Everyone was jealous of the next level up. I was making 300k and my high school hometown friends were like "holy cow, you're so lucky this is amazing, you have your own apartment" meanwhile I was annoyed I couldn't keep up financially with my trust fund boyfriend who had $3 million a year to piss away with random trips to Bermuda. My CFO was jealous of the Principal who could take netjets and didn't have to fly first class everywhere. The NetJets guy was jealous of the billionaire principal who had his own jet. That billionaire was jealous of the main money dude who had family money inherited from the crusades. They all fought with their wives over private school tuition and horses. Everyone drank, did tons of drugs, had dramatic affairs and fought like cats and dogs with their families.

I left finance and went into healthcare and realized I'm pretty damn happy living a simple life. I kept a $1500 belt I bought from Henry Bendels that's incredibly ugly as a reminder of dumb decisions and having too much money to piss away on stupid crap!

Read Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones Book by Greg Campbell. Reading that made me realize how our planet has finite resources and I just I wanted to cleave the my own consumption habits so stopped needless shopping for "fun" and started being a stubborn bastard about driving my 12 year old Hyundai into the ground. It's not much but it's my own private rebellion against the gaping maw of endless consumerism.

Worship your family, friends, love ones, health, music, doing things that make you feel alive, shared experiences and nature over shiny toys and stuff that just sits around collecting dust and looking pretty.

At the end of the day, we're all the same food for worms anyways no matter our net worth. Enjoy your friendships, realize they probably have their own internal struggles and problems they're dealing with and try to be there for them in whatever way you can!

Illuminati confirmed.

On a serious note, being born into wealth is a travesty of sorts. People who are tend to experience a reality that is far removed from that of the average person, and as such can't identify nor relate. They are robbed of a certain type of life. Yet, enormous wealth confers power that can be exercised over common people—despite such an upbringing rendering one ill-suited to exercise said power. It's a timeless problem, I suppose.

However, theres no political will, because those with money, can lobby better than those without.

Ironically America rejected the monarchy, and yet has replaced it with an oligarchy.

It's a timeless problem insofar that it dates back to ancient times while remaining unsolved today.

IMHO it is not right to try to make people that earn more than us the target to be sacked. I think it is a bad thing. It is not a matter of you have less or you have more . It is a matter of respecting people who make money legally or inherit it by the will of their own relatives or whatever. I do not think anyone should be entitled to put hands into that for any single reason whatsoever unless that money has been stolen or made in illicit ways. That is the only valid reason IMHO.

At the point where the concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny fraction of members of society becomes detrimental to the functioning of our society it is necessary to redistribute before society stops functioning.

How you feel about isn’t very important.

Your argumentation is incorrect.

By the way, what is equity? If you come spoil me because I make money, what kind of equity is that if you do it to me just because I make money? Equity would be to not spoil anyone. Trying to punish them on the basis that they make money (or that they make little, I do not care) is not equity. It is something else.

There is no other way. You are not going to get anything for free in that chain. Every step in the chain, from employing to get products to work to deliver your stuff are paid in one way or another.

When it is detrimental? Who decides that? I am against monopolies. Telling from offices all the others what to do or not when they are not harming anyone is also a monopoly. Governments are monopolies in many areas.

What makes you think that with fewer regulations there would be even more uneven wealth? I cannot reply to this, since it is just fiction, but fewer regulations means more services, which unfavors monopolies and drops prices for services. Making people more elligible for acces to those services as well.

Wealthy people get to choose which jurisdiction they submit themselves to. That's just how the world is.

We shouldn't have to wait for society to nearly break down in some catastrophic way before we try to make things better.

Some sort of society will continue to "function", but it is likely to be a worse society for everyone, even the ones nearer the top of the wealth curve as they will constantly be worried about being robbed etc.

In fact, I would say there is plenty of evidence that too much redistribution impoverishes societies and, on top of that intervention, there is always a layer of corruption, way more than in more free countries (free as in non-economic intervention to wealth).

I am saying this very naively without reflecting on the effects it would have on the economy, the inflationary forces and the overall corporate productivity. So I realize my view is mostly a romantic utopia, but nobody should be allowed to hoard billions, especially by inheritance.

There's probably a way to work around this by making it non-voting stock or something, but it's still an inherent dampener on growth, because there's no incentive to grow, and on RnD, because there's no concentration of capital. A silicon fab is worth billions; does your system imply that the only way to build one is to either arrange a consortium of 10,000 people or government funding? HN exists because of PayPal; should the PayPal money have been spent entirely on free services? How are you going to stop the black market[0]? What are the alternate routes to power in your society, and are they better than acquiring money?

You can envisage worlds where this does function, but there's a lot of work to put in regarding the specifics, and doing the work makes you realise their might be a lot of downsides.

[0] Around 80% of North Koreans' income was once acquired through the black market: https://web.archive.org/web/20110924095232/http://www.atimes...

That's how most large stuff gets built now. "a consortium of 10,000 people" is a corporation. There are lots of them on the NYSE etc.. Government funding also happens a lot.

Federal Tax rates in the USA when Intel was founded were 70%.

I get the gist od the argument, but to call it ownership is perverse. It’s like insurance companies and their ~$300 salvage fee they charge if you have an accident and the repair cost is greater than the ‘value’ of the vehicle. They argue if they pay you for the full value of your vehicle, they are in effect buying the vehicle from you. If you decide to keep the vehicle, they will attempt to claw ‘salvage value’ or the amount they get from a junk yard. So far I’m 1 for 1, arguing the vehicle has to be for sale for ownership to pass to another.

