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I went through a period where I loaned money to anyone that asked me
- monero-xmr 4y agoI loan money to people and never expect to be repaid. If someone asks for $2k I give them $5k. $400 give them $1k. Sometimes I get paid back. Usually not. It’s because people are aware I have money so various people ask. The goal isn’t to get paid back. Often these acquaintances cut off all contact. The goal is to never be asked for money again and slowly bled out by frequent sob stories. If they know they are already into me for more than they thought they would get, they won’t come back, and I don’t look like a jerk.
- ARandomerDude 4y agoSame. "Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed." – Proverbs 19:17
- inwit 4y ago[flagged]
- zahrc 4y agoThat is so surreal to me. I had to loan money from friends for real emergencies and always made sure they get paid - often more than they gave. How can one not be guilt-ridden until their deathbed?
- serioussecurity 4y agoHeavy drinking. Usually they're choosing between a set of bad options.
- danuker 4y agoThere exist sociopaths and utility monsters.
- ethbr0 4y agoOr, at the most charitable, people in really bad places (either by choices or bad luck)... and are doing what they need to get by. And honestly, habitually soliciting money from friends shares a lot of similarities with using venture capital -- the reasoning that it's better to explode with someone else's money than your own.
- danuker 4y agoTo be fair, the stock market has been invented to spread risk. Better to own 10% of 10 boat expeditions than only one whole boat.
- johnchristopher 4y ago> How can one not be guilt-ridden until their deathbed? Well, some most likely are.
- SuoDuanDao 4y agoThe majority of requests for money come from a minority of people with sad stories. You are clearly a member of the majority.
- okasaki 4y agoIf you're struggling, and get $1000 from someone who made $100M on crypto, would you be in a hurry to pay them back, or even care at all?
- roflyear 4y agoI'd honestly hope that person wouldn't make it seem like it is a loan. I'd hope they just said "hey, here's money." Seems like a major jerk move to structure the "loan" in a way where you remove these people from your life.
- Consultant32452 4y agoIt's an efficient and polite way of determining if your "loan" actually helps them, or they are going to be a bottomless pit of misery and $ requests. If the loan helps them, they will be able to pay it back and all will be well. If it doesn't help them, then there's likely no value in giving them more money. If you want be charitable, there's certainly more efficient ways than giving free money to random people who ask you.
- roflyear 4y agoIt's super inefficient, and it's absolutely not polite.
- Consultant32452 4y agoYou loan someone money not expecting them to pay it back, you never bring it up or bother them, they decide to leave your life forever. You are the bad guy. Only on the internet.
- roflyear 4y agoNo... if you have some messed up system that involved that process to filter people from your life, you're the bad guy, yeah. Not just on the internet, either.
- SuoDuanDao 4y agoThe majority of requests for money come from a minority of people with sad stories. You are clearly a member of the majority of people with sad stories. I think the minority would call you a victim of 'temporarily embarrassed millionaire syndrome'.
- Juliate 4y agoIt's peculiar. Some people sometimes kind of resent those that saw their weakness, responded to it and helped them. Misplaced pride? Or lack of self-awareness and acceptation of their shortcomings? Guilt that builds upon itself (where just talking about it first could ... just clear things up)? Or they don't know/understand/weren't explained how to repay it (even if that's as simple as just paying back, or only saying "thanks"). Social rituals definitely help here.
- mikrl 4y agoWould telling them to go fuck themselves not be cheaper and easier? Edit: I don’t have fuck you money, so I am actually ignorant of the dynamic you’re describing. I’d rather be known as an asshole with backbone than a rich sap though. One of those looks more like a mark than the other.
- postalrat 4y agoDo you often consider friends and family as rich saps or marks?
- mikrl 4y agoNo, for those people who would “ride for me” and vice versa I have loyalty and don’t mind helping them with money, but I’d expect to stay involved in their lives. If they scuttle off, then they weren’t real at all, and I got played. I guess this supports OPs point, so I kinda get it. However this group of people is not very large, most people I know aren’t getting money willy-nilly.
- winphone1974 4y agoYou shouldn't loan money to those people though, just give it without expectation of repayment.
- strken 4y agoWhy not? I've borrowed thousands of dollars from family at times, lent thousands of dollars to them at others, and we've always repaid each other eventually. It's normal to forgive a loan to family if circumstances change, or to give money no-strings-attached if they need it, but it's equally normal to loan money to help with cash flow problems and then expect repayment eventually.
- mikrl 4y ago>I've borrowed thousands of dollars from family at times Is this common? Such a thing is unthinkable to me, and even friends from more businesslike families than mine have expressed major shame to me that they had to get a couple grand from their dad to cover closing costs (paid back within weeks)
- Sakos 4y agoSame here. If I'm able, I'll loan whatever amount necessary. Some people pay it back, some don't. I never tell them they have to and I never expect them to. In most cases it's been worth it, because 1) they know they can count on me when they're having trouble (and that's important to me) and 2) I've found they'll help me in whatever they can if I do need help. I've also asked friends for money and I've been incredibly grateful to have people who have had my back in that way. There's a sense of security there that's invaluable. Some people are just perpetually bad with money and always come back for more, and that's okay too. As long as I can afford it, I don't mind helping somebody out of a tough spot, even if it's semi-regularly. I wonder if Carmack ever regrets lending money to somebody.
- ryandrake 4y agoI don't remember where I read this, but a good compromise strategy for lending money you don't think you're getting back might be this: 1. Assume it's never getting paid back and only lend out money you're willing to lose. 2. Tell them if you get paid back in full, then later, they can ask for another loan. 3. If you don't get paid back, then consider it a gift, but no more loans to that person. This way, you can continue helping people who are down on their luck but responsible about paying back, and you avoid being drained by deadbeats.
- jaypeg25 4y agoCan I have $2k
- fragmede 4y agoStay classy HN
- repomies69 4y agoBut do you give the loans out only in monero
- bena 4y agoWhat happens to with the people who do come back? Let's say you loan me $5k and I come back and ask for another $2k, what's your response?
- RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y agoInstead of rewarding the antisocial behavior and therefore causing it to happen more frequently, albeit to other people, I would recommend one of these: - "I'm sorry but I've lost my job. I cannot afford this." - "I'm sorry but no means no." - If they insist: "Which part of the two letters in 'No' do you not understand?" You aren't the jerk. Someone who doesn't accept "no" is the jerk. There's places to go to to lend money, they're called banks. If you're not a bank it's not your job.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoNothing is your job except your job, but how impoverished would your life, family and your community be if everyone stuck to strictly that? You might be right on the specifics in this case, I'll abstain from making judgement. But as a guideline, as a framework, "it's not your job" is monstrously insufficient.
- RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y agoWe're talking primarily about people who don't pay their debts here. There's no loss to my life if these people remove themselves from it. They're thieves in disguise, nothing more. No value is lost if they leave. And in fact, because money is stored time, my life becomes MORE if they leave, because I lose less of the time of my life to them.
- giraffe_lady 4y agogrim way to think of people but ok have fun
- RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y agoIt's the view of someone who has lost over $10k to "I'll pay it back!!!" people - they haven't payed back in 10 years now. And they left behind truckloads of trash. How much have you lost to those? I would speculate once you get to a sum this significant your perspective would change ;)
- gernb 4y agoIt's very generous of you. I'd like to point out my experience of taking the loan and never repaying it. I felt guilty for decades and more distant from the loaner. They never brought it up but my guilty mind did. So I'm not 100% sure it was a net positive for our relationship. If I was to do loan money and they didn't pay back in some reasonable amount of time I think I'd tell them explicitly it was a gift. Though I'm not sure that would fix things in the guilty person's mind (yea, I get I'm projecting my feeling on guilt on them. They might not feel any guilt at all)
- greenthrow 4y agoThat is not how the psychology of that interaction would work. If someone doesn't want more than what they asked you for they wouldn't accept it. If they did want more then they aren't going to stop asking because you gave them extra. This is an obvious fabrication by someone with little to no actual life experience.
- fdye 4y agoSame. Several years ago I had an ex-GF of sorts reach out to me in SF. She was passing through and wanted to say hi, etc. I had a couple hours before my shift at a bar I worked at so I swung by where she was, bought her a drink, etc. Immediately could tell she was in a bad place, looked like her occasional drug use had become a permanent, more hard kind. About halfway through the drink was a clumsy come on and a push for some cash, she was out of gas, couldn't get home, whatever. I ended up giving her like $40, a big hug, said goodbye. The whole time she is swearing up and down she will be back next week, will pay me back, etc. I got to work and told a coworker what had happened. She thought I was crazy and was laughing cause I had been conned by an ex. I then explained if I never saw my $40 again it was money well spent. One less person in my life bringing with it their chaos, and our history had made it hard to totally write off. Sure enough, never heard from her again...
- asveikau 4y ago> She thought I was crazy and was laughing cause I had been conned by an ex. I then explained if I never saw my $40 again it was money well spent. One less person in my life bringing with it their chaos I was surprised by some of this, especially this last part. Firstly, $40 is not a lot of money. Hardly a "big con". Second, I think the "money well spent" part is that you helped her in some small amount, when it was obvious she was suffering, and you didn't expect anything in return. I think if she had come back expecting continued/sustained support, then you'd be right to pull away. But that sounds like the story of somebody who struggled in that moment and you gave some small gesture of support. I think it's good. Hardly an "investment to get her to leave you alone". That sounds too cynical and harsh.
- simplotek 4y ago> Second, I think the "money well spent" part is that you helped her in some small amount, when it was obvious she was suffering, and you didn't expect anything in return. It seems you have been lucky enough to be living a sheltered life, without any acquaintance having tried to chat you up to their advantage. Unfortunately there are plenty of people in the real world who are either takers or outright set to exploit you. Not many, but enough to have people learn the wisdom of saying "no" to sob stories. I once came across a guy who apparently lived close to me who was asking for money for a taxi ride because he was out of gas and had to go to the hospital to check up on his kid who had an emergency and blablabla. I gave the guy 10€ and wished him well. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I stumble upon the same guy right on the same spot. He clearly didn't recognize me as he asked me again for money for a taxi ride because he ran out of gas and his kid was just admitted to the hospital and blablabla. I asked him if he didn't asked for that same request a few weeks ago, to which he just stood there looking at me without saying a word, and after a couple of seconds he turned back and proceeded to walk away and never be seen again. In the pre mass online shopping days I also had a close friend who just moved to another city. Our friend group had thrown him a big farewell party and everyone promised to keep in touch and visit all the time and all those things. After a few days that friend reached out to us saying he now lived right next to a consumer electronics megashop, and if any of us wanted anything shipped then we could simply send him the cash and he would buy the stuff we needed. A couple of guys from the friend group took him on his offer and sent him cash transfers, and that friend proceeded to ghost everyone. Sadly I have other personal anecdotes, some of which real sob stories. It really depends on what you mean by helping people with a small amount. Those who profit from your actions do benefit from the money they get from you even if it's under false pretenses. Robbers who steal stuff from people around them are also helped by getting their hands on il gotten gains.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4y agoThe Bronx Tale strategy: https://youtu.be/78-4RobJQ0Y https://youtu.be/78-4RobJQ0Y
- bluedino 4y agoOn the other hand, now everyone thinks you're an easy target to borrow money from, and they won't have to pay you back.
- fragmede 4y agoHow many randoms do you envision coming up to them to ask for money?
- bluedino 4y agoPeople at work, the gym, bar, wherever you go. We had a guy at the racquetball club move away, and then about 10 people all mentioned how he owed them $20...
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4y agoBut that’s the reverse relationship? One guy asking several people for money. Additionally, I think most people who borrow or lend money do not make a habit of discussing it.
- bluedino 4y agoIn the movie mention in the original post, the character looks up to a mobster. A mob guy would typically do loan sharking, so people would go to them for a loan. If you're going to be a loan shark you can't have people thinking they won't have to pay you back. You have to break their kneecaps.
- wkat4242 4y agoWhy would you pay so much just for them not to annoy you? That seems a very high price for some peace and quiet. I would just cut off contact with those people. I don't really get this much because I'm not rich, but if people ask me for loans just to get money out of me I will be the one breaking off contact. On the other hand I have a friend of mine who has loaned money and never paid me back, but she is always in a financial hard spot and she is extremely generous to the community she drives. I never really expected to be paid back for that either but in this case I just wanted to help someone who cares more about others than herself.
- smt88 4y agoYeah, this is incredibly bizarre, to the point of being hard to believe
- fragmede 4y agoGuessing from the username Monero-xmr, they accidentally found themselves in the $100-millionaire bracket. More money than a person could spend in a lifetime. What do you do with that kind of wealth?
- wkat4242 4y agoFair enough, I suppose it really changes your view on money (though I notice that super rich people I know are actually less generous in general). For me $1k would really be a lot especially just for someone to shut up.
- fragmede 4y agoWhat is a dollar worth to you? Stupid question, right? A dollar is a dollar. How about a penny? Would you bother to pick up a penny? How about a million pennies? If you're making $10 million/yr, $1k to get someone to buzz off is cheap. The inequalities of capitalism are gross, but while we're here, that's the way the world works.
