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Being poor does suck. However, being rich does not prevent your life from sucking. All the money in the world won't prevent you or a loved one from passing due

Being poor does suck. However, being rich does not prevent your life from sucking. All the money in the world won't prevent you or a loved one from passing due to an untreatable illness. All the money in the world won't buy you friends or genuine respect. It can't buy you love (though it can buy you sex). Furthermore, you don't need to be rich to avoid the hardship of being poor, you just have to make a sufficient amount to afford quality housing, food, health insurance, and minor luxuries.

selmnoo 12y ago
> It can't buy you love Not to be a smartass here, but that's probably false. Money buys you social recognition, something that is an important part of your mate valuation. Rich folks will generally have a better time finding 'love' than the poor. The richer you are, the better your chances, more or less. Money really is very important in the modern day. I wish it weren't this way -- I don't want to be doing selfish things, but sadly this just is the way it is.
- andrewflnr 12y ago
  Even you put 'love' in quotes :). We all know that money can buy social recognition. What's usually meant by "money can't buy love" is that the 'love' buyable with money is not really what you're looking for.
  - cgriswald 12y ago
    Money <em>can't</em> by love, and if it could, it would not be the kind of love anyone wants. But money does provide greater opportunities for finding love; although it is saddle with the burden of also having to separate out the women who "love" instead of love.
- cryptophile 12y ago
  It has always been like that. Women have never "fallen in love" with men who are not sufficiently socially successful. There is nothing new under the sun in that respect. But then again, "socially successful" is a very relative thing. You will find that women "fall in love" with you all the time in third-world countries, even if you are only on unemployment benefits back home where women may snub you over that. Furthermore, the appearance of success is probably much more important to women than any real success. The ability to pretend that they caught a fish who could have money, is often enough.
  - tluyben2 12y ago
    A guy who is (outwardly) self confident will get women (or guys for that matter) no matter what. Ugly, poor, anti-social, doesn't matter. Sure, if you want to have a large amount of one-night-stands with 'just 18s' in clubs expensive clothes and a fat wallet help next to that confidence, but we were talking about love here.
- mtdewcmu 12y ago
  Unfortunately, despite not being rich, the poor don't have a monopoly on love. The way reality works is that, if you're able to make yourself rich, something obviously must be working out for you in your life. That thing that helped you get rich also tends to help you get love, and other things. If you're poor, your life plainly isn't working out too well, so you probably won't have success at love, either. There's something called the Matthew Effect that isn't too well known, but it has a wikipedia page. Basically, things just get more unfair over time.
  - slavik81 12y ago
    For the curious, this is the Matthew Effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect
    - mtdewcmu 12y ago
      I think this effect is underrated and explains a lot, for instance all the statistical correlations between good things and other good things, and, on the flip side, bad things and other bad things. For instance, why being a smoker correlates with an increased risk of having a back injury (I heard that). Or how not having a college degree increases your risk of early death from all causes. I don't know if the Matthew Effect itself has an adequate explanation, but it ties together a lot of results that otherwise seem to suggest bizarre causal relationships between unrelated things. They're all spurious correlations and the predictable consequence of the Matthew Effect.
- abalashov 12y ago