Another thing I find perverse is the expectation of continual year to year growth—-to infinity.

There won't be too many proceeds because people would simply stop working at that point. I'm far from being taxed at 100% (~50% marginal all in) and my motivation to increase my pay is already very low. I optimize for fewer hours worked at the same pay now.

Do you think that's because you're already making enough money to put you at or near the top tax bracket? Sounds like your lack of motivation is because you're already making enough and don't need more, not that the government might get an extra 8% out of you.

The math is pretty simple. Everyone has 24 hours in a day. I get paid X to work Y hours. My free time Z is 24-Y hours. It's not worth it to trade any more of my remaining Z hours just to have >50% immediately taken away. I don't get any more hours in a day by working more. Instead, I increase my hourly income (the accurate value of my labor) by cutting Y to 1/2 or 1/3 while still making X. I work less, have more free time, and government doesn't make more from my labor than I do. Easy. (Note: If I were to magically find a job that paid twice as much with the same crazy good work-life balance, I would of course take it regardless of marginal taxes. But such magic is hard to come by and not worth the risk at this point.)

Advanced version: on top of the marginal rate being 50%, I live in an expensive place where not only does it get taxed higher as if I'm uber rich, but I get to pay more for all of my expenses. It's like a double fuck you. Even less motivation. This stuff is real and anyone who's in my position has given it some thought even if it's not so formulaic, hence the outflow of people from CA to cheaper, less tax-y places.

This isn’t really a political point. I like living in California (for now) and wouldn’t move to either of the other states just for the savings. Not worth it.

2) Nothing wrong, just stating the facts.

Well, I started by saying that the only jobs were yacht captains and butlers (slight exaggeration) and was told that many of the jobs were things people on this message board had. So, yeah, that's what the topic is.

Amazon SWE: "richest man in the world" Jeff Bezos

Meta SWE: billionaire founder Mark Zuckerberg

Netflix SWE: billionaire Reed Hastings

Microsoft SWE: "richest man in the world" Bill Gates

Then we get into the "mere" hundreds of millions.

They created those jobs, and obviously they're very, very wealthy.

Start with your vote, kids: use something else, do not buy from them. It is what I would do, in fact, if I had that thinking.

I think you are pretty cruel to people that produce useful things for others. You are saying that people who offer something valuable for others should be mercilessly punished.

What you are saying is that people that contribute less than these people to society should be gifted with the effort of people that are useful to the society, making the wealthy (I mean licit wealth, of course, not criminal one) a means for others to live in better conditions.

Also, you are proposing to violate the principle of people being equal under the law. If I earn xyz, they spoil me, if I earn "too much". If I earn nothing and do not contribute in any meaningful way (even to sustain myself), then I am a blessed person that can get things for free.

Not a good arrangement to create wealth for others, if you ask me. Besides being terribly unfair.

-Anatole France

Turn it up to $100 million instead of $10. What you call unfair, is obscene, that outsized level of influence that one person should be able to have on society. The problem is the sheer amount of wealth so far beyond what a single person could use up in one life, while others languish and go hungry. Capitalism is merely a way of organizing society. The cruelty doesn't have to be the point. In order to incentivize the rich, we give them money. To incentivize the poor, we take more away. Who then go hungry. Is that the American dream? That I should be able to afford $1,500 bottles of champagne while my countrymen starve for not working hard enough?

If you are a worker you are exchanging comfortability for risk. You will make less, for sure. I am myself employed. But every month I get the bill. If you do not want that, risk your capital.

I wonder if it is so bad to work so hard for others, why don't more people build a business? There must be something we are not being honest about here, otherwise everyone would build one.

By the way, noone that makes their own wealth are to be blamed of the bad luck of others. I think we should help those people you mention. Those people starving. But voluntarily or offering them the chance to cooperate with the society. Unless they have some handicap, if they do not want to cooperate it is not me who is to be blamed. In that case, it would be them who are the person to look at for trying to live from others. And for that, it does not matter I can afford that champagne or not.

Besides that, the fact that people like that exist does not mean other people are poorer. I could open a website now and get rich and I would not be making anyone poorer, just making myself richer. And probably others, to operate the website itself.

What proceeds?

When I say "you pay for your own schooling through taxes" I'm saying that most countries have tax systems where citizens contribute according to their earnings / net-worth, a share of the costs of running all of the parts of society that aren't privately owned - or some approximation of this idea.

This means that if you're paying your taxes, the implication is that you're paying "your share" of running education for society and someone did that for you when you were a kid. Maybe you're paying for iPads in 2022 for other people's kids where you only had chalk, but some other schmucks also paid the doctors salary (unless you're in the US I guess? not sure how that works there) that delivered your birth and nobody expected you to hand over a dollar bill as a newborn to pay for yourself.

Pay-it-back vs. invest/pay-it-forward have quite different political implications, and the fact that society does and always has been in pay-it-forward mode gives lie to the earlier commenter's claim that subsidies are slow but fatal.

I'll re-write your proposal:

"Once a person reaches something like $10M net worth they start donating huge sums of money to the charities they have created and who has their family members on board. One of them fully restored and is doing the maintenance on an authentic Gulfstream aircraft from the beginning of the century! An other one has created a school for the (still minor so he can’t claim his $10M yet) heir and a fund to send one student (chosen by the family) to Harvard on a full ride should he be accepted".

Once government "takes" all of the capital "for the presumed good of society", government will very rapidly become the enemy. Corruption will grow and grow, and society will be in the position of a corrupt, all powerful government.

