
Ask HN: What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? - bokonist
If you had a guaranteed, lifetime stream of steady income - say $100k a year, inflation adjusted - what would you do with your life?  Would you still work?  On what?  Spend all day hacking on projects you loved? Do a startup?  What kind of startup?  Write a novel?  Read on the beach?<p>Related questions have been asked on YC, but I don't think this one has, and I'm quite curious to find out what people will say.<p>Here are some things I might do:<p>1)  create a series of educational games to teach math and science, based on the idea that math is actually additively fun to learn if you do it right ( example: sudoku).<p>2)  Do another startup ( not sure exactly what the field would be, probably something software or web related )<p>3)  Do research work in robotics, computer vision or AI.<p>4)  Start a political party based on the idea that instead of changing specific politicians we need to alter the constitution to change the incentives by which our leaders make decisions.<p>5)  Write books about history and/or economics<p>6)  Start a city<p>How about you?
======
plinkplonk
Phil Greenspun says

"Ask a wage slave what he'd like to accomplish. Chances are the response will
be something like "I'd start every day at the gym and work out for two hours
until I was as buff as Brad Pitt. Then I'd practice the piano for three hours.
I'd become fluent in Mandarin so that I could be prepared to understand the
largest transformation of our time. I'd really learn how to handle a polo
pony. I'd learn to fly a helicopter. I'd finish the screenplay that I've been
writing and direct a production of it in HDTV."

Why hasn't he accomplished all of those things? "Because I'm chained to this
desk 50 hours per week at this horrible
[insurance|programming|government|administrative|whatever] job.

So he has no doubt that he would get all these things done if he didn't have
to work? "Absolutely none. If I didn't have the job, I would be out there
living the dream."

Suppose that the guy cashes in his investments and does retire. What do we
find? He is waking up at 9:30 am, surfing the Web, sorting out the cable TV
bill, watching DVDs, talking about going to the gym, eating Doritos, and maybe
accomplishing one of his stated goals. "

:-D

Source: <http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/>

~~~
qaexl
True. The kind of things you want to accomplish if the money problem is solved
should be things you are already working on; solving the money problem should
just make accomplishing it faster.

------
fgimenez
Noble Causes:

-Be a high school teacher for math and computer science (a la lockhart's lament)

-Start some form of programmers without borders to see how tech can help those in 3rd world nations

-Write as much free medical software as possible (I.E. PACS servers and dicom viewers for MRI's. OsiriX already does this for mac, but nobody has even come close for windows or linux)

Eccentric Causes:

-Put a paintball turret on a golf cart, have a mad max style race with buddies

-Build a rocket with an autonomous guiding system. Seriously, fricken rockets with computer vision on their heads.

-Write stock picking software based on my own random math theories like Ed Thorpe did (Which was very well recounted in "Fortune's Formula)

-Surf more. I already get about a day a week, but I'd like to up it to 4.

-Related to surfing, tap into publicly available weather data to write software to predict swell sizes. FFT here I come!

-Build a poker server with an API for bots. Pit humans against AI.

A billion more things to put here...

[Edit for weird markdown formatting]

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nazgulnarsil
I would run an experiment to figure out how long it would take me to get tired
of sleeping with gold digging models.

~~~
mroman
Me too, and I would do it in a non-industrialized country (South
America/Eastern Europe) which would save me money, and possible lawsuits/BS.

;)

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Ibiza :)

~~~
mroman
Good choice mate, and allow me to add Argentina, The Czech Republic, and
Poland.

------
kaens
1\. Buy a warehouse, convert it into living / productivity space, a large room
for any one "type" of productive activity (read: making stuff).

2\. Contact everyone I know who is passionate about whatever it is they do,
and inform them that they can live here, as long as they're productive and
clean up after themselves, etc. Focus on people I know who are into green
technology, and people that are just generally awesome.

3\. Spend the rest of my life learning, implementing, and creating awesome
stuff with other people doing the same. I personally would be making music,
implementing an mmo where the npcs learned from their surroundings and the
actions of past npcs, and were controllable by a human at the individual and
group level, learning and working with electronics - making effects pedals and
similar, and researching and implementing ways to use technology to improve
the average humans existence without totally raping nature.

3.1 Try to set up more places like that.

EDIT: I wrote out a bit of an extrapolation on this idea, you can see it here:
[http://kaens.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-i-would-do-if-i-
had-1...](http://kaens.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-i-would-do-if-i-had-100k-per-
year.html) if you're interested.

