.
- taprun 9y agoToo bad that hedonic adaptation [0] exists. The longer we live, the more we become addicted to expensive comforts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
- skybrian 9y agoThis isn't inevitable. People do quit high-paying jobs to do something else. Early retirement happens.
- conwy 9y agoYep, I'm currently going in the opposite direction. I'm now spending less on food and clothing than I've ever spent in my entire life. Rent is about the same as before, but I'm going to find ways of reducing that as well. For more info about this lifestyle, see this website: http://earlyretirementextreme.com http://earlyretirementextreme.com
- rak00n 9y agoI used to be on the side of cheap clothes. It was a recent realization that clothes that cost more are more comfortable and unless you're buying too much it doesn't add a lot of expense.
- croshan 9y agoRight. Spending money on things you'll use everyday, that keep you warm, that make you feel comfortable, physically and mentally? As long as you're done with your growth spurt, and have your personal style without need to look trendy every season, I see no need to try to buy the cheapest clothes. Affordable, sure, but without sacrificing quality.
- borplk 9y agoWhat is this ancient desire to be rich? It's the same ancient desire to hunt and survive. With money you can hunt. Without it you will be hunted. When you don't have money you become the subject of the force and influence of those who have it. You will have to live your life on someone else's terms.
- r0brodz 9y agoIf we believe history then I could agree yet my perspective is also ancient but it doesnt show man as an evolving creature who begins on Earth as a dumb hunter and gatherer moving along into the future developing an advanced brain. So our world force feeds us information based on fallacy of our ancestors to continue making the powerful and rich full in their poppycock. Make sense? Like another fellow said, we want to rule over people. So where we are today as we can analyze world situations doesnt seem we are very advanced.
- jomkr 9y agoI have a desire to be free. I'm working towards never having to look at a fucking computer again. Hopefully by the time I'm 30, I'll have enough to do only need to work about three months year. The rest of the time I'm going to be surfing or rock climbing.
- aianus 9y agoWhy can't you do this now? Three months of software contract work is more income than 99% of the planet earns in a year.
- imesh 9y agoNot saying he couldn't do it now, but 99% of the planet lives in undesirable situations.
- conwy 9y agoUndesirable from our perspective perhaps, but also not quite the same, or as bad as, what we might imagine. See this website: dollarstreet.org. Looking at the photos of some of the poorest places, I suppose they're undesirable from my perspective now, but if I moved there and lived there long enough and adapted, I could see myself finding contentment with less.
- r0brodz 9y agoI wish I could learn Computer Science like Neo in The Matrix. ;) I would love to have such a brain to accomplish a year salary in 3 mo
- CyberFonic 9y agoYup, FREEDOM ! is my choice as well. By managing expenses I don't need millions in the bank. BTW: how are you going to earn enough in 3 months / year if you are never going to look at a computer again? I can't think of any endeavour where some for of IT isn't in use.
- 9y ago
- bsvalley 9y agoWhat amount will make you satisfied? 1 billion dollars net, in my bank account.
- jamocon 9y agoWhy?
- skybrian 9y agoPossibly of interest: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/you-can-retire-early-without-adopting-mr-money-mustaches-extreme-frugality-2018-01-11 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/you-can-retire-early-witho...
- odonnellryan 9y agoIt is interesting because of the amount of money you need for "traditional retirement" in the US. If I want to live how I live now, I'll probably need to put about $3k aside into retirement each month to retire when I'm around 65! I find this insane because I'm quite young. The $3k/mo is probably a good number to split between my IRA and brokerage account - but I don't consider my brokerage account to be strictly retirement. More of "general investing" that I can use, if I need to or decide to, invest in something else in the future... not sure what, but I do not consider it like the IRA in the sense that I will absolutely never touch it (outside rebalancing as I get older). Anyway... I know of quite a few people who live on 20-30k/yr (with a GOOD backup for emergencies!) sailing the world. Does that not sound fun?! After you buy the boat!
- jamocon 9y agoI have a number, well 2. The first being a stepping stone, a marker to reach, the point where I can step back for a year, re-evaluate and consider if I want to shoot for the next target. Neither of the numbers are high, the first with some savy investments I could make last the rest of my life but I'm a relatively simple guy, I could live on ~12k a year easily. That includes rent, bills, food, clothes etc. For me, it's not about stopping work. I generally love the things I do, the projects and concepts I develop in my spare time. For me, that's not working, it's a passion. My second number is all about that, it's about being able to buy the ability to do what ever the fuck I want. Ideally I want a nice plot of land in a relatively remote area with some workshops and enough in the bank where I don't have to worry about bills and I can fund whatever project takes my interest.