It does not work folks. Read history, don't relive it like a bunch of idiotic sheep

(If you're just talking about reducing it that's fine, but we already do that massively with the tax and transfer system, and I think you guys have estate taxes too.)

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/high-income-earners-tax-ra...

Taxes are so nominal, that the haircut is almost non-existent. Beyond theory, I’m very well aware as my close friend inherited a property portfolio, and is now set for life.

Unfortunately, most are not as lucky, and therefore we should not rely on the inheritance lottery to act as our social security.

We should not be entitled to steal the effort of others. Every person can do what they deem right with their things.

It is not a matter of how much. By that reasoning I could make legal hitting people, even if it is bad, as long as I do not kill anyone. Would that make hitting people better? I do not think so. The action is still hitting.

The same way, the action is still stealing wealth for whatever reasons. Not a right choice.

Resources are indeed finite, but value is not. The wealth of new ideas, figurative and literal, is practically infinite. Your statement sounds very much like the zero sum fallacy.

Also, by having more offer available, prices are dropped. That benefits everyone, making them automatically wealthier, since now services are at the reach of more people at a lower price.

I do not see the problem. At least, not so far.

Indiscriminate redistribution by force has a long history of failure and it makes places poorer, not wealthier.

Só, the choice is simple: you can pay more taxes now, or just hope that the masses won’t do a revolution and send you to the guillotine all the while you scream about your god given constitutional rights to property.

A civilized person would try to contribute to the society without promoting violence to steal other people efforts.

I saw it from my nephews recently. One was building a castle, like five floors high with some stuff. The younger kid comes and destroys it. His brother gets deeply annoyed and started to cry. Why? Because he spent time building it.

They are three and one years old. Do you think anyone taught them to get annoyed when the castle is destroyed? No, it is innate: what takes effort has a value for humans.

We did not have the level of wealth of today before, but every single human that puts time somewhere wants to be the ruler of that effort. That is innate I think. I saw it clearly with my nephew's reaction. Noone taught him that.

Looks like a good experiment to me.

Does your nephew now own the sand he used to build that castle? I would hope not, as I think we’d agree, many kids would suffer!

And likewise, many people believe so strongly in their ownership of money, that they don’t mind if others suffer.

I'm fine with you not paying taxes, as long as you leave my country and renounce your citizenship. After that, make whatever you want on a boat in the ocean or in Somalia. But no one who thinks taxes are theft ever does that, because they want all the benefits of society my taxes pay for.

I'm fine with you having to renounce your citizenship if your point is "taxes are theft" and you want to avoid them. If you wanna go your own way, fine. But then go your own way.

I am not claiming I should have roads and health care and all and that taxes are theft at the same time. I am saying that taxes are theft on the basis that noone asked me what to pay or not.

The proof that things are terribly managed, at least in my country (Spain), is that we have a 120% GDP debt.

We are making new-born be born with a debt. Is that the right thing to do? For me that is immoral, unless you are that kind of person that thinks that we do a default and done, which would mean you are not a person that has a word to be believed. So what are the alternatives?

I will give you some clues: Taiwan, Singapore, Cyprus (Greek part, of course), Estonia, Georgia, South Korea, Switzerland: and probably also many of the places you call a tax haven.

You can go to Somalia if you feel like.

In Spain if you earn 60,000 euros, which is not so much, in my area they tax you 47% from your salary + what your employer already paid to the social security. At the same rime they are raising the retirement age and do all kind of sh*t bc we have a Poncy system for retirement. Of course, politicians get max retirement after 8 years (for normal people it is 30 I recall). Some of them, like ex-presidents, have an income for the rest of their lives.

But hey, the money is to build roads and pay retirements and health care. Please someone explain to me this is not theft because I really do not get it.

The difference with a country like Singapore, with all its bad things (I lived there before, among other places) is that the level of corruption is lower, the taxing lower and the budget is managed seriously. Here... this is not even funny.

There are a lot of government policies I think should be criminal, but nobody suggests that my only options are accept the policy or completely denounce society.

I think that the large telecoms are built on theft from society and that copyright laws are too extensive. Should I leave society to go live on Sealand?

To use an analogy, you're saying "look, not every restaurant serves your favorite food, why do you call people hypocrites who go out to eat at those places" and I'm saying "the people I call hypocrites are the ones who claim it's a moral imperative to refuse to tip or even pay the check who insist on going out to eat"

I don't follow your restaurant analogy. Someone can recognize that tipping is harmful to the wait staff, but continue to tip knowing that to do otherwise would only hurt the wait staff and not the restaurant.

With a government imposition you must pay, noone asks you, and, on top of that, you do not use those services most of the time. But if you use them, why they do not ask you if you want? That is exactly how real life works... except for government impositions.

Or do you think you personally should be given a line-item veto to a $5 trillion federal budget? Cause that's unworkable both practically and morally.

Morally the right thing to do is to ask EACH person what budget they want to spend on what and have a BINDING contract on that.

When you buya house or sign a contract witha telco company you pay for what you were offered and you can claim any deviation for that. I do not accept it has to be different with a government.

Of course, I would not ask for using a road or health care. I buy an insurance, pay a toll for roads or whatever. And we would save money, at least in Spain, where taxes are abusive by all measures.

Good luck.

The duty of the governments is to kidnap and monopolize services on the basis that you owe them something because they provided you that, when, in fact, there are alternatives.

But even if they were useful on their own right, you could optionally pay or not in the taxes (that would not be taxes actually) and acquire or lose the right to use certain services.

