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Reminds me of 3. Rich man in the car paradox. When you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, “Wow, the guy driving that car is cool.” Instead, you
by baxtr 7y ago
Reminds me of
3. Rich man in the car paradox.
When you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, “Wow, the guy driving that car is cool.” Instead, you think, “Wow, if I had that car people would think I’m cool.” Subconscious or not, this is how people think.
The paradox of wealth is that people tend to want it to signal to others that they should be liked and admired. But in reality those other people bypass admiring you, not because they don’t think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth solely as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired.
http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-psychology-of-money/ http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-psychology-of-mone...
- Konnstann 7y agoAnecdotal, but I don't think I've ever thought anything specific about the owners of cars I think are cool. If I see someone driving a nice car, I think "That's a nice car".
- benburleson 7y agoMy first thought is normally, "Jeeze, all that money for a tool that gets you from one place to another?"
- Sohcahtoa82 7y agoTo me, a car is more than a utility. It's a source of entertainment.
- leetcrew 7y agois your main computer also a $200 chromebook?
- honkycat 7y agoFew hundred thousand dollar difference between a nice car and a nice computer.
- debatem1 7y agoNot remotely. You can buy a truly fast car-- 200mph fast-- for under $20,000 pretty easily. If you're willing to wrench on it you can get sub-4 seconds to 60 for under $15,000. That kind of performance would have been supercar territory not too long ago, and would certainly count as nice cars today. At below $100,000 I could name a dozen cars that offer a combination of great looks and incredible performance.
- twic 7y agodebatem1 uses Arch, btw.
- debatem1 7y agoPardon? I'm not clear on why I'm being downvoted, and I don't use arch, and I don't see why that would be relevant.
- honkycat 7y agoYou are being downvoted because nice != fast so it comes off as a bit off topic. My original comment was pointing out the disparity between a nice car and a nice laptop. Even a 20k car is at least 5x the cost of a top of the line laptop.
- debatem1 7y agoOk. Your claim was a few hundred thousand dollar difference; I suppose we could quibble about what constitutes a nice car, but >$100,000 buys you a Z-06 or a Jaguar XJ. It's quite the exaggeration, unless your tastes run very extreme. To which I say: the only nice computer is a Cray :).
- twic 7y agoArch Linux is popular with users who will endure some discomfort and manual work to get a powerful and satisfying experience. I thought it would be funny to baselessly assert a connection. Gentoo would have been an even better analogy.
- hackerpacker 7y agountil recently mine was a $70 i5 compaq elite (w/ssd and ram and vidya). And yes, I do drive a 25 year old $1000 car on the daily (only upgrade was a tow hitch), jealous?
- leetcrew 7y agoit seems like you're happy with the price you paid for the stuff you got. that's great! I know I wrote my comment in a "haha gotcha" style but my main point is that most people with disposable income have areas where they splurge, and areas where they save. maybe it's not the car or the computer, but I bet you own at least one item that your peers would think you spent too much money on. instead of shitting on people who spend money on stuff we don't personally value, or imply they only did it to show off how rich they are, why not just assume they bought it because they enjoy it?
- hackerpacker 7y agoI'm not trying to shit on anyone, just lucky to live in an area of abundance where $200 can go a very long way if you do your homework and don't internalize status/marketing expectations. Indeed if it weren't for people pursuing the new shiny, I'd have to pay at least 10x for the same utility. But as it is I'm glad to re-purpose/reuse. I have no delusions that I'm not a scavenger in this economic realm. Though I do appreciate a solid "grandpa" car that seats 6 and can tow a few thousand pounds and can still get 30mpg on the highway.
- benburleson 7y agoHa, not quite. My main computer at home is actually an almost-10 year old Macbook Air -- and I'll run that thing until I have to bury it. (I don't do much serious work at home these days.) I've flirted with upgrading, but the only reason is it won't run current Docker and that will eventually bug me enough to pull the trigger, but not this week! Work is a totally different story, but not bought by me, and also spec'd to utility, not extravagance.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- grayed-down 7y agoBut it depends on the car! For example, if he's driving a lamborghini, meh. If he's driving an Aston Martin, cool :)
- madengr 7y agoI think “Idiot with a car loan”. As Dave Ramsey says, the auto loan is the scourge of the middle class.
- whenchamenia 7y agoMany people buy exotics as investments and loans end up smaller than the 'equity' in their 1960s ferrari, or even modern special edition lambo. Just because your kia is a quickly depreciating asset does not generalize to all cars.
- madengr 7y agoOh, I agree. I work with a guy who has his eye on a used Ferrari, and if he takes good care of it, it will hold or increase in value. He buys them at the bottom of the bathtub curve. However, 99.9% of luxury cars are not exotics. You will rarely see them on the road as they depreciate too much if you drive them daily.
- yodsanklai 7y ago> “Wow, if I had that car people would think I’m cool.” I would think "if I had that car, people may think I'm a bragging asshole, not sure I want that kind of attention".
- VvR-Ox 7y agoExactly. It's not the right time to abuse money like that. No one deserves such a car as long as children are still starving and people who create our goods can't even afford a cup of rice a day. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I'd rather buy such an overpriced car then helping those in need.