- deebosong 4y agoI'm with you on this one. Sure, money or anything can be used as a test to determine someone's character. But you can do so without putting money on the line and save yourself some headache. One way to determine someone's character is to spend time with them, listen to what they say about themselves and others, and whether or not their claims about themselves line up with their actions across time. Maybe money is "cheaper" and "faster" than this route, but... Guess that's just been my go-to method to determine whether or not someone has integrity, is trustworthy, and has a sense of responsibility, parity, and respect for self and others. Giving money without expecting it in return, or even being clear about expecting to be paid back, is more about having gauged people's characters & motivations, even when I get it wrong or things don't pan out as agreed-upon.
- jamra 4y agoThis reminds me of the one lady from my previous job that lost her daughter. We held a fundraiser at work. She made a lot of money out of it. Then she lost her niece. It was so sad to have misery strike twice. Until she lost another niece. Then we checked up on it. Nobody had died.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Karawebnetwork 4y agoCould it be that by loaning more money than they expected, they spent that money and then entered into a negative cycle where they were never able to gather the money again? I used to do the same thing as you on a smaller scale (in the hundreds, never the thousands). I noticed that while loaning more money made more sense to me, whenever I did that it was a struggle to get the money back. Meanwhile when I loaned the exact amount, it more often came back. I lost several friendships this way for a short while, with the only way to get the person out of the guilt cycle to surprise them at some random Christmas or birthday with "my gift to you this year is to give you the money you owe me". With them later telling me that they were feeling so guilty about the money they avoided talking to me because every conversation would make them feel miserable. Now when I loan money, I enter the amount in an app we have in common and then actually put in place a (vague) payment plan. I find it helps people structure the entire situation and since they get to pay some money back the guilt is less present. It seem to remove the expectation that they need to gather the full amount before paying back.
- erikpukinskis 4y agoSimilar thing happened to me. I had a roommate who regularly needed a loan for rent. They eventually descended into drug use and chaos and we wanted them out of the house. They kept missing their supposed move-out dates, so I offered to cancel out their ~$5k in debt if they were out on a certain date. Keep in mind I was unable to afford groceries many of these months. In the end, they cleared out on that date and I never heard from them again. Even though we were quite close at one time. Money well spent really.
- citizenpaul 4y agoThere is an old saying if you lend someone $100 and never see them again. It was probably a good use of $100.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- paxys 4y ago> The goal is to never be asked for money again and slowly bled out by frequent sob stories Sometimes if you "loan" people money they will cut contact and disappear from your life. The much more likely scenario is that you will get the reputation of someone who has money and is generous with it, and these requests and sob stories will increase 100x.
- Dig1t 4y ago"Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry." -Shakespear I've just followed this my entire life and it has served me very well. Other than a mortgage, I never borrow, and other than family emergencies, I never lend.
- n4r9 4y agoWorth noting that this quotation is spoken by Polonius in Hamlet. According to Wikipedia: > He is chief counsellor of the play's ultimate villain, Claudius, and the father of Laertes and Ophelia. Generally regarded as wrong in every judgment he makes over the course of the play, Polonius is described by William Hazlitt as a "sincere" father, but also "a busy-body, [who] is accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent".
- Minor49er 4y agoThis is more or less the same advice that Kevin O'Leary gives in his book "The Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women, and Money". His stance is that money is basically like blood since you need it to live, so it should be protected from predators and leeches
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- a4isms 4y agoI do not loan money to people, ever. I will give money to people I know to help them out from time to time. Sometimes people ask for a loan and insist they will repay me. Fine, I will call it a loan because that's what helps them frame things in their own heads. If they repay me, also fine, why would I turn down free money? But for my own peace of mind, I think of these things as gifts to help a good person out. If I don't think of them as loans, I don't find myself chasing former friends for repayment. I am not a bank. I am not a debt collector. I do not wish to become a bank or debt collector as a side hustle. If you ask me for more money than I can afford to gve you without repayment, it is far less stressful to say "no" and get the conflict over with on the spot.
- racl101 4y ago> The goal is to never be asked for money again and slowly bled out by frequent sob stories. If they know they are already into me for more than they thought they would get, they won’t come back, and I don’t look like a jerk. This only works if the people have fucking shame. I have a relative who has no shame and will keep taking as much money as you'll let him take. So I limit what i give. He keeps saying to me it's ok if I borrow and charge him points ... but in the Christian tradition usury is a sin so I don't and though I'm not a religious person, I was raised with mainly Christians principles that I adhere to because they just seem like good principles in general to live by. Plus I'm pretty sure if I did charge interest I'd just be disappointed when he doesn't follow through with interest payments knowing how flaky he is with his money. I'd rather just give money and give what's comfortable.
- cableshaft 4y agoI knew a person who this wouldn't deter them. We were sort of friends through a common industry, and I talked to him once in a blue moon. Gave them some money after they posted a real bad sob story on FB during the pandemic and not even a week later they asked for more (a lot more). Kept asking me for money for some new reason every time I popped onto Facebook via Messenger until I stopped updating my active status. A bit later they deleted that profile and created a new one, and I decided not to become friends with him again. Looking the guy up, and he was always posting GoFundMe's for some cause or family illness or another, and you'd see links to people in the industry asking for things on his behalf periodically across various websites, going back more than a decade. I do believe he dug himself into a deep hole and he was in a hard place, but I also believe he's willing to take advantage of anyone as much and as often as possible until he can't get anything more from them, then moves on to the next person (well, probably multiple people at the same time). So anyway, that's too fresh in my head, and I'm hesitant to give anyone money for anything right now. I've got plenty of crap going on for the forseeable future that needs a bunch of money anyway (implants, roof replacement, flooded basement, etc).
- Aaronstotle 4y agoCould you loan me 5 XMR?
- giantg2 4y agoI'm cheap and would gladly look like a jerk instead of lending $1k haha
- John23832 4y agoOprah said it best. If you give money, the other side will always resent you when you try to get it back. They'll think "I'm struggling to pay this, and this person had it" however irrational that may seem. If you care enough to give, just give. If you don't, don't.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jrochkind1 4y agoYou're paying people off to go away and leave you alone and not be your friend, in a way that doesn't make you look like a jerk like you would be if you just didn't loan them money? The only way this makes sense to me, especially at that kind of money you're talking about, is if you are fairly wealthy. And, man, to me what this says is that it's impossible to have real solid relationships with people if you are rich and they aren't. It makes me think of all these people who only are interested in you for your money, and your fear that people will think you're a jerk if you don't give them money (over and over again!) anyway because you have so much money, all these people approaching you with "sob stories." It seems like it makes it almost impossible to be real friends with people, if they aren't as wealthy as you. I guess it's a reason to be glad I'm not that rich, after all.
