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Their goal is to be billionaires first. Then they can have the leisure life. You won't become a billionaire by enjoying life on basic income.
by 21 8y ago
Their goal is to be billionaires first. Then they can have the leisure life.
You won't become a billionaire by enjoying life on basic income.
- tyfon 8y agoNo but most likely you will have a better overall life (imho).
- Kurtz79 8y agohttps://fourpillarfreedom.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/ https://fourpillarfreedom.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fishe...
- vkou 8y agoThere's a part two to the fairy tale of the Mexican Fisherman. > Sensing skepticism from the fisherman, the businessman moves onto the next boat and finds a more receptive fisherman. The two, sensing an obvious business opportunity, decide to go into business together. They raise a venture capital round and a year later, return to the pier outfitted with a dozen high tech fishing boats. > Immediately, the price of tuna at the pier drops threefold with increased supply, forcing the young Mexican fisherman to increase his hours at sea just to maintain his existing standard of living. > Shortly thereafter, all of the shallow water tuna have been caught and the young Mexican fisherman discovers his tiny boat is incapable of deep water fishing. Because of his limited savings, he does not have enough capital to invest in a deep water fishing boat and he is forced to sell his tiny fishing boat for pennies on the dollar as scrap because advances in technology have made it obsolete. > After discovering that there is limited demand for an employee whose only skills are watching ballgames, playing the guitar and taking siestas, the young Mexican fisherman finds his only option is to take a job working minimum wage on one of the businessman’s fishing vessels. > Several years later, the fisherman’s joints are shot through from the hard manual labor of operating on a commercial fishing vessel and an ill timed lift of a 150lb pallet of tuna finally causes his back to give way, causing permanent crippling. The fisherman discovers intensive lobbying from the businessman has weakened workplace protection rules and the fisherman is summarily let go with only a paltry settlement. > After years of expensive medical treatments and crippling bills, the fisherman is finally forced to sell his land, passed along to him from generation to generation, to a development conglomerate run by the businessman who is buying large tracts of the entire village. > Unbeknownst to the fisherman, the businessman has lobbied for the village to turn into a protected nature reserve, allowing for the rehabilitation of the environment and the restocking of fish in it’s pristine waters. The businessman painstakingly recreates the quaint, costal charm of the village he once visited, making it a paradise where the wealthy flock to when they want to retire into a life of easy indolence. > Finally, 15 – 20 years after the original conversation, the fisherman and his wife are found dead in a homeless shelter. Meanwhile, the businessman retires to the village having made two successive fortunes first in fisheries and then in real estate development. He spends his days sleeping late, playing with his grandchildren, watching high def ESPN ballgames on a 70″ TV, and taking siesta with his wife. He occasionally strolls down to the village in the evenings where he regales his fellow millionaires with the story of how he found an unexploited niche in the marketplace and then took full advantage of it to make the fortune that got him to the comfortable retirement he enjoys today. Much like the original story, this is of course a fairy tale - I doubt the businessman in question would put much effort towards the rehabilitation of the village's environment. Environmentalism rarely improves a business' bottom line - if it did, we'd see a lot more businesses lobbying for it.
- gutnor 8y agoYes, but not your children and their children. Being a billionaire is prosperity for several generation of your children. The real problem is that becoming a billionaire is statistically an abnormal outcome of that kind of life. Some people have jumped from a plane without parachute and survived. The fact that happened shouldn't be an argument to do the same.
- tyfon 8y agoBut will those billions bring my children a happy and stress free life? It might. Or they will fight over it, get pestered by the media, have people beg for investments etc.
- yters 8y agoOnce they have a billion dollars, what will they do that is substantially different than someone on basic income? I have a hard time imagining things I want to do that require a billion dollars.
- asianthrowaway 8y agoGold plated lamborghinis
- SpicyLemonZest 8y agoIt’s not that that there are particular things you can only buy for a billion dollars, but that a billion dollars frees you from having to think about doing them. When a millionaire wants to take a vacation, they plan it out just like you or I do, even if they’re going to a cooler place or staying at a fancier hotel. When a billionaire wants to take a vacation, they just take it.
- yters 8y agoSeems like a lot of effort to take a vacation...
- alexandercrohde 8y agoI think though wanting to be a billionaire is, for lack of a better word, a psychosis. There's nothing that you could possibly want that costs that much. A drive for that much money to me indicates a form of emotional damage where one no longer has a rational relationship with a numeric self-assessment.
- Tade0 8y agoThere's nothing that you could possibly want that costs that much. What about your own space station to name one thing from the top of my head? Then again 1 billion wouldn't be nearly enough.
- cee_el123 8y agoThe underlying problem with all of this is that money is a poorly designed mechanism for (1) exchange of services (almost all goods are the result of services) between people (2) apportioning of natural resources which really belong to no one in particular
- kamarg 8y agoI'm curious what you see as a better mechanism for exchanging services.
- FiveSquared 8y agoKilling everyone! /s
- almost_usual 8y agoYou might enjoy the book 'How Much Is Enough?' by Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky
- slededit 8y agoYou think of money as a way to buy things. Others think of it for what it really is - a way to gain influence and control.
- browsercoin 8y agowhat's the point tho? you are not taking that money into your afterlife.
- MockObject 8y agoIt would be interesting if we are indeed judged in the afterlife by our net worth at the time of death, perhaps with our dollars being converted into a heavenly currency for continued commerce. Seems a bit more likely than sitting around playing harps and petting lambs for an eternity.
- Leary 8y ago"heavenly currency for continued commerce" Crypto?
- phd514 8y agoFrom a Christian perspective, the Parable of the Talents (or Minas from Luke's gospel) describes future reward based not on net worth but on one's faithfulness with the resources entrusted to one. No harp-playing or lamb-petting necessary. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14-30&version=ESV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14... https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+19%3A11-27&version=ESV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+19%3A11-27...
- samontar 8y agoMaybe just because it’s hard.
- j7ake 8y agoNo but you live on through your influence and your children, which can be modulated with money.
- browsercoin 8y agoyou won't be alive to see it sadly. it would be as if it never existed in the first place.