4 ms·

Interesting, but definitely a life of privilege. Only a good passport and a full bank account or investments will allow you to roll the dice and move anywhere.

Interesting, but definitely a life of privilege. Only a good passport and a full bank account or investments will allow you to roll the dice and move anywhere. Given that, it's an interesting experiment I guess. But as an analogy, consider the privilege to run this experiment as being like having a million dollars in a bank account. If someone said to you, yeah, I've got a million dollars to invest but putting the effort into to deciding where is too stressful, so I roll the dice and invest it in random companies 50k at a time, what would you think?

ulucs 6y ago
If you have remote work, you could re-roll the dice until the constraints hold up in terms of passport and living costs. Although, people manage to travel the world with very low amounts of money, so the real deciding factor would be your tolerance of "bad" living conditions.
- ajconway 6y ago
  Some nationalities would have to re-roll quite a lot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Pakistani_citizens#Visa_requirements_map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Pakist... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Indian_citizens#Visa_requirements_map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Indian... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Chinese_citizens#Visa_requirements_map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Chines... And that’s about 3 billion people. So the real deciding factor for a lot of them would be finding a country that will allow you to get a proper visa.
  - ulucs 6y ago
    Well I'm also from a country where many countries require a visa, so not having to obtain a visa to travel was never my expectation. Being able to have that expectation might be your privilege instead.
    - esperent 6y ago
      My friend is Vietnamese. Even though she's fairly wealthy, owns two houses and has her own business, she's been turned down for a European tourist visa twice, presumably because she applied at a single female and they don't want sex workers. Each application costs her a few hundred dollars. It's not just a matter of applying for a visa. Meanwhile, I have an EU passport. I've traveled to around 30 countries. The only time I was even briefly questioned by immigration was coming in to Australia. Every other time it was just an immediate stamp and wave through.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Needing to get a visa before arrival doesn't prevent you from living in that country for a month. I'm a US citizen but I always get a visa before arrival when visiting the UK.
    - kranner 6y ago
      Several countries only allow a stay of up to 15 days for visa on arrival. For instance, Malaysia and Thailand for Indian visitors.
    - esperent 6y ago
      As an American, your process of getting a visa is basically assured. That's not the case for many nationalities where there's a good chance your application will be rejected multiple times before to get a visa.
      - fastball 6y ago
        The reason I mentioned this was because for me it's actually not. I am persona non grata with UKVI apparently (I've been turned away at the border when I didn't have a visa), so I always apply for a visa in advance now. It's annoying but it's not the deal-breaker people in this thread seem to think it is.
krick 6y ago
That's an interesting perspective. If I think about it this way, it seems obvious that doing random bullshit when you can do anything is like... quintessence of stupid. On the other hand, if this is obviously stupid, there must be something obviously correct. But it's actually a rare individual who knows exactly what he wants to do in life. Talking about investment you implicitly assumed that it's a given that the only meaningful thing to do with spare money is looking for how to multiply it, one just needs to think about how to do it effectively. But there's no such assumption about what you should do with your life. I guess almost nobody actually makes such decisions, they just... live? This way, it's all good and there's no real difference between copying your parents' life, killing yourself immediately, becoming a doctor to find a way to cure cancer, or throwing a dice to chose where do you spend the next month. There isn't any universally accepted answer to "what's the purpose of life". That is, most people probably will be able to answer something, but it doesn't mean much.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  I'm going to guess that random here doesn't quite mean random. The Republic of the Congo probably wasn't on his list of possible places to live... Realistically, probably half of the countries in the world or more I wouldn't want to live in. I'm going to assume he probably pre-selected a number of places that he was okay with, and then randomly selected among those.
fock 6y ago
Given his 2 years as a "creative" at Google listed as the only work experience except for internships (which probably don't make you net-rich), this guy seems to have some pretty great inheritance fund... While he certainly does art, the website and the project he's working on don't look like they could support a AirBnB and jet-based lifestyle (add ~USD1000/month for getting your random connection to the next place) but in todays VC-fueled world, you never know.

ulucs 6y ago

If you have remote work, you could re-roll the dice until the constraints hold up in terms of passport and living costs. Although, people manage to travel the world with very low amounts of money, so the real deciding factor would be your tolerance of "bad" living conditions.

ajconway 6y ago
Some nationalities would have to re-roll quite a lot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Pakistani_citizens#Visa_requirements_map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Pakist... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Indian_citizens#Visa_requirements_map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Indian... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Chinese_citizens#Visa_requirements_map https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Chines... And that’s about 3 billion people. So the real deciding factor for a lot of them would be finding a country that will allow you to get a proper visa.
- ulucs 6y ago
  Well I'm also from a country where many countries require a visa, so not having to obtain a visa to travel was never my expectation. Being able to have that expectation might be your privilege instead.
  - esperent 6y ago
    My friend is Vietnamese. Even though she's fairly wealthy, owns two houses and has her own business, she's been turned down for a European tourist visa twice, presumably because she applied at a single female and they don't want sex workers. Each application costs her a few hundred dollars. It's not just a matter of applying for a visa. Meanwhile, I have an EU passport. I've traveled to around 30 countries. The only time I was even briefly questioned by immigration was coming in to Australia. Every other time it was just an immediate stamp and wave through.
- fastball 6y ago
  Needing to get a visa before arrival doesn't prevent you from living in that country for a month. I'm a US citizen but I always get a visa before arrival when visiting the UK.
  - kranner 6y ago
    Several countries only allow a stay of up to 15 days for visa on arrival. For instance, Malaysia and Thailand for Indian visitors.
  - esperent 6y ago
    As an American, your process of getting a visa is basically assured. That's not the case for many nationalities where there's a good chance your application will be rejected multiple times before to get a visa.
    - fastball 6y ago
      The reason I mentioned this was because for me it's actually not. I am persona non grata with UKVI apparently (I've been turned away at the border when I didn't have a visa), so I always apply for a visa in advance now. It's annoying but it's not the deal-breaker people in this thread seem to think it is.

krick 6y ago

That's an interesting perspective. If I think about it this way, it seems obvious that doing random bullshit when you can do anything is like... quintessence of stupid. On the other hand, if this is obviously stupid, there must be something obviously correct. But it's actually a rare individual who knows exactly what he wants to do in life. Talking about investment you implicitly assumed that it's a given that the only meaningful thing to do with spare money is looking for how to multiply it, one just needs to think about how to do it effectively. But there's no such assumption about what you should do with your life. I guess almost nobody actually makes such decisions, they just... live? This way, it's all good and there's no real difference between copying your parents' life, killing yourself immediately, becoming a doctor to find a way to cure cancer, or throwing a dice to chose where do you spend the next month. There isn't any universally accepted answer to "what's the purpose of life". That is, most people probably will be able to answer something, but it doesn't mean much.

tachyonbeam 6y ago
I'm going to guess that random here doesn't quite mean random. The Republic of the Congo probably wasn't on his list of possible places to live... Realistically, probably half of the countries in the world or more I wouldn't want to live in. I'm going to assume he probably pre-selected a number of places that he was okay with, and then randomly selected among those.

fock 6y ago

Given his 2 years as a "creative" at Google listed as the only work experience except for internships (which probably don't make you net-rich), this guy seems to have some pretty great inheritance fund... While he certainly does art, the website and the project he's working on don't look like they could support a AirBnB and jet-based lifestyle (add ~USD1000/month for getting your random connection to the next place) but in todays VC-fueled world, you never know.