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I really do not understand how people talk about "Being rich / being a billionaire will make you fundamentally unhappy". Damn if I had all the money I have so m

I really do not understand how people talk about "Being rich / being a billionaire will make you fundamentally unhappy". Damn if I had all the money I have so many good-willed projects I want to throw money at!

epolanski 4mo ago
Yet most wealthy people don't act like that. The wealthiest man on the planet looks to be quite miserable, insecure and bitter most of the time.
Daishiman 4mo ago
Because the most vocal rich people in this age seem to have an unusual lack of empathy and just being able to enjoy themselves.
- InsideOutSanta 4mo ago
  Yeah, I think people have the correlation backward. I suspect that driven people are more likely to get rich and less likely to be happy, so there seem to be a lot of angry rich dudes. Meanwhile, people who get rich by accident often seem able to improve their own lives and those of others with their money. The recent article about the founder of Craigslist comes to mind.
  - toomuchtodo 4mo ago
    Nailed it.
  - yard2010 4mo ago
    I wonder what is better, for people, for society, having many rich angry people or having many poor angry people?
    - InsideOutSanta 4mo ago
      How about let's aim for neither ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - SoftTalker 4mo ago
    People who get rich by accident (e.g. lottery winners) typically spend it all and end up back where they started. Money is hard to hold on to for people who are unsophisticated about money. Predators and grifters come out of the woodwork to take a lot of it, and the rest gets frittered away on trinkets.
    - InsideOutSanta 4mo ago
      So they did improve the lives of the people around them.
IshKebab 4mo ago
Yeah I feel the same about people who say they wouldn't know what to do when they retire. I have so many projects! I guess we are just different...
darren0 4mo ago
It will not make you unhappy. It will just not make you happy. Big difference. The saying "money can't buy happiness" is in fact true no matter how much people want to rationalize the opposite.
- Herbstluft 4mo ago
  What that always leaves out, however, is that no/little money can very much cause a lot of unhappiness.
  - bluGill 4mo ago
    The amount of money to get over that hump is small. Many people in poverty are happy. If you are at the very bottom with not enough to eat and such money can buy happiness, but you can be below the poverty line and still be about as happy as everyone.
    - SoftTalker 4mo ago
      This is a lie that people with money tell themselves to make themselves feel better about not giving away more of their money (ironically, proving themselves correct). There's certainly a point of diminishing returns, and I'd even agree that it is a cliff. Once you have a decent place to live, and your day-to-day worries about paying the bills are covered, and unexpected emergencies do not threaten your ability to get to work, keep your job, and pay your rent, then for most people more money has a diminishing impact on happiness. But that amount of money is quite a bit more than the poverty line.
      - ff317 4mo ago
        Quite a bit indeed. Forbes ran an article a few months ago claiming that a family of four with two incomes needs to be earning a combined $400K to be able to reasonably afford the paid child care needed for both parents to be working.
    - bryanlarsen 4mo ago
genxy 4mo ago
The kinds of people that become billionaires are not those who are happy, the hole in their sole is why they are billionaires in the first place. Yes there are exceptions, just like with everything. You should probably have a billion dollars, you would do great things. But you probably shouldn't become a billionaire to get there. Being rich doesn't make one unhappy, but getting there does. That relentless grind changes a person, much like the ring. I echo the sentiment in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48630565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48630565
thomascountz 4mo ago
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy less unhappiness. There's diminishing returns, of course, but I'd hazard it looks a bit like ln(n), in that the returns are quite significant in the beginning.
- tsunamifury 4mo ago
  And the remaining unhappinesses can end up in starker relief, as you continuously try to remove all unhappinesses from your life to nearly impossible and sometimes distorted degrees. The problem isn’t that money doesn’t buy happiness, it’s that it can remove your ability to endure the necessary amounts of unhappiness in life.
- the_mitsuhiko 4mo ago
  Money can very much buy happiness. Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money. How much money you need to accomplish that depends though.
  - Mond_ 4mo ago
    > Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy less unhappiness > Money can very much buy happiness. Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money Was it too hard to read beyond the first comma?
  - cortesoft 4mo ago
    The person you are replying to agrees that money can get rid of things that cause unhappiness. The point is that removing unhappiness is only part of what creates happiness, and money can’t buy the other part.
  - sph 4mo ago
    > Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money Nonsense. Most of the things that can be remedied with money are not the truly painful things of life either. Will money save you from heartache? From the pain of losing a loved one? From being lonely? From having no respect from your peers? From losing your health to incurable cancer? At that point, all money can do for one is make them even more pathetic.
sph 4mo ago
[dead]
jmull 4mo ago
Being rich doesn’t make you unhappy. But spending your life pursuing an unsatisfiable goal (because the goal is “more”) probably isn’t good for your happiness. Not to mention, there are very satisfying ways to contribute to things you think are important that don’t necessarily involve a lot of money.
microtonal 4mo ago
Damn if I had all the money I have so many good-willed projects I want to throw money at! I think this is quite defeatist thinking. A thousand people who donate $400 is also $400k and is well within the realm of most people here. A lot of non-profits also want the thousand people that donate $400, because $400 yearly from thousand people is much more robust long-term funding. Recently a well-known Dutch journalist, who started an organization to critically follow big tag (and take them to court when necessary), raised 1.3 million Euro. Most of it is from people like you and me, who can chip in 10 Euro monthly. It's reliable, because most people just have a recurring donation set up. Not to detract from mitchellh's pledge, because ideally you get both types of donations.
- civet_java 4mo ago
  I think the point that above commentor was making is that mitchellh is likely more than a 1000 times as rich as most commentors here and that being able to out-influence over a 1000 people can be quite personally satisfying.
- trollbridge 4mo ago
  We're working on a subscription model (well, membership - it's nonprofit) that is in the $3 - $5 range per month per member (or annually for $30 - $50). The main reason for this is simply so members will feel buy-in and will be willing to participate more and sit on advisory committees and so forth, although the extra cash can be useful, but it's not the primary focus.