Why they do not do that, and later accuse you of bad citizen wanting people to die, to not have education or that you cannot use roads? Because they are desperate to justify their own existence and by kidnapping these services they have their justification to exist.

I don't mean to be snarky, but putting it in more business terms. For some services the service provider offers several alternative plans, some have only a single one-size-fits-all plan

It is the cost to you living in society; a society which provides infrastructure such as roads, education, sanitation, and food. A society which provides customers and a marketplace to trade in.

The roller coaster of watching you add and edit this comment was truly an experience. Have a great day.

Of course that is robbery. Imagine they force you to eat in a certain restarant and you must eat there, because they decided so without asking. Now let us say the food should be 15 dollars and they charge you 45, without asking. This is what they do. It is totally, totally unfair.

Later they will come and tell you: hey, you can eat thanks to me! You owe me respect. When in fact, I could have gone find my own way and eat for 15. It is absurd. And robbery, of course. Noone asked me. That is illegal if you do it to someone.

It is as if a telco came and charge you a bill of 50 usd and you get mad and go and say: hey, I did not hire your services. And they reply: the contract is implicit. They would be in trouble.

And it’s not robbery if you’re getting something from it everyday, which you clearly are because you’re posting on the Internet and drinking clean water.

My point is to have control on what to pay or not. When not paying, of course, I have to pay it by myself. But noone is entitled to tell me how much and in which conditions unilaterally.

Governments and stated should NOT be an exception.

You're anti fire department?

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/steal

"to take something without the permission or knowledge of the owner and keep it"

As far as I know, they do not have my permission to get my wealth.

From RAE, in Spanish, robar:

"Quitar o tomar para sí con violencia o con fuerza lo ajeno." -> To extract or remove for oneself with violence or force other people's property (ajeno in this context refers to property in spanish)

So yes, it is an objective definition of what stealing is, because you pay under the threat of jail, not by mutual agreement, as you do when you purchase something.

https://dle.rae.es/robar

"

It seems quite likely to me that as soon as we started crafting and carrying things around, we developed complex behaviors around who gets which things.

If individuals wish to operate outside of limited liability, un-shielding all their assets to the consequences of their actions, then they can keep all their revenue/earnings.

I think it's BS that limited liability orgs commit acts that damage the environment and others, pay dividends to share holders, salaries (and bonuses) to officers and employees, and then go bankrupt when they are then being held to account for their actions and leaving little to nothing to their victims because there is no ability to claw back the money they paid out.

Quid pro quo. They get limited liability for being regulated. Don't like being regulated? Then forego limited liability.

If you want equality of opportunity, you need to fight furiously for complete free speech and complete freedom of trade. The change has to come from the individual bottom up.

IMHO by far the best "significant advantage" you can have is a shrewd, practical brain combined with low levels of blind arrogance and some kind of "people talent". In normal peacetime conditions, people like that tend to rise fast.

If those two facts constitute "significant advantages", then the obvious answer is "none of them", but that doesn't seem a productive place to draw the line.

But, I agree that one would likely need some technology to scale up the reciprocity system. Money and the free market is a reciprocity system of you squint at it.

(This has various exceptions, e.g. isolated places like Iceland. But there isn't any big and pacifist state out there.)

Agree but let’s not forget that money can give you wonderful experiences even if you are not materialistic, including the ability to not work anymore. Those are the people I am jealous of.

I have two takes on this.

The first is: I've met people who don't work. They're some of the most boring and wasteful people I've ever met.

Lying down on a beach, or watching tv 12 hours a day (random cliches), get boring after some time.

So one's going to look for something more meaningful and committed (in best case...), which brings to the second point: anything that's going to take a consistent share of one's like, inevitably becomes "work".

Morale of the story: there is no freedom from work. But there's the option to pursue the work one likes :)

True, "Freedom to pursue ones interests" is more accurate. Many on HN are blessed with some degree of interesting work, but 99% of the world is not and for them "Freedom to not work" is almost synonymous.

It's true people go in one of two directions though. I think this is easily revealed with a long enough holiday without plans, initially everyone does lazy mindless things (recovery), then people get bored and either go in search of ever more entertainment, or seek out ever more creative, explorative or intellectually stimulating activities. i.e making your own "work".

I haven't done them now because I don't want to spend my limited leisure time working, even if it's on something I want to create.

I retired for most of my twenties and early-thirties. It was all planned, and it ended up being one of the best decisions I have ever made, but it only created opportunity. Retirement doesn't change a person's interests or their motivation. When people receive a windfall of time, they tend to spend that time doing whatever it was they did prior, only more of it. If they watched TV in their free time, now they watch more TV. You get the idea.

My unsolicited advice: do it now.

I don't want to 'work'...doesn't mean I don't want to have the freedom to maybe 'work' if I want 60 hours per week on a side project..without worrying about paying clients.

I'm not lazy, per se. Easily distracted yes, (ADHD), but I want to build things that are important to me, and maybe others...not build things for other people anymore. If I had 500k, I'd buy land, build cheap homes, rent them out dirt cheap and work on building a worker co-op that builds software tools for unions, co-ops, etc and shared marketplaces (think like amazon/ebay) that gives money back to those who shop, sell, and work to build the platform.

Def. wouldn't go sit on a beach, have no desire to do that sort of thing. Might take the kids to Disneyland though.

I'm sure your new lifestyle is suitable for you and makes you happy. But I don't believe that's generalizable.