~~~
AndyKelley
Awesome, can I live in your warehouse when you get it built?

~~~
kaens
Probably. I'm sure we'd (you, me, and other people living at the space)
probably want to meet you first though.

------
comatose_kid
Randomly visit message boards posing rhetorical questions.

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wheels
Working on hard stuff is in my bones, but it'd be nice at times to be able to
live in a la-la land where monetization was completely irrelevant.

If I, say, "solved the money problem" in the sense that Paul usually uses the
term, i.e. had a few million piled up, I'd probably get a small team together
to rethink the way that music composition on computers is done. Start with a
lot of research and interviews about how composers actually build up a piece
and just build the best system for expressing musical ideas. I'd like to get
around to that someday. It'd be cool being able to ignore the fact that it's a
small, poor customer base. ;-)

The fact that computer interfaces are still designed to mimic tape recorders
or wire cabling is a embarrassing.

~~~
bokonist
That'd be cool. One music related pie-in-the-sky project I would like do would
be to create software that could in real time give my voice the timbre of a
rock star. I'd change a setting and switch from Axl Rose voice, to Bono, to
Robin Wilson.

~~~
wheels
Well, the thing there is that you'd have to re-synthesize the voices, wave-
shaping wouldn't be enough, so what you'd basically want is a vocoder. The
problem, of course, is that synthesis of human voices isn't advanced enough to
handle those kind of dynamics, so the problem where you'd end up focusing is
on voice synthesis.

~~~
menloparkbum
There is a research group at Cambridge (Oxford??) that is working on a problem
like this.

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robg
Quite honestly, the most freeing moment in my life was when I realized I had
already "solved the money problem". That is, I knew I could be happy and could
survive doing exactly what I was doing. Every decision since then has been an
effort to do more of what I most liked doing (and conversely less of what I
didn't). The only problem now is how to find time to do it all.

------
qaexl
(1) Practice martial arts 4hrs a day, and travel around the world preserving
some lineages that are disappearing this generation.

(1a) I want to meet some Khampas

(1b) I want to meet some of my teacher's teachers in Taiwan.

(1n) ad nauseum

(2) Set up a lab where I can play and build AI models, specifically relating
to OpenCyc and neural networks, using Google news as training data then feed
it people's RSS feeds and blog posts. Run the whole thing on the cloud and see
what else I need to get it to start messing with people.

(3) Collect a huge library and read. Lots. Both non-fiction and fiction.

(3a) Get to the point where I can consistently beat the top Go software and
can hold my own near the top kyu rankings. Then go back and read through
history books with the skills I acquired from playing Go. Figure out if people
make different strategic decisions based on whether they played Go or played
chess. Maybe write a book about it.

(3b) Study all of Joseph Campbell's work, and identify the top active, modern
myths operating on modern social psyche, both overt and hidden. Distill it and
write something similar to Neal Stephenson's Primer (from Diamond Age).

(3c) Write a series of short stories in English using themes from classic
wuxia theater (martial art fantasy stuff, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
and embed in there how to survive high school with your sanity intact. Then
slip it out in the wild.

(4) Write a mobile MMO.

(5) Learn Ancient Chinese, maybe take a crack at Sanskrit. Dig up some old
stuff and figure them out.

------
tc7
Wake up earlyish, work in a small garden office with the windows open and the
crisp fall air streaming in, break for lunch on patio with my wife, read a
book, go on a walk in the countryside.

I dunno. I think I'd like it, though.

I'd still work on things, but I feel like the pressure would be released, so I
could work on indie adventure games and not have a nagging conscience telling
me to do something that will make money. I do want to write my novel. And
create a board game. And a stop-motion animated film. And take up painting and
drawing. And travel a lot.

Wow. In the meantime, I'll pack up here at the cube and head home. Then I'll
come back Monday and do it again. Yayyyyy.

------
yters
Start a big family and be the best parent I could, and not give my kids a dime
unless they earn it.

