7 ms·

The surprising psychology behind being rich

41 points by quickthrower2 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mac01021 6y ago
This link no longer points to an article with that title.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  I actually liked the new one better, but here is the actual video OP presumably meant to link: https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07vts5j/the-surprising-psychology-behind-being-rich https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07vts5j/the-surprising-psych... Needs (2019) in the title though.
gandalfian 6y ago
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07vts5j/the-surprising-psychology-behind-being-rich https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07vts5j/the-surprising-psych... Are rich people heartless? 22 NOVEMBER 2019|HUMANITY According to Christopher Ryan, rich people have the tendency to separate themselves from the rest of the world
- heliodor 6y ago
  *have the means. The desire is probably much more spread among the population.
- tdevito 6y ago
  Once I saw the title of that video I knew they were all nonsense. What an inhumane thing to say, as if how hard you work has anything to do with what kind of person you are. Is there a certain net worth where you cross a line and no longer have a heart? The problem is not inequality, it's poverty.
  - gsk22 6y ago
    Rich people are not rich solely because of how hard they worked. THAT is an inhumane thing to say, as if poverty would vanish tomorrow if only the downtrodden masses put in a little effort.
    - tdevito 6y ago
      In first world countries yes, the harder you work the more money you make. Especially true over longer periods of time because of the compounding value of hard work.
      - phizy 6y ago
        That is absurd. You could work yourself to death scrubbing dishes and it will never match the returns of inheriting a fortune from your parents. You do not live in a world where wealth is meritocratically distributed.
        tdevito 6y ago
        People are not stupid. No one working a low-skilled, low-wage job is confused about why they don't have more money.
      - AussieWog93 6y ago
        That is not really the whole story, though. My wife and I (self-employed) work around two days a week each and make about as much as other couples where both people work full-time 50+ hour weeks (inc. commute) in professional jobs. We used to work 3-4 days a week and made about 30% less money.
        tdevito 6y ago
        I'm assuming that you're comfortable incomes come from high skilled work, or at least work that is highly valuable. You may no longer be working as much now to earn the same, but you had to put years of hard work in to get there, most likely.
StillBored 6y ago
The problem isn't really the billionaires, so much as they are the modern version of the king/feudal system because the wealth becomes hereditary. I'm pretty much a believer that estate taxes should be 100% over some fixed threshold, say 5x the median wealth. And no, I don't feel bad about the "family farm" which turns out to be worth 50 million dollars.
- mac01021 6y ago
  Median household wealth in the US is less than $100k, so 5x would be half a million. So I guess the question is, do you feel bad about the family farm that turns out to be worth 1 or 2 million? ("No" is a legitimate answer, but probably a rather controversial one)
  - labster 6y ago
    It seems like there ought to be a happy medium between taxing nearly all homes in California at 100% and the Prop 13 level of 1%/max 2% inflation.
- loxs 6y ago
  There are two reasons this is a very bad idea: 1. Who is going to take it? The government is a very bad guardian. Everyone from the former East Block can attest (me including). This literally happened here after 1944 and we still suffer the consequences. The political class became all-powerful as they controlled all the resources. 2. This will make people a lot less entrepreneurial and as a result - everyone will become a lot poorer. This also happened in my country between 1944 and 1989. Even the Chinese realised this can't and won't work and are currently heading in the opposite direction. Really, fantasy is a great thing, but you have to think about the consequences. The Western World is heading off a steep cliff with this kind of thinking.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    1. Sell it, finance public services with the revenue, and lower other taxes. You don't have to be socialist and/or critical to market economies to support 100% OP's proposal. 2. I don't think "estate taxes were raised" is all that happened in the East Block.
icu 6y ago
The wealthy people I work for strive towards giving their wealth away as best as they can to maximise their impact. They are also susceptible to health crises and family tragedy like everyone else. All the money in the world can't bring back family members or magically solve incurable health issues. While there must be some bad apples, my experience has led me to believe that it's unfair to categorize all wealthy people as uncaring, greedy and selfish. My big takeaway from watching how 'the other side' lives, is that money is like a magnifying glass of who you really are. If you're genuinely virtuous--for example generous and caring--the wealth allows you to express that. I'm sure if you're greedy or have an addictive personality, you'll be even more destructive to yourself, those around you, and wider society. I'm extremely lucky to have the ability to not have to work with people like that.
- GuB-42 6y ago
  Most of the rich people I have known are actually better people than the average person. I guess the fact they have everything they want allows them to better focus on improving themselves and thinking about their actions than someone who barely have enough to survive. A starving dog is more dangerous than a well fed dog. There are exceptions of course, some are psychopaths. But I have always been impressed by how nice the rich tend to be in person. Now about the wealth distribution. In developed countries, the rich are usually not sitting on top of a mountain of gold, mountains of gold are not of much use anyways. Most of their wealth is actually in their businesses, buildings, etc... Businesses get people to work and produce things for people to use, buildings house people, etc... Only a fraction of it is actually used for their luxurious lifestyle, the rest runs the economy. Now the question would be, wouldn't it be better if money went to the people instead of a few billionaires. Well, yes and no. Yes, for obvious reasons, concentrate wealth too much and that's how you get slavery. But also no, because too much equality is not always a good thing. We need some people with crazy money to do crazy stuff, Elon Musk comes to mind, no billionaire, no SpaceX to do what NASA failed to do. While it is not about money, another interesting example is the discovery of the Hubble deep field. The director is awarded 10% of the telescope time to use as he sees fit. Kind of like a "telescope billionaire". Robert Williams, the then director, decided to use a substantial fraction of his time looking at an empty patch of sky, discovering many galaxies as a result. It was a bit crazy, and he couldn't have done that if he went through the usual procedures, and it payed of in the end. That's why I think we need some inequality. Not too much, people deserve to live with a minimum of comfort, but not too little, we need to make large scale personal initiatives possible.
ornornor 6y ago
> Bezos could give a 105,000$ bonus to each of his employees and still be as rich as before the pandemic That’s insane. I can’t even comprehend how big an amount of money that is. But instead amazon nickel and dimes their workforce. What a time to be alive.