- Scoundreller 4y agoMeanwhile, I go through life wondering if I borrowed $20 from someone and forgot to pay them back for months and kinda hope they would just say something if I did.
- zucked 4y agoI _constantly_ try to evaluate where I stand with people. If they bought the most recent round of drinks, the next one is on me. If we split dinner, I'm thinking about how their total averaged out compared to mine. If I paid for something, I'm thinking about how much I add to their ledger. I have a "disadvantange" threshold of ~$100 where I won't say anything, but if the imbalance continues to tilt in their favor and they don't do anything to correct it, I might start insulating myself from their financial involvement.. I'm sure most people don't care about it as much as I do, but I have this deep-seated need to make sure I'm as square with as many people as I can be and I expect the same from everyone else. It's not just about being owed, it's about owing, too. I wish I knew where it came from. I wish I was better about just letting it go.
- humanizersequel 4y agoIt's interesting because I — and as far as I can tell, most of my circle — do a similar sort of thing but it's much fuzzier. Nobody is really keeping track of particular dollar amounts, but we seem to have excellent group memory of who last bought who what, who paid for the last round of drinks, etc. I wonder which style (particular vs. fuzzy) is more common.
- hutzlibu 4y ago"I _constantly_ try to evaluate where I stand with people. " I am, or rather used to be, quite similar. Now I am much more relaxed, as I think I understand better what a gift is. It is free and comes ideally with no strings attached. Otherwise it is an transaction. And it is a bad idea, to mix them up. My default is to consider a gift as a gift and nothing more. I just give and take freely. If you think too much about it, it can destroy a lot. Also, there is more than money. Maybe the one guy bought more rounds, but then he unloaded his problems on the others. Or not. So what? Life is not a balance sheet, that needs to sum up. But if you try to make it one, you might find the joy is getting lost somewhere in those numbers.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mattw2121 4y agoCue all previous debts being paid back to John Carmack so that their latest business venture gets some free marketing.
- gfd 4y agoDoubtful. Most people (including Mcgee) probably don't want the world to know they didn't pay back a debt for nearly 3 decades
- 63 4y agoWhen you say it like that I can't help but factor in inflation. Even though McGee paid the loan back, the value of it will be significantly lower today than when he borrowed it.
- bombcar 4y agoHowever the value of Carmack is significantly higher; there's something to be said there (though not sure what exactly it would be).
- adql 4y agoWell it took me borrowing one video game to learn that lesson. "No, you must've borrowed it to someone else" when I asked. First game I bought for my own pocket money, which at time, in Poland, was a lot for a kid as it was full price title, Baldur's Gate 1 in nice box with manual and a map, and dubbed gloriously with then-radio/TV stars, hell, the narrator voice was better than original. Needless to say I was pretty salty.
- richthegeek 4y agopożyczyć is both borrow and lend :) In English there's a difference of direction. "Kuba pożyczył moj długopis" - Jakub borrowed my pen "Kuba pożyczył mi jego długopos" - Jakub lent me his pen I'm learning Polish slowly, living in Warsaw...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- traceroute66 4y ago> "Kuba pożyczył moj długopis" Surely a true Pole would say "kurwa Kuba pożyczył moj pierdolic długopis" ? ;-)
- richthegeek 4y agoNo true Pole?
- traceroute66 4y agoWhat about Poles on poles ? (Point taken, capital inserted on original post)
- waterhouse 4y agoLolz. I don't know Polish, but Google Translate renders these as "Kuba borrowed my pen" and "fucking Kuba borrowed my fucking pen" respectively.
- teg4n_ 4y agoIf I can afford to lend a friend money, I can afford to just give it to them. I don’t want to hold money over a friend’s head.
- bena 4y agoI'm surprised American McGee hasn't paid him back prior to this. I always assumed that McGee was more successful than he apparently was. Probably due to him putting his name in front of the game's title.
- pyb 4y agoSounds like McGee might not have got his fair share of Id's success. Maybe Carmack felt bad about that.
- savanaly 4y agoWhy would McGee be the one paying Carmack back after all these years if that were the case? Can you imagine Walter White paying back Elliot for some long forgotten debt out of his drug money?
- pyb 4y agoBecause it was a loan ?
- savanaly 4y agoYour comment makes sense in the context of my comment, but not in the overall context of the thread.
- bena 4y agoYou can feel both slighted by and indebted to the same individual. Regardless of whether or not McGee feels like he deserved to have been better compensated by id software for his contributions, he feels personally indebted to John Carmack for the money he borrowed. And in the case of feeling slighted, while he could justify never paying Carmack back by saying that since Carmack was one of the founder/owners of the company that slighted him, this was just money Carmack owed him, he has not taken that tack. It is possible to compartmentalize.
- labrador 4y agoI've always heard the best way to get rid of someone from your life is to loan them money. People who owe you money make themselves scarce.
- mym1990 4y agoSeems accurate, had a friend/roommate who I had to spot a couple months rent, after he moved out I never did see him again hah.
- paxys 4y agoThis is rarely ever the case. If you "loan" someone money once they will just keep coming back and asking for more. Even worse, they will tell people and you will get the reputation of someone who is generous with money, and soon everyone will be asking you for some.
- labrador 4y agoIs this your personal experience or are you non-American? Americans generally don't lend more money to people who already owe them money, unless they are close family.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoSeems like the case of wealth that cannot be hidden from one's circles (and the outside world) due to him being so well known as a person in tech at the time of Doom's cultural zenith and being in the news cycle so often. I wonder if most often the smart move is to make sure that one's sudden acquisition of wealth (say the sale of a startup-now-a-successful-scaleup) is hidden from one's even closest circles to avoid the curse of the lottery winner as well described in the famous reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/comment/chb4v05/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vo34/comment/c... But I also wonder if trying to hide one's wealth that much comes at the price of social isolation, where you have to reduce your contacts with the outside world to avoid flashing the new possibilities that your wealth opened to you. Or you make sure your lifestyle doesn't change at all, but then you cannot take advantage of your wealth either.
- loeg 4y agoYou can also just say "no." Presumably Carmack has learned that lesson now.
- hbn 4y agoThe vibe I got from Carmack after reading Masters of Doom recently is that he's never had a big focus on money. When they struck it rich he certainly divulged himself in a few luxuries - going a bit more extravagant on his nerdy hobbies, decking out a Ferrari, building rockets. But he still seemed to mostly just want to do his programming work, and that seems to be what he's continued to do after all these years. So it doesn't entirely surprise me he was willing to be generous with his money like that.