[1]: https://archive.ph/20210127035328/https://www.vice.com/en/ar...

Precisely this. Perhaps these friends continue to spend time with OP because they bring something enriching to their lives? I have some money and I don't look down on my friends who have less, but I also don't value it beyond being a tool. To me, money is a necessary evil and I'd rather do without. I value the richness of spirit in my friends.

Meanwhile, there's something condescending about talking to someone who is looking at being unable to accumulate enough wealth to do the things they want about how those things are meaningless.

"Spend time with your friends", she says.

OK, and then not be able to go out for drinks with your friends because you can't afford to eat out? Or because you're working a 12 hour shift because you need the overtime? Or studying trying to get marketable job skills?

This discussion is full of rich, self-righteous assholes lecturing about how being wealthy isn't that great for this or that reason...

Rich people don't have to worry about losing their job because their shitty 10 year old car is breaking down. They even can afford to buy cars that actually appreciate in value.

Rich people can afford accountants to help them dodge the hell out of taxes, while poor people make mistakes on their tax forms and get slammed with extra taxes and fees.

If someone rich loses their job, they likely have multiple kinds of savings, at least an emergency fund. What a novel concept- money you have just in case there's an emergency. They have plenty of people to network with and can find another job easily.

Rich people don't have to worry about getting bent over if they need a loan.

Rich people can buy durable housing, clothing, etc instead of shit that falls apart constantly.

Rich people can afford healthy food, and have the time and energy to cook for themselves or at least get nutritious take-out, etc.

I have slowly made a bunch of friends via an activity I'm able to do because of a family member. I was invited to an activity. That activity is going to cost $100+, not including the gas to get to/from the event. That is a sixth of my monthly budget. The guy organizing the event owns a "summer car" that costs $150,000.

But yeah, most expensive luxury cars rich people drive decrease in value, often by quite a lot.

There's a lot of burnt out healthcare workers for sure, it's a hard job but I would say it's always interesting, you're always learning, there's lots of diversity and ways to specialize your career path (I went into oncology research) and it truly is rewarding. Just keep your head up for flying projectiles at your face :P

Hope you're feeling better!

What happened next? Does a patient get tossed for that? Are criminal charges brought? Did you test for any STI?

Your perspective on life is fantastic. Cheers.

I pounded on the ambulance partition to my partner up front, hollered, "STOP THE GODDAMN RIG!!!!" while I grabbed a bottle of normal saline from the back, jumped out on the side of the highway and rinsed off my face like a crazy woman. The patient was like, "teehee, I'm a bad boy" and I took over driving and my male partner sat with him in the back.

We filled out an incident report form, I had some more thorough rinsing at the ER by submerging my face in cups and talked with the docs to find out you can't really fortunately get many STDs from that other than like... a stye. So I was all good although I think I got tested to be sure.

Patient got a big note in the FRONT of his chart and wasn't ever again attended by female staff.

I don't think charges were worth it to be filed for serial assaulters like that, a lot of people who live in long term care facilities are demented and have no assets so not sure exactly what they would do other than just transfer them around in the system or keep them drugged up/snowed so they don't assault people, I'm not sure. At that time I was only prehospital so we didn't get a lot of case followup on patients!

My mum is a nurse and so I’ve heard a lot of stories of this being common - as if being physically abused is a part of the job.

> I left finance and went into healthcare and realized I'm pretty damn happy living a simple life

If you made 300k per year before, how is that compatible with "living a simple life"? At that rate, with just a few years of working you can have saved up 1M in your bank account, which imho is nothing like 'living a simple life', even if you dont spend it.

I wonder how you maintain wealth across centuries.

I married into a wealthy family and I was not prepared for this. Its not easy keeping your head down.

If I could 'buy'(how ironic lol) your experience noted here I would, it seems like hard-engrained 'learned' knowledge that is hard to get through just reading.

https://www.sefaria.org.il/Pirkei_Avot.4.1?lang=bi

"who is rich? one who is happy with their lot"

It may sound like pat advice, but -- maybe you need to start looking for new friends.

The kind who wouldn't think twice coming over to your "shit rental" (which would probably be considered quite rich, not to mention safe and clean in much of the world). Just to hang out with you, watch a movie maybe, and share whatever kind of meal you're able to whip up on your gas stove.

Life is to short to be spent in situations of any kind where you feel uncomfortable in your skin. Even if it's not directly the fault of the people you currently hang out with.

But a good rule of thumb is: if you don't feel comfortable inviting these people to your home - or even telling them where (and in what circumstances) you live -- it's probably best to start moving on.

(And perhaps to other countries where the income distribution is far less skewed, and people are far less hung up on relative wealth and status as they are in the U.S. -- at least for a few years or so, to get over the current anxiety you're facing, and start to feel human again. But that's a side topic).

I think it's more complicated than that. I'm lucky enough at this point in my life to have enough money to afford a nice house and nice toys, and not worry much about money. I also have absolutely zero issue going to hang out with friends who have much less than me. I really don't care at all. Some of my happiest years were when I was younger and poor. I had just barely enough money to make ends meet most of the time, was living in a back room of a dirty little house with three other roommates, and I was living happy because I liked who I was with. I get that money and real worth are two very different things and enjoy people for who they are, not where they're at.

But sometimes I can clearly feel the awkwardness coming at me when I hang out with people who are significantly less well off than I am and they know it. I'm usually not sure how to handle it, and typically end up just not hanging out with them much. I sometimes also find similar situations hanging out with people who have a lot more than I do. With some people it works fine, with others I can tell by what they say and how they act that they're uncomfortable because of the difference.