  Agreed. However, in a day and age where (in the Western world, anyway) women no longer need men overtly for financial support, social recognition as mating currency is just that--social recognition. It can be, and very often is, orthogonal to wealth. Witness all the young women in love with crappy DJs, self-styled pseudo-unemployed hipsters, no-name sidewalk band heroes, stoners, and a variety of Bohemians that a conservative dad would call losers or starving artists--er, artistes. Financial and career success is definitely one way to up your mate value, though it has more resonance once women get out of their twenties. It's not the only way. When you're young, particularly, it may not even be the best way. Vide all the fairly intelligent guys with steady, well-paying jobs (very much so, by the standards of median American household income) that nobody pays attention to, really. The broke dudes that know how to put out their plumage and leverage some other, more conspicuous cultural archetype get much more play. I'm not a washed-up, embittered MRA or PUA guy, btw. Just playing Devil's Advocate. :-)
  - Retric 12y ago
    There are far more women than well off men. The real issue for most men is time. A 20 something working 60 hour weeks spends far less time 'playing the game' than a DJ etc. Also, relationships take time if your doing a start-up 'on the side' it's going to play hell with most relationships.
chrismonsanto 12y ago
I was poor, and now I'm moderately well off. You are really underselling how much it sucks to be poor. > All the money in the world won't prevent you or a loved one from passing due to an untreatable illness. Death of a family member is much more likely to happen if you are poor. Too bad you can't afford that unreasonably expensive surgery. > All the money in the world won't buy you friends or genuine respect. This is such a first world concern. Boo hoo. Also, yes, money does buy friends. When my family went bankrupt most of our friends turned their backs on us. This is a common occurrence. Ask a homeless person what happened to their "friends" when push came to shove. > It can't buy you love (though it can buy you sex). Not being poor is more important than finding love. If you want love, have some kids, and love them. > Furthermore, you don't need to be rich to avoid the hardship of being poor, you just have to make a sufficient amount to afford quality housing, food, health insurance, and minor luxuries. Please do not underestimate how hard it is for those who are actually poor to "make a sufficient amount." This seems like a good enough time as any to point out that there are like six empty houses for every homeless person in America. Or, in techie terms, "you thought domain squatting was bad..."
- thenomad 12y ago
  "Death of a family member is much more likely to happen if you are poor. Too bad you can't afford that unreasonably expensive surgery." This applies in the US, rather less so in many other countries. (UK resident here.)
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Even with free healthcare there is a gap between lifespan for rich and poor people in the UK. Rich people tend to make better use of healthcare and know what questions to ask. Here's some newspaper articles giving some confusingly different numbers. Poor people die sooner, and also live longer with a disability (17 years) http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/10/equality-poverty-health-society http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/10/equality-pove... Ditto, 20 years http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10699077/Rich-will-live-life-to-the-full-20-years-longer-than-poor-official-figures-show.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10699077/Rich-will-... Life expectancy gap for London is 25 years and growing http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-25-year-gap-between-the-life-expectancy-of-rich-and-poor-londoners-is-a-further-indictment-of-our-unequal-society-9061888.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-25-year-gap-be... Life expectancy differences between rich and poor getting better http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-25-year-gap-between-the-life-expectancy-of-rich-and-poor-londoners-is-a-further-indictment-of-our-unequal-society-9061888.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-25-year-gap-be...
nostrademons 12y ago
I've sometimes heard this put as "Money can't buy happiness...but it helps!"