- conwy 9y agoYep, I have the same goal. If/when I manage to get to $600k (~12k p/year assuming 2% yield) I'll take 3 months totally off work of any kind, just recuperating, then another 3 months to plan out the rest of my life.
- nickthemagicman 9y agoIsn't inflation 3% a year?
- lorenzq 9y agoWhy would you only have 2% yield?
- lorenzq 9y agoI need enough money to support myself and have influence while working on things society will not pay me for yet will benefit them all long term.
- tmnvix 9y agoFor me, there are a couple of motivations: 1) Financial freedom and security. Aside from ensuring material needs this is important because it provides a good foundation for autonomy - an important part of self-fulfilment. 2) The means to make things happen. I don't want to own things or show off. I do want to facilitate things that I think will be beneficial to people I care about (e.g. help a friend or relative start a business, fund a non-profit, etc). For a lot of people 'getting rich' means flash cars, big houses, and extravagance. I don't want any of that. I want the means to make my world (the one I interact with) a more pleasant place (for myself and others).
- r0brodz 9y agoIndeed friend. I would love more people like this in mass. We need good friends and altruistic folk that think of others. I would love to be rich too and do the same as you say yet I highly dislike the entire flock of zebras who regulate who gets it and who doesnt. Hard work is important but Network is truly luck. I may have a library of ideas never implemented yet I am blocked by who I know and even if I go and find folk I am blocked by their perception of me. Its certainly interesting to see US as the land of opportunity.
- deepnotderp 9y agoDing ding ding. Couldn't care less about fancy cars and houses. I want to push processor speeds forward by an order or two of magnitude, and to make that happen I need funds.
- andrei_says_ 9y agoWe are hypnotized by a few key beliefs which contradict our nature and reality: - that we are separate/isolated from the rest of humanity - that we need to be self-sufficient in order to survive - that money has real value - that without money we don’t have value - that almost everything can measured in money - that making more money is better - that exploitation is ok and doesn’t influence us I disagree that the trillions buy luxury. I’d argue that they expose addiction. We are burning our environment, and our personal lifetimes, faster and faster, to add numbers to wealthy peopke’s Accounts. It’s like redirecting to Dev/null. It is a flow which creates enormous confusion, grasping, suffering, on all scales. I visualize it as the grey tornado thing from stranger things, on planetary level, but especially intense in the US, a country with institutionalized government corruption and the most barbaric industrialized commercial healthcare in the world. On the other hand, money can be used to support and express gratitude. So it’s not really the money, but the hypnosis and the addiction.
- mc32 9y agoI don't know if the assumption that people buy only luxury with their excess money and moreover that the spending of excess money is bad. If you had millionaires and billionaires who lived frugally it would mean no demand for goods and services you and I and most people contribute to. That they can invest in ideas means other people get to work pursuing those ideas. If we didn't seek to be rich (or even wealthy)and we were all just getting by with "living wages", in the first place, we would still be in a place where there was low demand for things and there would be little spare money to do non-essential things. It'd like living in 1980s India or China or Indonesia. On the other hand, frivolous consumption is a problem (disposable thises (these?) and disposable thats (those?) contribute to environmental damage. That said, the best thing we could do is slow pop growth to replacement levels rather than growth. That means educating poor people everywhere and getting them on contraceptives.
- r0brodz 9y agoSure I agree too with the basic supply and demand. Its: "disposable this and that". :)
- sunstone 9y agoMoney plays the part in modern life that food used to play on the plains of Africa. You need it to survive and in the past food could not be kept for long. You had to continually be on the lookout for more, it was fundamental to survival. It was easy enough for people to substitute money for food as the critical thing we need to survive. It's not as easy to give up the instinct of getting more of it everyday. And why should it be easy? This behaviour meant life or death for millions of generations.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoThe thing is that money stands for everything else. What do you really want? Security? Money can get you that (within limits). Identity? Money can get you that, too (again, within limits). Experiences? Money can get you those (pretty much without limit). To not have to work? Money can get you that. So no matter what you want, it's pretty easy to convince yourself that you could have that, if you only had money. > What amount will make you satisfied? Legend says that, when asked how much it took to be satisfied, John D. Rockefeller said, "Just a little bit more". He was the first billionaire, and the richest person in his day. If it took more for him to be satisfied, well, you're never going to have enough money to get there. Now, as I said, this story is legend (so far as I have been able to determine). Still, the problem is that real satisfaction doesn't come from money. The best you can hope for is to have enough to provide for your needs and at least some of your wants. That's as good as it gets, because beyond that, more money doesn't seem to increase happiness/satisfaction.
- Wh1zz 9y agoThe amount necessary to employ and enable every willing capable mind on the planet in the mission of ending aging (and, subsequently, mortality). Silly to most, I'm sure.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]