This could be a sign of self-esteem issues (or other stuff; I'm not qualified enough to speculate) that will or already does diminish their quality of life and happiness.

And if they "get over" the wealth difference, your brain will find something else. Take it from someone who spent more than two thirds of his life "getting over things" inatead of addressing the root causes. But then again, you're not me or anyone else, you're you. Everyone has their own path, but I shared mine in case it helps you find/improve your own going forward.

FWIW, the initial boost of happiness derived from living in nice accomodations is shortlived, after a few weeks or a month you'll likely feel about the same as before you got the nicer digs.

Once I experienced and internalized this lesson, I was able to stop caring much about my house (just keep it clean and as comfy as possible) and instead focus on the amazing people in my life who genuinely care about connecting with me regardless of fancy house circumstance. In this way it's actually a highly effective filter facilitating minimization of superficial relationships.

That hasn't been my experience. When I found my current place I was ecstatic over it and ~3 years later, I still am just as much. I have no plans of moving out unless I move cities -- it hits the spot that much for me compared to all the previous places I've lived previously.

Is there any indication that these people don't want to come over to OPs "shit rental"?

This is good advice. However, I also think that you (the OP) also need to change your mindset.

For context on myself: I have lived most of my life in your situations like yours, until recently when I became wealthy enough to retire early.

As a kid, my family ate government assistance food. There were times when I had to look in the couch cushions for money to buy food.

For all of my life, I've known people who are very visibly wealthy. However, I was fortunate enough to learn early to hold wealth in mild disgust and also not make a big deal about it. I encourage you to develop this sort of attitude.

As randycupertino mentions above. Not only is the hedonistic treadmill is real, it's actually sort of pathetic. Many people who are rich become sort of helpless. Unable to do simple things like changing a car tire by themselves. Learn to be self sufficient and take pride in it.

The other thing to realized is that past a point money won't buy you happiness. And you are in control of where that point is.

Now, to add to what vanusa says above. You need new friends. I say this because one of my good friends is very wealthy, but I never once felt bad or envious about it. My friend's parents came from very humble backgrounds and they did a wonderful job at staying grounded and kind. This family didn't brag about money, they wouldn't enthuse whilst telling me of their good fortune.

Furthermore, I think it's very tacky and shallow to talk about wealth.

Personally, when I became wealthy, my spouse and I agreed to not tell anybody about our wealth. The only people who know the true value of our wealth are me, my spouse, our accountant, the IRS, and God.

Certainly, some people have their guesses, but there is no way for people to know the precise details. We still live in the same modest house, drive the same 10 year old car, wear the same clothes, etc.

A big reason why we haven't changed our lifestyle is because our friends and family are very important to us and we don't want what was honestly a lucky break to get in the way of those things.

To summarize:

- I've been in your shoes in the past

- You need better friends

- You also need to work on yourself and your mindset

The OP is not wealthy enough to develop that attitude. I think that is what wealthy people forget, money does indeed solve many problems.

Being poor introduces a number of problems, and if you are not actively there, you quickly forget what it is like. That's okay.

I believe that an economic class system exists for a reason. It is easy to interact with people one above or one below your class. Beyond that it becomes more difficult, and requires more energy. It is up to individuals to decide how they want to spend that energy. And the less money someone has, the more energy it takes to do things, and vice versa.

Among them being perpetually under (palpable, physical) stress, and pretty much always living under heavy cloud of self-doubt. And not just about why you haven't been promoted at FAANG yet, why you haven't gotten some insane payout like certain friends of yours, etc.

> haven't been promoted at FAANG yet

Is anyone at FAANG really poor, even if they haven't been promoted yet?

Like you, I had a really good and genuine relationship with those people, some were also looking up to me for career inspiration and advice (I am a senior technical leader with patents, great professional achievements, …). One IPO that put them in the $20m, out of complete luck (they were hired as simple individual contributors on “plain” projects) changed everything.

One time, after the IPO and a few quarters of the stock rising, I was told by one of them: “why do you work so hard rather than choosing a good pre IPO company and stay at the bottom and chill and retire in a couple years?”

No shit. That was the last straw. I cut all those people off my life because it was too painful to witness their change in lifestyle and attitude, and how they kept subtly rubbing it in my face at every social event, implying that their course of events was all part of a smart master plan, rather than 99% dumb luck.

I am sad for losing those connections and I have wonderful memories of the time together (vacations, “bro” trips, …), but overall I am happy about this choice, to me it’s as if the people they once were effectively died as the IPO happened.

I have done financially very well but it’s not comparable to their level, and the effort and sacrifices required from my side was easily 10X theirs. I know this should be obvious in adulthood, but life is not fair at all. I am also aware of how privileged my position is (for now), compared to the people dying of cancer in their 30s, so I don’t let it affect me too much.

There are two parts. One one's feelings --which one can control or perhaps at least control whether one is subject to the source of frustration. Jealousy can definitely be an issue if one finds oneself to be inadequate compared to where one could imagine oneself.

The other is the second party's attitude. And, to some extent, the second party should also more or less be themselves --that is, don't apologize for where you find yourself but also don't be completely oblivious and offend by not being aware of the situation. Have decent manners.

So, if the above are intractable, I would likely find another set of friends one is more comfortable being around. People can outgrow each other. It happens frequently.

Anyways after seeing how things shake up in my own life, I like to joke that I would rather be lucky than anything else.

Unless you're the richest person on Earth, there will always be someone with more money than you. Likewise, unless you're the poorest person on Earth, there will always be someone with less money than you.