selmnoo 12y ago

> It can't buy you love Not to be a smartass here, but that's probably false. Money buys you social recognition, something that is an important part of your mate valuation. Rich folks will generally have a better time finding 'love' than the poor. The richer you are, the better your chances, more or less. Money really is very important in the modern day. I wish it weren't this way -- I don't want to be doing selfish things, but sadly this just is the way it is.

andrewflnr 12y ago
Even you put 'love' in quotes :). We all know that money can buy social recognition. What's usually meant by "money can't buy love" is that the 'love' buyable with money is not really what you're looking for.
- cgriswald 12y ago
  Money <em>can't</em> by love, and if it could, it would not be the kind of love anyone wants. But money does provide greater opportunities for finding love; although it is saddle with the burden of also having to separate out the women who "love" instead of love.
cryptophile 12y ago
It has always been like that. Women have never "fallen in love" with men who are not sufficiently socially successful. There is nothing new under the sun in that respect. But then again, "socially successful" is a very relative thing. You will find that women "fall in love" with you all the time in third-world countries, even if you are only on unemployment benefits back home where women may snub you over that. Furthermore, the appearance of success is probably much more important to women than any real success. The ability to pretend that they caught a fish who could have money, is often enough.
- tluyben2 12y ago
  A guy who is (outwardly) self confident will get women (or guys for that matter) no matter what. Ugly, poor, anti-social, doesn't matter. Sure, if you want to have a large amount of one-night-stands with 'just 18s' in clubs expensive clothes and a fat wallet help next to that confidence, but we were talking about love here.
mtdewcmu 12y ago
Unfortunately, despite not being rich, the poor don't have a monopoly on love. The way reality works is that, if you're able to make yourself rich, something obviously must be working out for you in your life. That thing that helped you get rich also tends to help you get love, and other things. If you're poor, your life plainly isn't working out too well, so you probably won't have success at love, either. There's something called the Matthew Effect that isn't too well known, but it has a wikipedia page. Basically, things just get more unfair over time.
- slavik81 12y ago
  For the curious, this is the Matthew Effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect
  - mtdewcmu 12y ago
    I think this effect is underrated and explains a lot, for instance all the statistical correlations between good things and other good things, and, on the flip side, bad things and other bad things. For instance, why being a smoker correlates with an increased risk of having a back injury (I heard that). Or how not having a college degree increases your risk of early death from all causes. I don't know if the Matthew Effect itself has an adequate explanation, but it ties together a lot of results that otherwise seem to suggest bizarre causal relationships between unrelated things. They're all spurious correlations and the predictable consequence of the Matthew Effect.
abalashov 12y ago
Agreed. However, in a day and age where (in the Western world, anyway) women no longer need men overtly for financial support, social recognition as mating currency is just that--social recognition. It can be, and very often is, orthogonal to wealth. Witness all the young women in love with crappy DJs, self-styled pseudo-unemployed hipsters, no-name sidewalk band heroes, stoners, and a variety of Bohemians that a conservative dad would call losers or starving artists--er, artistes. Financial and career success is definitely one way to up your mate value, though it has more resonance once women get out of their twenties. It's not the only way. When you're young, particularly, it may not even be the best way. Vide all the fairly intelligent guys with steady, well-paying jobs (very much so, by the standards of median American household income) that nobody pays attention to, really. The broke dudes that know how to put out their plumage and leverage some other, more conspicuous cultural archetype get much more play. I'm not a washed-up, embittered MRA or PUA guy, btw. Just playing Devil's Advocate. :-)
- Retric 12y ago
  There are far more women than well off men. The real issue for most men is time. A 20 something working 60 hour weeks spends far less time 'playing the game' than a DJ etc. Also, relationships take time if your doing a start-up 'on the side' it's going to play hell with most relationships.

chrismonsanto 12y ago

I was poor, and now I'm moderately well off. You are really underselling how much it sucks to be poor. > All the money in the world won't prevent you or a loved one from passing due to an untreatable illness. Death of a family member is much more likely to happen if you are poor. Too bad you can't afford that unreasonably expensive surgery. > All the money in the world won't buy you friends or genuine respect. This is such a first world concern. Boo hoo. Also, yes, money does buy friends. When my family went bankrupt most of our friends turned their backs on us. This is a common occurrence. Ask a homeless person what happened to their "friends" when push came to shove. > It can't buy you love (though it can buy you sex). Not being poor is more important than finding love. If you want love, have some kids, and love them. > Furthermore, you don't need to be rich to avoid the hardship of being poor, you just have to make a sufficient amount to afford quality housing, food, health insurance, and minor luxuries. Please do not underestimate how hard it is for those who are actually poor to "make a sufficient amount." This seems like a good enough time as any to point out that there are like six empty houses for every homeless person in America. Or, in techie terms, "you thought domain squatting was bad..."

thenomad 12y ago
"Death of a family member is much more likely to happen if you are poor. Too bad you can't afford that unreasonably expensive surgery." This applies in the US, rather less so in many other countries. (UK resident here.)
- DanBC 12y ago
  Even with free healthcare there is a gap between lifespan for rich and poor people in the UK. Rich people tend to make better use of healthcare and know what questions to ask. Here's some newspaper articles giving some confusingly different numbers. Poor people die sooner, and also live longer with a disability (17 years) http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/10/equality-poverty-health-society http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/10/equality-pove... Ditto, 20 years http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10699077/Rich-will-live-life-to-the-full-20-years-longer-than-poor-official-figures-show.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10699077/Rich-will-... Life expectancy gap for London is 25 years and growing http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-25-year-gap-between-the-life-expectancy-of-rich-and-poor-londoners-is-a-further-indictment-of-our-unequal-society-9061888.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-25-year-gap-be... Life expectancy differences between rich and poor getting better http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-25-year-gap-between-the-life-expectancy-of-rich-and-poor-londoners-is-a-further-indictment-of-our-unequal-society-9061888.html http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/a-25-year-gap-be...

nostrademons 12y ago

I've sometimes heard this put as "Money can't buy happiness...but it helps!"