------
thingsilearned
I'm going to move to Argentina and build a sailboat. Its been my goal for 3
years.

~~~
andreyf
Have you started?

------
mwerty
Work on riskier ideas with bigger payoffs (financial or otherwise).

------
yan
Why aren't you doing some of those things during your free time right now? You
certainly don't need money to create a series of games or research robotics in
your free time. If you're not doing it now, what makes you think you'll do it
if you are relieved of the job obligation?

I find that flaw with myself: come up with reasons why I'm not doing what I
_really_ want to be doing. I'm trying to overcome the friction of day dreaming
and start actually _doing something_.

These thought exercises are cute, but in the end, counter-productive.

~~~
bokonist
I am doing some of these things now. The reason I asked this question is
actually somewhat related to #6...

------
sutro
You're going to start a city with $100K a year? You must have mad city-
building skills.

~~~
andyking
Hey, it worked on SimCity!

~~~
bokonist
I did indeed play too much SimCity as a youth :-) Perhaps I will share my plan
for starting a city in a future post. I'd like to find out if the HN community
thinks it could work.

~~~
songism
I have a habit of overestimating the capabilities of modern technology, but I
really don't understand why more of the underlying processes of our
civilization aren't automated (e.g. food production, food transportation, food
preparation, human transportation).

Maybe the problem is history. Maybe, if we were given the chance to start over
and plan a brand new city from the ground up, we could eliminate a lot of
unnecessary elements that currently occupy a lot of our time and energy.

Would it be possible -- with our current technology -- to build a giant,
_self-sustaining_ field of photovoltaic modules? Thousands of automated
machines and robots could maintain and repair this system. Massive amounts of
free power could effectively fuel a developing city.

And if our basic needs were taken care of, we could each start to focus on
what matters to us, instead of what merely ensures our survival. I think it's
about time for us humans, collectively, to move past worrying about having
enough money for food and a place to live.

~~~
bokonist
I think you're overestimating technology. Robotics is still incredibly
primitive. There is ongoing work in automated driving ( see DARPA's grand
challenge and Willow Garage) and automated cooks ( see Anybots), but all of
these efforts are in the very early stages.

Even with car companies, I think I read somewhere that Toyota uses much less
robotics than GM, and that's a reason why Toyota is more successful. GM bought
to much into the robotics, over invested, and it ended up costing more and
hurting quality. As for solar, it's still very expensive in terms of resources
to build panels.

~~~
kaens
Automated driving doesn't seem like it would be very hard if you had the
ability to do whatever you wanted to the roads / cars on the road. Of course
we're not in a situation anywhere near that ideal.

I share the opinion that a lot of things that should be automated are not. For
instance - fast food. If fast food places are going to exist, I do not think
that they should be part of what some people have to do to keep a roof over
their (and their kids) heads, and food in their stomachs. They are repetitive,
soul-sucking jobs that don't require a human.

The reasons for why our society is how it is are complex. I'd say that the
reasons that we still have people working fast food jobs for a living are
mainly the economic and power structures that we have in place right now.

I mean, on the idealistic side of things, if everyone suddenly realized just
how silly our organizational / economics / power structures are, and what we
can currently accomplish with technology - and what we'd be able to accomplish
if we were devoting most of our resources to making the world a better place
for humans (and hopefully all its other residents) and not on economic pissing
matches.

We could colonize space - probably within my lifetime - if we wanted to, etc.

~~~
songism
We should form a secret society or whatever ;)

Question. Why did we (human beings) spend so many resources and so much effort
developing the LHC when it seems obvious that a comparable amount of effort
and resources could have _dramatically_ improved our way of life?

I mean, if people didn't _have_ to work for a living, wouldn't we see like a
ten-fold increase in people pursuing the arts and sciences?

Btw, I've thought the same thing about fast food chains for a while.

