5 ms·

The tragedy of people who want to make money and believe it will be 'life changing', is that no matter how many times they are told it won't be, they think 'ha,

The tragedy of people who want to make money and believe it will be 'life changing', is that no matter how many times they are told it won't be, they think 'ha, you only say that because you got yours'. What useless shit are you going to buy with 'life changing' money exactly that a software developer's salary won't allow?

achillesheels 7y ago
Peace of mind.
christiansakai 7y ago
I live moderately. I don't wear jewelries, watches. All my clothes are from Uniqlo. I don't have expensive toys. I have mediocre gaming PC, my old Macbook pro laptop, an iPhone X, and a small set of electric guitar + few pedals + small amp. I have a small 29 gal aquarium. I live in a cheap area in NYC (Queens, nearby Flushing). I have monthly karate membership, and give regularly to my local church. But I started my career late. I had three different unrelated degrees (no student debt thankfully, I attended public schools), jumping to different fields in my career. I also need to be ready to support my all-single/divorced-female old family members (aunt, mom, grandma). I also will probably have kids in two years. So a FAANG salary would be nice.
andreilys 7y ago
The inverse of that is being poor, where one unlucky break can lead you to living on the streets. As with most things in life, the best path is the middle path.
alasdair_ 7y ago
> What useless shit are you going to buy with 'life changing' money exactly that a software developer's salary won't allow? I still have the childish dream of wanting to change the world. Specifically, I want to be involved in certain kinds of political activism that will likely piss off a number of people, and I want to have enough money that I can support my family without needing to back off if my income source is threatened. I’m lucky enough to be almost at that point due to startup equity.
- wpietri 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm personally uninterested in spending money. But I could quite easily find things to do with money in the 10-100M range. First being starting companies without being beholden to investors that are monomaniacally focused on short-term cash extraction. Then investing in entrepreneurs who are up to good things in the world. And then supporting people who do useful things that don't pay well.
  - cdfky 7y ago
    Unfortunately 10m - 100m can't do much in developing countries - from my experience. But in developing and emerging economies you can make a huge impact.
- alexashka 7y ago
  Do you feel like you'll graduate to 'political problems are human problems and human problems boil down to idiots having children, idiots raising children and society being unwilling to rid itself of humans who have convincingly shown to be counter-productive to society', coupled with 'for society to function long term, it needs to have a shared goal, vision, not selfish goals of one house, two cars, fence, big tv and plenty of derp entertainment for each family'? I feel like anything that isn't addressing these two issues is re-arranging chairs on the Titanic as it's headed for a crash.
  - untwerth 7y ago
    Do you feel like you'll graduate to 'Political problems are not emergent individual problems, but an issue of rules. The rules of the political game are rigged to filter out competent people and only allow shallow ideologues to power'? ;)
    - mistermann 7y ago
      This is an interesting counterpoint. On one hand, alexashka makes valid observations, but to what degree is the behavior (s)he is observing a result of high quality political leadership most anywhere on the planet? And if that could somehow be changed, might people's behavior suddenly change as well?
F_J_H 7y ago
Independence...

achillesheels 7y ago

Peace of mind.

christiansakai 7y ago

I live moderately. I don't wear jewelries, watches. All my clothes are from Uniqlo. I don't have expensive toys. I have mediocre gaming PC, my old Macbook pro laptop, an iPhone X, and a small set of electric guitar + few pedals + small amp. I have a small 29 gal aquarium. I live in a cheap area in NYC (Queens, nearby Flushing). I have monthly karate membership, and give regularly to my local church. But I started my career late. I had three different unrelated degrees (no student debt thankfully, I attended public schools), jumping to different fields in my career. I also need to be ready to support my all-single/divorced-female old family members (aunt, mom, grandma). I also will probably have kids in two years. So a FAANG salary would be nice.

andreilys 7y ago

The inverse of that is being poor, where one unlucky break can lead you to living on the streets. As with most things in life, the best path is the middle path.

alasdair_ 7y ago

> What useless shit are you going to buy with 'life changing' money exactly that a software developer's salary won't allow? I still have the childish dream of wanting to change the world. Specifically, I want to be involved in certain kinds of political activism that will likely piss off a number of people, and I want to have enough money that I can support my family without needing to back off if my income source is threatened. I’m lucky enough to be almost at that point due to startup equity.

wpietri 7y ago
Yeah, I'm personally uninterested in spending money. But I could quite easily find things to do with money in the 10-100M range. First being starting companies without being beholden to investors that are monomaniacally focused on short-term cash extraction. Then investing in entrepreneurs who are up to good things in the world. And then supporting people who do useful things that don't pay well.
- cdfky 7y ago
  Unfortunately 10m - 100m can't do much in developing countries - from my experience. But in developing and emerging economies you can make a huge impact.
alexashka 7y ago
Do you feel like you'll graduate to 'political problems are human problems and human problems boil down to idiots having children, idiots raising children and society being unwilling to rid itself of humans who have convincingly shown to be counter-productive to society', coupled with 'for society to function long term, it needs to have a shared goal, vision, not selfish goals of one house, two cars, fence, big tv and plenty of derp entertainment for each family'? I feel like anything that isn't addressing these two issues is re-arranging chairs on the Titanic as it's headed for a crash.
- untwerth 7y ago
  Do you feel like you'll graduate to 'Political problems are not emergent individual problems, but an issue of rules. The rules of the political game are rigged to filter out competent people and only allow shallow ideologues to power'? ;)
  - mistermann 7y ago
    This is an interesting counterpoint. On one hand, alexashka makes valid observations, but to what degree is the behavior (s)he is observing a result of high quality political leadership most anywhere on the planet? And if that could somehow be changed, might people's behavior suddenly change as well?

F_J_H 7y ago

Independence...