- jahlove 4y ago[–]BlakeClass ... 8 years ago > you might consider picking another G7 or otherwise mainstream country other than the U.S. according to where you want to live if the United States dissolves into anarchy or Britney Spears is elected to the United States Senate. Things can (and did) get much worse with our national politics than Britney being elected to the Senate. > You know you will be getting $638,400 per year unless the capital building is burning Or even IF the capital building is burning.
- jobs_throwaway 4y agoA few hundred or $1000 dollars is a small price to know that you have a trustworthy friend
- wheels 4y agoIt almost always makes more sense to just give money (or frame it as a "payment" for something) than to loan friends / family money. The usual thing I ask is that people do it for someone else later in life if they can. It just makes everything less icky if there's no nominal expectation of repayment. Occasionally I've had things repaid anyway.
- BlueTemplar 4y agoUsually, yes. I do have one weird (?) friend that is not a friend any more because she felt she still owed me and kept feeling bad about it.
- roflyear 4y agoI don't think I've ever loaned anyone money, not really. I don't get asked often, but if I do I just give them money.
- markus_zhang 4y agoI rarely loan $$ to ither people but when I do it's usually small and considered as a gift, not a loan. I really hate piggybacking other peoplebto claim my principal. On a side note, everytime I see the name of John Carmack popping up my heart goes to game programming and I have the impulse to create a game. Masters of Doom really is magical.
- post_break 4y agoI hate that there are two types of people, people who ask for money and have no issues ghosting, and then those who ask and pay back like it's a loan shark coming for them in their eyes. I have only had to ask to borrow money a few times, and man it hits so hard. I loath the experience. I sent $50 to someone who needed some cash to buy groceries and they said they would send it back when they could but didn't and I'm ok with it. It hurts knowing how little (depending on wealth) it would take to change someones life. I'm still paying back a loan from someone so I could afford to buy my first house and damn does it still sting. I had to save every single cent just to afford the down payment, and it wasn't enough.
- oslac 4y agoSome sort of reverse House M.D. experiment (House instead asked loans to update his people model)
- SubuSS 4y agoI think you should pick friends rather than choose whether you loan or not. I’ve never loaned money to folks who I don’t have a strong relationship with. Extended Family has found this out the hard way. On the other hand - I’ve never thought twice about money transactions with closer friends. Obviously they value the relationship the same as I do. I’ve had friends loan me 5 digits for a couple of days because my Schwab didn’t settle in time and I wanted to close a property. We’ve have done so many vacations with friends where thousands are transacted and settled. It seems weird that you’d special case money alone.
- IYasha 4y agoBut I still won't forgive you for the Stupid Quake Bug, John!
- FpUser 4y ago>"...making plushies..." Sometimes in the 90s I had a software product. It so happened that there were competitors for the same very niche market right here in Toronto - tiny company of 3 people. So they came to me with the offer to sell them a product and start working for them. The money offered was absolute peanuts, so was the salary proposed. Obviously I refused. 2 years after they called me back again and asked for a meeting. I assumed that they've probably come to their senses and had agreed to meet even though I was already employed with 6 figures. Now the depressing part. They came and tried to pitch to me some bullshit (snake oil type) products to sell. Basically they went to multilevel marketing. I did not like it at all.
- AcerbicZero 4y agoMy father taught me early on that lending a friend $20 was one of the cheapest ways to find out what kind of a friend you were actually dealing with. It's a valuable lesson, for sure.
- benmanns 4y agoI did a version of this in elementary through high school. Lend someone $1 for the vending machine today. If they blow off repaying you, don't lend them $5 for lunch tomorrow.
- jmuguy 4y agoWhen I was younger I learned that loaning money to friends, and then asking to be repaid, sucks. You're made to feel like you're some sort of Scrooge character. Now I either simply give whatever is asked, and make it clear I do not wish to be paid back, or just say no. Initially it seemed logical to say OK you need 100 bucks for this or that and you'll get me back. But then a month later I'd mention it and was met with this sort of "why are you being a jerk about it" response. Now I'm in a position that its not a big deal, but back then even that relatively small amount of money was a big deal. It was a tough lesson to learn that some people just use the term 'loan' to make themselves feel less guilty for asking, or maybe intend to ghost you regardless. I think this also gets into Americans (or maybe just Southerners?) being weird about money and personal finance. Talking about money is taboo.
- bombcar 4y agoNeither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell. My blessing season this in thee. In cases where I feel I need to, I clarify it's a gift and if they really feel the need to repay later, they can pay it forward or gift back. The key is removing the guilt which is what kills friendship.
- dgeiser13 4y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXId5jOTxdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXId5jOTxdg
- BitwiseFool 4y agoThe challenge is that friends and family are seen as the lowest priority for repayment. Despite the fact that a loan from them was already given in the most kind and generous way, there is an increased expectation for friendliness and leniency when it comes to leniency around repayment that just doesn't come with an institutionalized lender. Complicating things is that the penalties for not paying others, like a bank, utility company, landlord, etc. are real and tangible. Whereas hurt feelings are much more readily dismissed than an eviction notice or a debt collector.
- throw7 4y agohttps://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1612484342567010306.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1612484342567010306.html
- alach11 4y agoI loaned a close college friend $7000 last year. Due to life circumstances and lack of family resources, he was stuck in a rural area with no developer jobs. He was having trouble landing a remote job and I ignorantly asked why he wasn’t applying to in-person jobs on the west coast. He told me that he certainly wouldn’t be able to afford to move and I told him “don’t let that stop you”. Fronting him moving expenses was the best decision I ever made, even though it had a chance of not working out. Six months later he’s making 10x the wage he could get in his rural area, and I’ve been paid back with (unrequested) interest. I guess my message is: sometimes loaning money won’t work out, but when it does, the ROI (emotionally and for society) is extremely high.
- distortionfield 4y agoThat's legit that you helped out your friend like that. I've had people look at me like I'm crazy for doing similar things for friends. A rising tide raises all boats.
- luxuryballs 4y agoThe risk of them not being able to pay you back and thus destroying the friendship is so high that I wouldn’t recommend this unless you are ok with losing that person as a friend OR you just give them the money without expectation of it being paid back.
- t0suj4 4y agoNot expecting anything in return has definitely made me happier. It's on the borrower to worry about paying me back. Me, I don't care.
- greedo 4y agoI've found that this applies to much more than just money.
