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Wow great post. You already touched on this but to reiterate after achieving a certain amount of wealth, freedom and comfort in life, I wonder whats the point

Wow great post. You already touched on this but to reiterate after achieving a certain amount of wealth, freedom and comfort in life, I wonder whats the point of exclusively striving for more. I can understand wanting to not be a slave to your mortgage, employer, etc etc (in fact it is something Im actively trying to do right now to dedicate myself to my own work) and generally wanting to better your life but after a certain point the marginal difference in lifestyle achieved by more wealth becomes negligible and possibly negative. I know this is going to sound like rainbows and unicorns but its hard for me to understand why the mega rich aren't all motivated to diligently invest a significant portion of their money and efforts into humanistic efforts. It seems like they understand money and investment in monetary terms but they fail miserably at understanding the non-materialistic and 'big picture' returns.

michaelochurch 15y ago
Five tiers of material aspiration: Necessities, Leisure, Comfort, Social Status, and Power. The sane place to "get off" is somewhere in the middle of the Comfort tier. Leisure is freedom-to (travel, be educated), Comfort is freedom-from (housework, annoyances), and Status is mostly about the ability to maintain maxed-out Comfort (about $2-3M per year, post-tax) without doing anything of value, i.e. being able to get all that just for being "special" (the narcissist's dream). Power is the ability to dick up and down peoples' Status on a whim, because a lot of people who've maxed out the other tiers get bored and need something to do. Of course, these tiers are fuzzy. Most of us would find business-class travel to be enough Comfort, but some people require a private jet. Also, people with severe psychological issues (which can manifest as greed, which is slightly more glamorous than crippling panic attacks, I guess) will never be comfortable, which is why they soar into the Status and Power tiers but are (internally speaking) still trying to achieve basic Comfort.
matwood 15y ago
I wonder whats the point of exclusively striving for more. Some people love the game and it's a way to keep score. It provides a rush, and seems to provide a high similar to drugs or gambling. Then there is the obvious power trips (probably secondary to the money at that point) that come along with continuing to win. And for some people it's simply all they know. If I suddenly became beyond wealthy tomorrow I imagine I would still program every day and continue to be interested in technology because it's what I do.

michaelochurch 15y ago

Five tiers of material aspiration: Necessities, Leisure, Comfort, Social Status, and Power. The sane place to "get off" is somewhere in the middle of the Comfort tier. Leisure is freedom-to (travel, be educated), Comfort is freedom-from (housework, annoyances), and Status is mostly about the ability to maintain maxed-out Comfort (about $2-3M per year, post-tax) without doing anything of value, i.e. being able to get all that just for being "special" (the narcissist's dream). Power is the ability to dick up and down peoples' Status on a whim, because a lot of people who've maxed out the other tiers get bored and need something to do. Of course, these tiers are fuzzy. Most of us would find business-class travel to be enough Comfort, but some people require a private jet. Also, people with severe psychological issues (which can manifest as greed, which is slightly more glamorous than crippling panic attacks, I guess) will never be comfortable, which is why they soar into the Status and Power tiers but are (internally speaking) still trying to achieve basic Comfort.

matwood 15y ago

I wonder whats the point of exclusively striving for more. Some people love the game and it's a way to keep score. It provides a rush, and seems to provide a high similar to drugs or gambling. Then there is the obvious power trips (probably secondary to the money at that point) that come along with continuing to win. And for some people it's simply all they know. If I suddenly became beyond wealthy tomorrow I imagine I would still program every day and continue to be interested in technology because it's what I do.