this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Yet he still leads a life the absolute majority of people can even imagine. Not that most people would want such things as it’s grotesque to me that people would want more than they can use.
I guess I’m in the minority but I could not care less about money, sure it would be nice to have a more comfortable safety net, but anything above that is just useless.
I think we should value experiences and doing what you enjoy. After a certain point a bank balance is akin to a high score on a game, meaningless except to the person checking where they rank.
Feel the same dude. You may not be in the minority....
We just live in a culture that constantly tries to convince us that people's worth and dignity is tied to their bank accounts. If someone is a billionaire "they must the smartest and hardest working", if someone is homeless "they are lazy and don't even deserve to live".
I believe this is changing because now even average people can speak openly to the whole world and see what many others contribute, rather than only consuming what big media companies owned by wealthy executives push through mass media.
When you start to look at power structures all sorts of dark stuff falls out. This “culture of expectations for billionaires and the lazies” serves a particular group and it didn’t just happen to develop that way.
We have record profits but just not enough for raises. Now get back in the office and quit complaining about the not inflation definitely not happening everywhere anymore.
You sound like someone who has money. Those who are starving and freezing don't have the choice
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Not a comparison. Just those with money have the luxury of saying they don't want money. Yet if you ever asked an actual person without money they would be very happy to have that luxury.
You have a roof over your head food in your belly. You don't have the risk of freezing to death and you probably can read and write. These are luxuries for most of human history and a lot of the world population.
You are a dev. One of the luckiest humans in the world. Most would give their left nut to work 20 hours a week and survive.
It's not a comment on you just perspective
I dont know about that, I've been broke, living on the streets before in my life, with no food. Life sucked, yet ar the same time; I still hate money. Like he said, sure having a safety net would be awesome, but beyond that just being able to explore and enjoy life is really all that kept me going. I guess maybe it's just a simple life kind of outlook?
Then i rescind my previous comment. Anyone who's been broke on the streets has more weight in this discussion. You win
Gatekeeping discussions on poverty. Cool.
👍
If you offered me hundreds of billions of dollars, whatever Mollusk is worth these days, or any obscene amount of money, I wouldn’t take it if I had to wake up every morning and look in the mirror to see a quivering sack of worthless, toxic shit like him starting back at me.
That said, I would actually probably take it and immediately stop being a sleazy, classless, vile heap of rotting offal like he is, and start a foundation that could single-handedly make the world a profoundly better place. But that’s because I’m not a fucking psychopathic bigoted asshole polyp.
I would do the same but I do feel, this isn’t defending them, that money seems to change people. Particularly if you build it gradually, you just become accustomed to slight changes.
As another example I have noticed. Look at the unbelievable stuff people have done like Harvey Weinstein, Musk, Trump etc.
I don’t believe people start out that insane or weird, it’s gradual. You’re a little strange but usually your peers keep your ego in check. Now if you happen to be powerful or rich, then the first strange thing you do is minor, they agree to go along and gradually the craziness escalates.
This is indeed true, but I suspect that most people who achieve that kind of wealth started out as psychopaths. Maybe you were a decent person until you had enough money to exploit the socioeconomic order, but odds are you got that much money because you’re not a decent person.
Yes I believe a good portion are psychopaths or misguided in that they think they’re doing a greater good and they’re better suited to choose how to (or not) distribute that wealth. Like Bill Gates, dude did some terrible shit, then some good shit, but still he had the ego to keep going and building wealth because he thinks he knows best.
The sad thing is you could reset tomorrow and this or similar will always happen again, as like you say, there very nature is what leads them to the top as most people are not like that.
I find It fascinating even though I know very little about psychology.
I think what you may be overlooking or undervaluing is the fact that once you have all the money, there’s only one thing left to do: try and whitewash your legacy. You can’t take it with you, but you can get a hospital wing named after you, even if you put a significant proportion of its patients there.
It’s like prestiging in real life. It’s disgusting but it tracks.