- bungeonsBaggins 4y agoHow does this work in practice, though? I don't know how this would be possible at all. I have loaned money to family members in the past, and been paid back when they were back on their feet. But if a friend or family member borrowed money and never paid it back, even after they were over their financial difficulties, and never mentioned it or made any effort to repay the loan, it would certainly affect my opinion of them; at the very least, I'd expect them to offer some explanation as to why they weren't able or willing to pay me back as we agreed. So do you actually mean this, or are you just signaling how kind you are?
- 0xbadcafebee 4y agoIt is cringey how nerds describe their social/emotional lives the way they philosophize about code structure.
- WheelsAtLarge 4y agoIs this a techie issue? When I got my first relative high paying job I was quick to loan money. I think I felt a bit guilty so I felt I could help others. In time I stopped but looking back I loaned money to people that could not manage their finances and wasted their money rather than people that truly needed it. I never got a penny repaid. I guess it's a live and learn situation. Now it would take a lot for me to lend money. It's not likely to happen.
- aappleby 4y agoI still do this on occasion, with these rules - 1. You can only have one loan at a time. 2. The money has to be used to complete a goal. Moving across country is a goal, paying rent is not. 3. There is no repayment date, but you do have to write me an email stating what you are using the money for and that you agree to the rules. Those are the simplest rules I could come up with that prevent abuse without being too onerous. They seem to work. About 1/3 of the loans I've given out have been repaid.
- etchalon 4y agoI just don't loan money. If someone asks for a loan, I either give it to them outright, or I say no. Money I can't afford to give away is money I probably shouldn't be loaning out. Usually, people pay me back, and it's a nice treat. Sometimes, people don't, and because I wasn't expecting the money back, and wasn't counting on it, it's fine.
- victorronin 4y agoUgh... This touched a nerve. Surely, if you have a semi-unlimited amount of money (way-way more than will ever be asked from you), it's easy just to loan and forget. I think it's a much harder game for the rest of us. Also, it has a built-in assumption that people will self-limit what they are asking. I learned the unpleasant way that people don't. At some point in my life, I had a friend who was constantly asking for smallish amounts and conveniently forgetting to return them. Each ask for definitely in the category that I didn't care whether it was returned or not, but if you accumulate all of them, it was an amount big enough to care. After numerous unpleasant interactions with the money subject, I just decided to stop this practice. That being said, I feel like it's critical to not become too thick-skinned. Sometimes people do need help and they are truly in a bad place and dismissing their ask just based on some other problematic person is not good.
- ShamelessC 4y agoYeah certainly a lot of privileged/tone-deaf attitudes in here. I feel like I'm at a conference for Effective Altruism or something. They're insecure about being successful when others are less fortunate. Rather than admit they got where they are due to a combination of skill _and_ luck, it's decided that it was all skill and that it is the duty of the skilled elites to take care of the rest of us. Unfortunately, these days you don't even need skill, just a splash of narcissism and good self-marketing.
- citizenpaul 4y agoThe reality is that the world is full of shitty people. There is an easy way to find the majority of them. They ask/want to borrow money from non official lenders. Think about it. Most people on HN how many paths would you have to go down first before you would borrow money from an individual? I'm guessing several options would be tried first. The reason those people are shitty is they already burnt all those options and have now moved onto individuals to grift in small ways. The number of people that truly need help from a single person in the form of money is exceedingly rare. This is not limited to any specific place. Yes I'm aware people can be in different/difficult places in life that make such need more likely, I'm just speaking as a general rule. Usually people that really need help are hesitant to even ask.
- buzzert 4y agoThis doesn't seem like a fair characterization at all. Any other path towards borrowing money could potentially lead to getting buried even further in debt, and if an exhorbitant amount of interest is charged, could lead to a debt spiral that's really hard to get out of. On the other hand, asking for money from a close friend means 0% interest, and an implied forgiveness in case it's not able to get repaid. That sounds like a much better option to me (of course, depends heavily on your relationship with your friends, etc.).
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoLife lesson: people that won't pay you back big amounts also won't pay back the 100-500$ level. So test people with those first.
- Benjamin_Dobell 4y agoObviously, it really comes down to who you're lending money to. I've lent money to a few people and generally been repaid fairly quickly. Mostly just a few hundred dollars to be repaid the next pay day, or maybe at tax return time. I suspect a final small repayment may have been missed here and there because those involved (myself included) forgot, but that's about it. The largest loan I made (a few thousand dollars) was diligently repaid; a little each month once the borrower found work again. I also allowed the same person to stay with me, my wife and young daughter a few years later. To clarify - not because they were incapable of paying rent - they needed somewhere short term (couple of months) and I was happy to assist. Said person is now fairly significantly more wealthy than me and they've mentioned several times how thankful they are of what I did for them. I don't need (or want) anything from them, but if anything ever happens to me, and my family need help, I suspect they'd try help out if they could.
- jjri 4y agoThanks for sharing this story.
- mmcgaha 4y agoThe advice that I have most commonly heard and that I follow. If I loan money to a friend then think of it as a gift instead of a loan. I have given serious amounts of money twice and unfortunately they avoid me like the plague. I wish that they knew that I will never mention it.
- happyopossum 4y agoThe advice is generally to MAKE it a gift - not secretly think of it as one. As you've experienced, the guilt can drive people apart from the borrower's side, even if you never ask for repayment, so you need to make it clear up from that none is expected.
- mmcgaha 4y agoIndeed that is the correct advice.
- zcbenz 4y agoWhen I was teen I lent some high value items in online game, and of course they never got back. I’m still thankful that I learnt the lesson online instead of in real life.
- latchkey 4y agoYears ago, I had the crazy/stupid opportunity to start a night club in San Francisco. My dad said it would be a terrible idea, the business was hard, etc... but he also said he would help me out. Go dad, I'm lucky to have him. He had a piece of property that we could get a loan against, so we found a mortgage company that would give us the loan and went ahead. Well, he was totally right, after years of trying, the business totally flopped and I had lost all of the money, as well as a ton of my own. It set my finances back at least a decade or more. Luckily, my dad has a lifelong friend who was willing to buy out the loan when it looked like the company was going to default, so now my debt was really to my dads friend. Fast forward many years... my dad has retired and needs money. He's had trouble selling the property (although it looks like that is happening now in the next month or two). The property gained a lot of value over the years, so that is good. He will have enough to pay back the friend in full and a bunch left over for himself. I've been paying my dad back as I can over the years and in recent times, reached the principle amount of the loan... now I'm paying the interest (the principle has ballooned more than 2x). My current payments have been a lifesaver for him. It worked out that being able to pay him back now when he needs money the most, has been really helpful for him. Had I paid him back in full earlier, it might have been harder for him to come to me asking for a loan, now he has some steady cash flow from me. When the property sells, his friend will get paid back first and I'll just owe my dad the rest of the interest. This has weighed on me for a long time and is something that I think about almost daily. It sucks owing money. I have no other debt than this. Some day, I'll be free of it and I can't wait for that day.