epolanski 4mo ago

Yet most wealthy people don't act like that. The wealthiest man on the planet looks to be quite miserable, insecure and bitter most of the time.

Daishiman 4mo ago

Because the most vocal rich people in this age seem to have an unusual lack of empathy and just being able to enjoy themselves.

InsideOutSanta 4mo ago
Yeah, I think people have the correlation backward. I suspect that driven people are more likely to get rich and less likely to be happy, so there seem to be a lot of angry rich dudes. Meanwhile, people who get rich by accident often seem able to improve their own lives and those of others with their money. The recent article about the founder of Craigslist comes to mind.
- toomuchtodo 4mo ago
  Nailed it.
- yard2010 4mo ago
  I wonder what is better, for people, for society, having many rich angry people or having many poor angry people?
  - InsideOutSanta 4mo ago
    How about let's aim for neither ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- SoftTalker 4mo ago
  People who get rich by accident (e.g. lottery winners) typically spend it all and end up back where they started. Money is hard to hold on to for people who are unsophisticated about money. Predators and grifters come out of the woodwork to take a lot of it, and the rest gets frittered away on trinkets.
  - InsideOutSanta 4mo ago
    So they did improve the lives of the people around them.

IshKebab 4mo ago

Yeah I feel the same about people who say they wouldn't know what to do when they retire. I have so many projects! I guess we are just different...

darren0 4mo ago

It will not make you unhappy. It will just not make you happy. Big difference. The saying "money can't buy happiness" is in fact true no matter how much people want to rationalize the opposite.