So, if you find yourself between these two extremes, a change in viewpoint is the only thing that can get you out of this funk. I have several friends (no joke) who have become billionaires over the last few years. I've slipped into periods of jealousy, but it's taken some mulling to realize that I only want what I think they have. And what is that, exactly? More "stuff"? A bigger house? How are things going to really make me feel happy? Fact is, they won't, and they can't.

I can feed myself and my family. I am healthy (now, at least--for many years, I was not). I have shelter. I have friends who I care about and who care about me. If you have these things, you have wealth--or at least enough of it to be happy.

It also seems unnecessarily burdensome and superficial; when said people who you cut out face financial strain of their own, are they then “allowed” to be your friends again? Likewise, if you win the lottery, how would you react if all of your old friends stopped talking to you?

Sometimes the easier route is more appealing. But I am certainly not dismissing your point.

Instead, try to approach these feelings with an attitude of compassionate curiosity.

First, notice that there’s nothing wrong about having these feelings. It’d be wrong if you were mean to your friends because of their success. But you can have these feelings and not be mean to them. The feelings are not the problem.

Second, understand that there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re having these feelings for a reason. There's a casual chain of events that's making you feel this way. So, why are they happening?

The obvious -and wrong- answer is because your friends have money and you don’t. But surely there are plenty of people in the world that have less money than you, and still manage to be reasonably happy. And even your rich friends could compare themselves with even richer people and feel inadequate about how small their swimming pool or their yacht is. Are they feeling this way?

You can ask other more meaningful questions: why do you feel the need to compare yourself with your friends? Why do you feel that you need a ton of money to validate you and make you happy?

These are not easy questions to answer. They often touch deep wounds -otherwise we wouldn’t be so keen to avoid them. But approaching them with curiosity and compassion is the only way to find the root causes of what’s making you so miserable.

One tool they advise using is negative visualization. Take a minute right now and imagine how things could be worse. Your apartment could have a leak in the roof. You could have to share it with a roommate who steals from you. You could be living on the street.

This is not to say you have no problems. Not at all! But sitting with thoughts about how your life could be worse might help you be happier with your situation. You say you're "at the bottom with nothing". It's easy to think about your life only looking up and seeing how far you have to go; harder to look down and see how far you have come.

Additionally, imagine what the "stunning house" costs them! Not money, specifically, because they have it. But how much must they worry about being broken into. They have to deal with fixing everything that could go wrong, while you can call your landlord and have them fix it -- or even move out!

Be careful not to become too attached to things you can't control. If their expensive house burns down tomorrow, would they be too used to it to rent a smaller place? That's attachment that would make it harder to live.

I contrast this with how I grew up: with my brother, raised by a single mom who worked 2 or 3 jobs at a time, starved herself occasionally, and sometimes did illegal things (theft) to make ends meet. Among other...less savory experiences I had. My mom isn't around to see my good fortune. I would have loved dearly to buy her a house and take care of her so she could find peace in life she only found in death. Point is, I know what it's like to not be fabulously well off.

It isn't hard to keep my exuberance in check.

What I'm saying is: maybe being gracious has its limits. Perhaps your friends could use a dose of reality of what it's like to not be fabulously wealthy. I wish I had some idea of how that might be accomplished. Or perhaps you should find new friends. If your current friends might be offended by a reminder that their wealth and how they present their fortune has an emotional impact on those without it, then personally I don't know that I'd call them "good".

Jealousy, like every other emotion is part of being a human and the sooner you come into terms with that, the better it will be.

I think you are holding yourself to an unattainable moral standard. If spending time with your friends is unsettling for you, then it's time to move on. They may or may not be intentionally showing off their wealth but frankly that's irrelevant because the only thing that matters is your well being.

Further, I urge you to think about the word Relationship: it's RELATE+SHIP which is the process of continuously _relating_ to someone, so if you can no longer do that with your friends, your relationship is meaningless.

As for the question of wealth and happiness in general, my own view on this is that is varies from person to person. I personally like to have _some_ savings, own a property and be able to take a vacation once a year.

I opt in for optimizing my quality of life rather than wealth and this means finding avenues to work _less_ and focus on things that truly matter to me: spending time with my significant other and family members, exercising and sleeping well and eating good food.

I'm not going to respond to a last minute email or be "on call" and miss the opportunity of having sex with my fiance.

I sure as hell don't want to be the person who missed all those joyful moments because I was too busy chasing millions and building the next Facebook. What am I going to do with millions on my death bed?

Life is all about balance.

Because HN is full of rich know-it-alls, and those people have zero idea what it is like to live anywhere near the federal poverty line.

I've been living for years off less than $12k a year. Nobody in this thread has any idea what that is like save maybe OP.

I want them to know so they can make a conscious decision for themselves rather than unknowingly go down a path full of glass ceilings.

Edit: and a good influence pushing me into buying property a decade earlier certainly would have had massive effects on my life too.

Point is leverage your friends’ experience and influence, I’m sure they have a wealth of knowledge or can help you gain a step up (keyword: help, not give you a free ride). Others have said ‘don’t copy’ and I agree in some contexts, but my friends certainly have business gaps I can fill which are mutually beneficial.

I just keep quiet now since people don’t do things they’ve not “come up with” themselves

"You should have taken risk X rather than risk Y because X paid off" is not helpful advice.

Hindsight is 20/20, and different people have different safety buffers and values that will guide them to capital city vs satellite city.