- poisonarena 4y agomay I ask what was the name of the club?
- latchkey 4y agoI'd love to know how that relates to the story first.
- poisonarena 4y agoi used to DJ in SF a decade ago
- eddsh1994 4y agoI find this very weird to speak about out loud/in public. Having advances is a personal thing and can be quite embarrassing to ask for - maybe after x years it's not as bad but still... Maybe a cultural thing?
- SuoDuanDao 4y agoI think it's embarrassing in the author's culture as well - but in some cultures, not repaying a loan you said you'd repay is the kind of action that warrants that kind of public embarrassment.
- lordfrito 4y agoYeah listen I'm glad it worked out for Carmack, but for everyone else YMMV Again YMMV A lot of good alternate perspectives here. Usually loaning money doesn't work out. There's a reason they're coming to you and not their local bank or using that line of credit on their credit card. You def don't want to be known as the person who helps people out, just makes you a magnet for grifters. My personal experience. I overcame a lot to go from "lower middle class" to "upper middle class". So I'm great with money, save a lot, etc. But, given my history and where I come from, most of the people I know aren't good with money. I learned a lot of this the hard way - via loans. I'm not "from the hood", but there's similarities. You sometimes have to cut ties to mature/grow in your personal life. I had to learn most of these people who "were" my friends really aren't my friends any more. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in" Be smart people.
- flandish 4y agoEveryone should read “Timon of Athens” - some say Shakespeare’s worst, but it’s my favorite. Whenever I think about lending, or asking for a loan or help (I am terribly short on money and very sad about it) - I remember this story.
- kwhitefoot 4y agoI've never read it or seen it performed. So I read the synopsis in Wikipedia; it's such a desperately sad story I can't imagine having it as a favourite however well done it might be. The synopsis reads almost as though written by Sophocles two thousand years earlier.
- flandish 4y agoYeah. I think that’s the inspiration of the character, but the play, in my “new to Shakespeare” mind, is well done.
- freediver 4y ago"calibrating some general people behavior" What a wonderful construct. Same thing happened to me. It was a good calibration.
- andrewstuart 4y agoI started my first business when I was 25 back in the 1990s. It had successes but in the end it went under after about 4 or 5 years operation. I had to borrow from several friends to avoid being bankrupted. Maybe around $80,000, which was alot of money at the time. The friends universally said "mate I don't care if you never pay it pack, you just sort out what you need to with it." Paying the money back became my only life mission. Everything I did was focused on paying that money back. It took me more than 5 years and I paid every cent back with 10% interest on top. I operate on the principle that no-one should ever be worse off for backing me. I want people to see me as a person of integrity. Looking after the interests of others who have backed you should be your primary driver. I can talk about it easily now as it's 25 years down the track, but the whole experience at the time was traumatic.
- zactato 4y agoI've been following Carmack for 30 years, because of his brilliance and perspective on software. I never expected I would every feel emotionally touched by anything he said, but this was a very heartwarming story.
- snshn 4y agoI remember being over $4K in debt in my mid-20s, sleeping on the floor under a desk in my friend's office and showering every morning at a gym a couple of subway stops away. I was evicted from my tiny studio after getting laid off, and couldn't find anything during summer time, was at first recovering from a severe burnout, and also everything is super slow during those months. My first paycheck paid off all that debt, a couple weeks later I was living in a 1-bedroom apt minutes away from work. I had about $15K in my bank and that's when my self-employed friend needed money to pay rent so he could focus on and make his company successful. I ended up Venmo-ing him more than that (more money than I ever had before in my life back then) over next couple of months, so that he didn't have to stop working on his business and lay bricks instead, or do anything else but making his business a successful company. A couple of months later he got a large order and never struggled since. He's still working on increasing his sales and getting more clients, on a verge of becoming a millionaire. I get to do work and make money creating software for his company, so it wasn't just helping a friend, but a future (now current) source of income for me as well. I wouldn't give money if I see the person lacks good morals or is an idiot, that never pays back. But looking back and asking myself, "what did I do that year?", I always feel happy that it cost me less than $20K to help save my friend's business and make sure he doesn't ever get his time wasted by idiot bosses or managers.
- gowld 4y agoPrefer to avoid verbing nouns.
- 0xbadc0de5 4y agoI learned (fortunately) early that loaning money to friends and family is a recipe for disappointment / conflict. I never loan money anymore. I will, however, gift money when I feel it is worthwhile (this is also a good litmus test). That way I cannot be disappointed when it is not paid back, only satisfied that I've seen it go to a cause I was comfortable giving to.
- dimitar 4y agoI was a technically a loan shark at school, in my early teens. So I had a fairly small allowance which I mostly saved. Other kids were spending their afternoons at the malls shopping, buying cigarettes and eating fast food. So the richer kids eventually had their allowances lowered by their parents because of some sort of misbehavior, and it turned out this wasn't very effective as they started asking around to borrow money to keep up their habits. So I gave small sums of money and since I was a very distrustful teenager I had the following terms - if you don't pay me back by Friday I'm gonna round up the sum or increase it to some other arbitrary point. Usually what happened is they would obnoxiously blow me off, but I would get a concession about increasing the interest further. I didn't want to argue over small sums so I just increased them, giving them a way out of the impasse In a few weeks the debt would simply balloon and I would start to get angry by the way they were treating me. I learned that I wouldn't get my money by cornering them alone someplace and they would make up credible payment arrangements as soon as possible. I ended up collecting everything with several hundred percent of profit. I learned later that interest rates are calculated yearly and these terms were absolutely insane. Even though the profits were big the sums were in fact quite small for the trouble, so I just stopped lending out the next year and honestly my market was saturated by then. My clients probably learned much more than me. At a later time in my life I read 'Poor Economics' and worked with fintechs in an IT capacity. What my teenage self was practicing was fairly common in poor developing countries with next payday or next week loans financing many lively hoods. I have also never taken a loan, and I'm not planning to.
- agumonkey 4y agoIt's psychologically and socially so interesting. We often want the benefits without knowing how to repay, manage or handle things. Also you know that in the catholic middle ages, high lending rate was immoral, it was a big topic at the time (and apparently lead to some foreign groups to become the loan guys as an escape hatch in harsh times).