Herbstluft 4mo ago
What that always leaves out, however, is that no/little money can very much cause a lot of unhappiness.
- bluGill 4mo ago
  The amount of money to get over that hump is small. Many people in poverty are happy. If you are at the very bottom with not enough to eat and such money can buy happiness, but you can be below the poverty line and still be about as happy as everyone.
  - SoftTalker 4mo ago
    This is a lie that people with money tell themselves to make themselves feel better about not giving away more of their money (ironically, proving themselves correct). There's certainly a point of diminishing returns, and I'd even agree that it is a cliff. Once you have a decent place to live, and your day-to-day worries about paying the bills are covered, and unexpected emergencies do not threaten your ability to get to work, keep your job, and pay your rent, then for most people more money has a diminishing impact on happiness. But that amount of money is quite a bit more than the poverty line.
    - ff317 4mo ago
      Quite a bit indeed. Forbes ran an article a few months ago claiming that a family of four with two incomes needs to be earning a combined $400K to be able to reasonably afford the paid child care needed for both parents to be working.
  - bryanlarsen 4mo ago

genxy 4mo ago

The kinds of people that become billionaires are not those who are happy, the hole in their sole is why they are billionaires in the first place. Yes there are exceptions, just like with everything. You should probably have a billion dollars, you would do great things. But you probably shouldn't become a billionaire to get there. Being rich doesn't make one unhappy, but getting there does. That relentless grind changes a person, much like the ring. I echo the sentiment in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48630565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48630565

thomascountz 4mo ago

Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy less unhappiness. There's diminishing returns, of course, but I'd hazard it looks a bit like ln(n), in that the returns are quite significant in the beginning.

tsunamifury 4mo ago
And the remaining unhappinesses can end up in starker relief, as you continuously try to remove all unhappinesses from your life to nearly impossible and sometimes distorted degrees. The problem isn’t that money doesn’t buy happiness, it’s that it can remove your ability to endure the necessary amounts of unhappiness in life.
the_mitsuhiko 4mo ago
Money can very much buy happiness. Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money. How much money you need to accomplish that depends though.
- Mond_ 4mo ago
  > Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy less unhappiness > Money can very much buy happiness. Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money Was it too hard to read beyond the first comma?
- cortesoft 4mo ago
  The person you are replying to agrees that money can get rid of things that cause unhappiness. The point is that removing unhappiness is only part of what creates happiness, and money can’t buy the other part.
- sph 4mo ago
  > Most of the things that make you unhappy can be remedied with money Nonsense. Most of the things that can be remedied with money are not the truly painful things of life either. Will money save you from heartache? From the pain of losing a loved one? From being lonely? From having no respect from your peers? From losing your health to incurable cancer? At that point, all money can do for one is make them even more pathetic.

sph 4mo ago

[dead]

jmull 4mo ago

Being rich doesn’t make you unhappy. But spending your life pursuing an unsatisfiable goal (because the goal is “more”) probably isn’t good for your happiness. Not to mention, there are very satisfying ways to contribute to things you think are important that don’t necessarily involve a lot of money.

microtonal 4mo ago

Damn if I had all the money I have so many good-willed projects I want to throw money at! I think this is quite defeatist thinking. A thousand people who donate $400 is also $400k and is well within the realm of most people here. A lot of non-profits also want the thousand people that donate $400, because $400 yearly from thousand people is much more robust long-term funding. Recently a well-known Dutch journalist, who started an organization to critically follow big tag (and take them to court when necessary), raised 1.3 million Euro. Most of it is from people like you and me, who can chip in 10 Euro monthly. It's reliable, because most people just have a recurring donation set up. Not to detract from mitchellh's pledge, because ideally you get both types of donations.

civet_java 4mo ago
I think the point that above commentor was making is that mitchellh is likely more than a 1000 times as rich as most commentors here and that being able to out-influence over a 1000 people can be quite personally satisfying.
trollbridge 4mo ago
We're working on a subscription model (well, membership - it's nonprofit) that is in the $3 - $5 range per month per member (or annually for $30 - $50). The main reason for this is simply so members will feel buy-in and will be willing to participate more and sit on advisory committees and so forth, although the extra cash can be useful, but it's not the primary focus.