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The fact that money and wealth (and apparently housing) are a “game” is rather depressing, but to some extent it’s always been that way. At least it seems like
by Xcelerate 4y ago
The fact that money and wealth (and apparently housing) are a “game” is rather depressing, but to some extent it’s always been that way. At least it seems like we are (maybe?) moving in the direction of addressing the problem via political efforts to reduce financial volatility and wealth inequality.
As the article mentions, money nihilism quickly gives way to other forms of nihilism when that other thing is less abstract than a number in a database. I permanently injured the cartilage in both knees at age 20 and a disc in my lower back in my mid 20s. Not enough to be crippling, but sufficiently so that I’m unable to run anymore and constantly have a sort of low-grade chronic background pain that I know is never going away short of some miracle in the glacial state of cartilage research.
Well, I was watching one of those videos about billionaire excess on YouTube, and there is a section of the video where the camera pans over the massive and luxurious deck of the yacht. The very first thought that popped into my head was “That deck chair looks like it would make my back extremely uncomfortable. I’d have to angle the way I sit on that chair.” Then it dawned on me that my upside to happiness in life is totally capped, and not even being a billionaire would make much difference at all in my day-to-day contentedness because I would still have just as much knee and back pain as I currently do.
So I guess the takeaway is that as I watch my investments go up or down by 30-50% from one year to the next, it doesn’t make much of a difference to me when I know that my quality of life has a definite, unfavorably low upper bound, no matter how high my “wealth” becomes.
- short_sells_poo 4y agoI don't know you, and know nothing of your plight with back and knee pain. Please don't take this as trying to trivialize what must be a very difficult condition. That being said, it's really amazing what can be done with your body that minimizes stress on the parts that are injured. You might be able to do yoga and strengthen your stomach and back muscles to take loading off your spine. Running will always be difficult if you have injured your knees, but cycling might still be an option. Will this fix the core issue and make the pain go away? Not at all. Particularly the knees; there's no getting around them when trying to walk. However, they might allow you to build strength in muscles that might compensate a little for the issues you have.
- darkerside 4y agoHow old are you now? Have you tried PRP injections?
- badpun 4y agoAs a billionaire, you could inject billions into research on your specific condition and have reasonable expectation that something will come out of it within your lifetime.
- WJW 4y agoCan you though? It's not as if (say) cancer or Alzheimer don't already receive billions in funding but a definitive cure seems as far away as ever. Not all problems can be solved with money, and even those that can be solved with money sometimes need a lot more than billions.
- badpun 4y agoCancer is way better than it was 50 years ago. It used to be mostly a death sentence, now many people live decades after diagnosis.
- floxy 4y ago"U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34357895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34357895