41 points by quickthrower2 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mac01021 6y ago

This link no longer points to an article with that title.

pmiller2 6y ago
I actually liked the new one better, but here is the actual video OP presumably meant to link: https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07vts5j/the-surprising-psychology-behind-being-rich https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07vts5j/the-surprising-psych... Needs (2019) in the title though.

gandalfian 6y ago

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07vts5j/the-surprising-psychology-behind-being-rich https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07vts5j/the-surprising-psych... Are rich people heartless? 22 NOVEMBER 2019|HUMANITY According to Christopher Ryan, rich people have the tendency to separate themselves from the rest of the world

heliodor 6y ago
*have the means. The desire is probably much more spread among the population.
tdevito 6y ago
Once I saw the title of that video I knew they were all nonsense. What an inhumane thing to say, as if how hard you work has anything to do with what kind of person you are. Is there a certain net worth where you cross a line and no longer have a heart? The problem is not inequality, it's poverty.
- gsk22 6y ago
  Rich people are not rich solely because of how hard they worked. THAT is an inhumane thing to say, as if poverty would vanish tomorrow if only the downtrodden masses put in a little effort.
  - tdevito 6y ago
    In first world countries yes, the harder you work the more money you make. Especially true over longer periods of time because of the compounding value of hard work.
    - phizy 6y ago
      That is absurd. You could work yourself to death scrubbing dishes and it will never match the returns of inheriting a fortune from your parents. You do not live in a world where wealth is meritocratically distributed.
      - tdevito 6y ago
        People are not stupid. No one working a low-skilled, low-wage job is confused about why they don't have more money.
    - AussieWog93 6y ago
      That is not really the whole story, though. My wife and I (self-employed) work around two days a week each and make about as much as other couples where both people work full-time 50+ hour weeks (inc. commute) in professional jobs. We used to work 3-4 days a week and made about 30% less money.
      - tdevito 6y ago
        I'm assuming that you're comfortable incomes come from high skilled work, or at least work that is highly valuable. You may no longer be working as much now to earn the same, but you had to put years of hard work in to get there, most likely.