Ah well, it’s probably good they didn’t follow my advice. if they make money they are geniuses, if they lose it’s my fault.

But you make a good point to learn from others' experience and to have more good and consistent influences. And I wish I had some and I had listened to some.

I suppose I'm on the opposite end of you, and I overcompensate by never inviting people to my house. I go to other people's houses, including and especially those with "shit rentals".

I find myself somewhat guilty of my own lavishness (even though really it's not that lavish).

I don't really have advice, other than to say that if they're your friends you should actually just tell them it makes you ashamed and see their response. You don't want their pity necessarily, but I think it's important that your friends know how you feel.

Talk about it so they can understand each other? You don't just drop the one-liner and hope they change their ways accordingly. Hell, they don't need to change at all. Just talking about it could cause OP to realize his friends don't care about that sort of thing and reduce or rid of their feeling of shame.

Some people can be okay not talking about how they feel; however, OP is clearly not currently okay, so doing something is the only way something will change. If OP cannot change their own feelings theirself, OP can either get different friends or try to talk to their current friends. And if you are willing to get different friends, you may as well try to talk to your current ones first.

> If you’re commenting on this thread and offering advice, I encourage you add the context of whether you are one of those who have money or not.

And since OP asked, I'm too young to have accumulated wealth to be jealous of, but I feel comfortable with my current job and am optimistic of my future.

It's not a sure-fire solution. Hard problems rarely have such a thing. But I'd bet on discussion performing better than no discussion is most scenarios. Even if it lead you to finding new friends.

"Woah bud, I'm sorry. Have I changed or is it just that I can spend more?"

Worst case scenario, you communicate. Best case scenario, you discover that you've become an asshole.

More practically speaking we could meet somewhere else where they could feel more comfortable. Isn't that the whole point of friendship?

It won't.

If they are happy, it's because they're internally happy. The riches are unrelated. I've met rich people who are very happy, and some who are alcoholics who can barely form a sentence.

    “We make ourselves miserable by first closing ourselves off from reality and then collecting this and that in an attempt to make ourselves happy by possessing happiness. But happiness is not something I have, it is something I myself want to be. Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over my body.” –Roger J. Corless (Not George Carlin)

Money is a means to obtain immense happiness. It is the medium one uses to secure housing, food, and the future ability to acquire the same without struggle. These are incredibly important things, and themselves sources of happiness.

The phrase "money doesn't make you happy" may be true--but it's misleading.

A lack of money means a lack of options, which can put a hard limit on happiness. The hedonistic treadmill exists for sure, but that's a better place to be than drowning.

People can talk all they want about how simply being with family makes them happy, but certainly being with family at Disneyland beats being with family in your cramped apartment where you're having to choose between paying rent or being able to eat more than ramen and ketchup sandwiches.

We are talking about riches here, not transitioning from poverty to an upper-middle class income. What you say is absolutely true, but only up to a point, because money has diminishing marginal returns to happiness.

Why? Because of everything you state: it is unpleasant to have to think about how you'll feed and house yourself. But it does not require riches (in western living context) to be able to stop worrying about that.

Where money stops driving happiness varies by person, and by regional cost of living, but the research we have available suggests that it's not an extraordinarily high amount. Maybe $90k or so for most people.

But if you're making $150k, will having $10m in the bank make your life dramatically happier? The evidence suggests that no, it will not. That's when money fails to buy happiness.

This is false. Let's look at at Brazil. The minimum wage is R$1212. According to DIEESE, the ideal minimum wage should be at least R$6000. This is a salary that would allow you not to worry about rent, food, recreation, education, transportation and overall a live a decent life.

If you are making R$6000, that puts you in the top 4% richest. Let that sink in, having a salary that allows you living with dignity means you're in the top 4%. Tell me again that riches are not required to live without worrying about food and housing.

Just for comparision, a senior software engineer in Brazil with 10+ years of experience is usually making something in between 8-15k/mo. That 15k/mo BRL salary is equivalent to 31k USD/year(assuming no taxes!).

I guess my point is that the USA does not fully represent the "western context", and people from first world countries usually have a very very skewed view on how life goes elsewhere.

I'm as poor as you (renting a small apartment and will never be able to afford a house) and I also have very rich friends. Seeing them does not make me sad. We keep doing the same thing we did as teenagers, drink beer, talk about ultra-nerd things, etc. I'm not particularly interested in their houses, and when they talk about big money I mock them mercilessly "what happened to you? your ass used to be beautiful!". It's great fun overall.

Some other friends of mine are in big trouble. Drugs, cancer, etc. Seeing them makes me really sad and depressed. Moreover, when I avoid seeing them for a few months I feel very guilty because they rarely initiate contact.

As they say luck is when opportunity meets preparedness. So make your own luck.

That is to say: taking advantage of their wealthy situation is a good way to lose your friendship.

I have a few richer friends and while I would never take advantage, we know that if the worst were to happen, we could turn to each other for help.

The purpose of the "money isn't everything" mantra is to engender a servant class to preserve the wealth of our rulers.

Most people here are talking about being rich vs just being normal.

Put another way, there’s a HUGE difference between not having enough and having enough. There’s almost no difference between having enough and having more than enough. You can play this out with anything: money, food, free time, etc

And this is new: in many cases someone from their parents' generation who got the same degree and the same job would be debt free, because college used to be much, much less expensive (even after accounting for inflation) than it is now.

Example: University of California (Berkeley or UCLA, etc). Currently about $12k a year tuition. 35-40 years ago is was zero, with a couple of hundred dollars in fees.