- WalterBright 4y ago> and I'm not planning to If you run a business, it becomes a necessity. The problem is that expenses like payroll have to be paid immediately, while accounts receivable are erratic. The choice is to keep a large amount of cash in a checking account earning 0 interest, or have a revolving line of credit at the bank. Having the credit is cheaper than having large amounts of cash sitting idle as a buffer. In fact, buffer is the right word. If you're a programmer, you use buffers to compensate for the mismatch between input and output.
- rootos 4y agoBack in the late 90's I had a friend who wanted to open a high-end Italian furniture shop. Dude knew nothing about furniture or retailing. He said "you can afford it so you should lend it to me". I knew the money would never be paid back, and the friendship would be over. So I kept the money, as the friendship would be lost either way.
- andrewstuart 4y agoPerhaps if a friend asks to borrow a substantial amount of money, depending on the circumstances, you could say something like: "listen, how about I guarantee a bank loan for you of that amount, then you get the money you need but there's no scope for it to lessen our friendship"
- jrochkind1 4y agoI've tried to stop loaning money to friends, but replace by up'ing my giving of money to friends, to the extent I can/want to afford it. Generally, someone asking for a non-trivial loan is in a really bad place; your loan may likely not be enough for them to get out of it, for whatever reasons they need money now, it's probably not that unlikely they're going to be unable to pay back the money when they optimistically thought they would, the loan probably isn't going to change their life circumstances as much as they hoped. If that happens, are you willing to let it destroy your friendship? If yes, then why are you loaning them money in the first place, you apparently don't trust them enough or value their friendship enough to give them a personal loan, at least not of the size you gave them, a size which if not paid back would hurt you a lot. And if you wouldn't end the friendship if they didn't pay it back... why not just make it a gift instead of a loan? Maybe for less than they asked, for what you can actually afford to not see back without being resentful -- because that's what you'd be risking with a loan anyway. I learned this the hard way. Loans will ruin friendships. I sometimes say no, sometimes say yes, but almost always make the 'yes' a gift not a loan. Pay it forward, pay it back to me however you think appropriate with voluntary favors or helping me when I need it myself, but not expecting you to pay it back monetarily at a certain date.
- penguin_booze 4y agoI seem to remember a proverb, something to the effect of, "if you lend money to a friend, be prepared to lose either or both of them".
- dudeinhawaii 4y agoThe vast differences in lending experiences in my youth (18) led to me using it as a measure of a person's integrity and perhaps how I view them overall -- for better or worse. I lent one friend money to help pay for a video card and he paid me back exactly on time when he said he would. I respect him to this day. I lent another friend money to pay for some car parts and he did the whole dodging, partial payment, and then forgetfulness thing. I ended up giving up trying to get payment but wrote him off and never had a meaningful interaction with him again. In some ways its crappy, judging an adult by something in their youth but I've yet to find a case where someone's character changes appreciably in this regard. You're either responsible and pay your debts or you're not.
- stcroixx 4y agoI've never loaned any money in my adult life, not even been asked, nor have I asked for a loan from anywhere besides a bank. Surprised to hear people are doing this with all the obvious potential problems.
- curiousgal 4y ago> Surprised to hear people are doing this with all the obvious potential problems. Surprised to hear people think everyone out there have similar life circumstances to themselves.
- elzbardico 4y agoLoaning money for whoever asked when he started making money is something that definitely matches my personal image of Mr. Carmack. And this is a good snapshot of the hacker ethos in the 80’s.
- screye 4y agoThis post and the comments remind me of this old mocking tweet [1] equating techy rationalists to quokka > The quokka is a meme animal that lives on Bald Island on the SW coast of Australia, where it has no natural predators. If you visit this island, it will fearlessly walk up and try to hug you..........The quokka, like the rationalist, is a creature marked by profound innocence. The quokka can't imagine you might eat it, and the rationalist can't imagine you might deceive him. As long they stay on their islands, they survive, but both species have problems if a human shows up. Among my peers, a contractless intangible favor weighs far heavier than one signed on paper with a $$-sign associated with it. That I'd offer/accept such a favor from someone not in my close group of 'people who would uproot their lives for me' is unthinkable. It is a double edged sword. Good faith and high trust societies allow for frictionless societies, but only because betraying that trust has very high social (and sometimes legal) costs. But at some-point, if it is truly no-strings-attached, you're just naïve & gullible. You're letting yourself be taken advantage of, and your naivete is actively working towards the future destruction of the high trust society. ________ People should stop trying to be selfless. It is possible to convince/delude your conscious into believing that you are being selfless. But enough unreciprocated favors make you jaded in the subconscious. It is an unhealthy festering that goes on, until a person finds values that sit well with both the conscious and the subconscious. Invest in people (monetarily or as a relationship) directly. That way, if things go south, you can blame your intuition for picking (human) stocks, rather than resenting the person who failed despite their best efforts. Ask for reciprocation in intangibles (look after my kids, teach me a skill, be my emotional shoulder, let me crash anytime) they can easily give. That way, you are almost paying for a service more so than giving an unprotected loan. My experience comes from living in joint-family style Asian relationships. They go above and beyond for members of the family who are struggling, but never properly communicate the nature of the unspoken interest that this help entails. So the helped person ends up in a situation where they don't know if they can ever say 'No' to those who helped them at a rough time. It also means that if the helped person isn't reciprocating in (the unspoken) kind, then they get slandered as being selfish, while simultaneously not knowing what is expected from them in the first place. Don't make your friends read your mind. Sign a contract (socially or legally) make the stakes clear to everyone. Life is a lot easier that way. Paradoxically, Being aware of the transactional nature of relationships, helps structure transactions where favors don't impose an unseen burden on the counterpart in the relationship. In a weird way, being more selfish, is the best way to be selfless. [1] https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1276138147521400833 https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1276138147521400833 (Ignore the rest of the tweet, it goes off the rails pretty fast)
- Fatnino 4y agoWhen we first moved to the US, my dad gave a stack of cash from our previous country to a friend who was going to change it into dollars. You already know how that went. Some 20 odd years later the guy crawls back out of the woodwork. He had a guilty conscience and wanted to do the currency exchange finally. _At the exchange rate of 20 years later than was originally agreed apon_. Dad told him to donate the now trifling sum of dollars to whatever charity he wanted, and that he's still going to hell for screwing over an immigrant family.
- SergeAx 4y agoAnecdotal confirmation: a friend of mine recently paid back the money she took from company's founder. He was genuinely astonishes, because she was the only one who did this out of tens similar debtors.
- nunez 4y agoI've personally felt much better about giving people money with no strings attached than trying to do it as a loan. I did the latter twice, and it caused a huge rift.