StillBored 6y ago

The problem isn't really the billionaires, so much as they are the modern version of the king/feudal system because the wealth becomes hereditary. I'm pretty much a believer that estate taxes should be 100% over some fixed threshold, say 5x the median wealth. And no, I don't feel bad about the "family farm" which turns out to be worth 50 million dollars.

mac01021 6y ago
Median household wealth in the US is less than $100k, so 5x would be half a million. So I guess the question is, do you feel bad about the family farm that turns out to be worth 1 or 2 million? ("No" is a legitimate answer, but probably a rather controversial one)
- labster 6y ago
  It seems like there ought to be a happy medium between taxing nearly all homes in California at 100% and the Prop 13 level of 1%/max 2% inflation.
loxs 6y ago
There are two reasons this is a very bad idea: 1. Who is going to take it? The government is a very bad guardian. Everyone from the former East Block can attest (me including). This literally happened here after 1944 and we still suffer the consequences. The political class became all-powerful as they controlled all the resources. 2. This will make people a lot less entrepreneurial and as a result - everyone will become a lot poorer. This also happened in my country between 1944 and 1989. Even the Chinese realised this can't and won't work and are currently heading in the opposite direction. Really, fantasy is a great thing, but you have to think about the consequences. The Western World is heading off a steep cliff with this kind of thinking.
- anoncake 6y ago
  1. Sell it, finance public services with the revenue, and lower other taxes. You don't have to be socialist and/or critical to market economies to support 100% OP's proposal. 2. I don't think "estate taxes were raised" is all that happened in the East Block.

icu 6y ago

The wealthy people I work for strive towards giving their wealth away as best as they can to maximise their impact. They are also susceptible to health crises and family tragedy like everyone else. All the money in the world can't bring back family members or magically solve incurable health issues. While there must be some bad apples, my experience has led me to believe that it's unfair to categorize all wealthy people as uncaring, greedy and selfish. My big takeaway from watching how 'the other side' lives, is that money is like a magnifying glass of who you really are. If you're genuinely virtuous--for example generous and caring--the wealth allows you to express that. I'm sure if you're greedy or have an addictive personality, you'll be even more destructive to yourself, those around you, and wider society. I'm extremely lucky to have the ability to not have to work with people like that.

GuB-42 6y ago
Most of the rich people I have known are actually better people than the average person. I guess the fact they have everything they want allows them to better focus on improving themselves and thinking about their actions than someone who barely have enough to survive. A starving dog is more dangerous than a well fed dog. There are exceptions of course, some are psychopaths. But I have always been impressed by how nice the rich tend to be in person. Now about the wealth distribution. In developed countries, the rich are usually not sitting on top of a mountain of gold, mountains of gold are not of much use anyways. Most of their wealth is actually in their businesses, buildings, etc... Businesses get people to work and produce things for people to use, buildings house people, etc... Only a fraction of it is actually used for their luxurious lifestyle, the rest runs the economy. Now the question would be, wouldn't it be better if money went to the people instead of a few billionaires. Well, yes and no. Yes, for obvious reasons, concentrate wealth too much and that's how you get slavery. But also no, because too much equality is not always a good thing. We need some people with crazy money to do crazy stuff, Elon Musk comes to mind, no billionaire, no SpaceX to do what NASA failed to do. While it is not about money, another interesting example is the discovery of the Hubble deep field. The director is awarded 10% of the telescope time to use as he sees fit. Kind of like a "telescope billionaire". Robert Williams, the then director, decided to use a substantial fraction of his time looking at an empty patch of sky, discovering many galaxies as a result. It was a bit crazy, and he couldn't have done that if he went through the usual procedures, and it payed of in the end. That's why I think we need some inequality. Not too much, people deserve to live with a minimum of comfort, but not too little, we need to make large scale personal initiatives possible.

ornornor 6y ago

> Bezos could give a 105,000$ bonus to each of his employees and still be as rich as before the pandemic That’s insane. I can’t even comprehend how big an amount of money that is. But instead amazon nickel and dimes their workforce. What a time to be alive.