One of my dreams is to create a completely automated restaurant. Touchscreen
menus embedded into each table. Food is prepared in the basement and rises up
through the center of each table. The only thing actual humans would have to
is feed the machines unprepared food :)

It's slogan could be:

 _Reliably tasty food_

or

 _The same exact food made my the same machines every day_

~~~
kaens
_Question. Why did we (human beings) spend so many resources and so much
effort developing the LHC when it seems obvious that a comparable amount of
effort and resources could have dramatically improved our way of life?_

That's a complicated question, the stuff of long-winded conversation. I'd say
that it boils down to (very overgeneralized here) _we_ didn't, a certain set
of people did - who happened to be able to get the funding needed to undertake
a pretty amazing thing.

Sometimes I think I just read too much Asimov as a kid, I think that there's a
pretty big under-use of technology for the purposes of making everyone's life
better. When I think about the reasons for that, my head starts to boggle
after a while. I do think that another large reason for the state of things
right now is that our _ability_ to do really, really awesome things for
humankind has only recently become very apparent.

If you ever open your resturant, I'd recommend using both slogans. "The exact
food made by the same machines every day" in fine-print, or something.

------
mpk
1) I'd spend a year writing a web-app to teach mathematics and physics, open-
source it, run it on my own servers and lobby to have it used in high-school
education.

2) I'd put more time into promoting awareness of Humanism and showing people
that morality isn't restricted to the belief that an omniscient police agent
is judging your every move.

3) I'd try to get NATO to play nice with Russia and after that get China on
board as well. A USA/Russian/EU/Chinese block should be strong enough to stop
nuclear threats and have the added bonus of getting us to Mars faster.

4) Having brokered world-peace and ensured continuity for all mankind, I'd
chill out, read Ceasar's De Bello Gallico in Latin, master Bach's violin
pieces at solist concert level, learn Russian and Mandarin Chinese, polish my
French and grow awesome grapes for delicious wine.

------
tptacek
Get a good night's sleep.

------
lux
Well, I've got one album recorded and another written (need to rehearse with a
band again to record this one), so I'd get back into pursuing a music career.
My lawyer actually made me promise my next "startup" would be my music, so I
guess I have to now...

I'd read a LOT more (classics and non-fiction mainly), get back into Muay Thai
(planning on starting again this fall anyhow, money permitting), donate some
volunteer _time_ instead of just money, and travel. I'm interested in studying
chess too.

After all that, I'd most likely start another company. What else _could_ I do?
;) In reality, I love the challenge of starting companies, and there's nothing
like going from zero to success to prove to yourself you can (even if I had a
safety net next time!).

~~~
lux
I'd consider going into teaching too, if for nothing else than to try to be
different and make a difference (Alan Bloom or John Gatto style maybe :).

------
bps4484
I'd teach. Math, science, or computer science to high school aged students. I
really think teaching is fun and fulfilling, you just don't get paid well at
all. I'd also read a lot.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
i agree with this. recently I've been thinking about what to do when i retire.
I know i'll get bored eventually. I think returning to school and getting a
teaching degree and then working part time as a teacher would be fun and
rewarding without too much stress. Ideally teaching math/science at a
community college.

~~~
kleneway
I don't know - I tried teaching for a year thinking the same thing, and while
it was rewarding, it was way stressful.

------
tdavis
I'd do the same thing with my life that I'm doing with it now. I'd just like
to do it in a slightly more modern apartment that doesn't contain a futon.
That's about it.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
$100k/year isn't that much. I barely get by on that, so I'd first have to sell
the farm and move farther out to find a place that would be affordable at
$40k/year. Easy to do if I don't have to limit my commute distance which is
the main reason my current place costs so much (well, that and I didn't want
to buy a 100 year-old house).

Then: \- Raise money so I could do research in medical devices: barriers to
entry are all about money in this field. \- Start a company offering software
services to the medical device/pharma/healthcare industry \- Robotics research
with a focus on elder care or construction assistance \- Raise s few goats and
a pair of cows (already have horses and chickens) \- Farm software (already
looking at this on)

I'm in the medical industry and I'd love to start a business in this field if
I could afford to. At least with 100k/yr I'd have the _time_ to raise the
amount of money it would take.

------
iuguy
Spend every waking minute making my wonderful wife, who puts up with my stupid
hours, travelling away from home, stress, lack of organisation and everything
else that would turn mere mortals away ludicrously, deliriously, cartwheel-
turning happy.

------
froo
If personal money wasn't an issue, there are a couple things I would do I
guess.

\- I'd more than likely hack/work on projects that I thought would contribute
to society in a meaningful way rather than trying to do something for profit.

\- Spend more time doing the things I enjoy, perhaps take on a significant
hobby project that wasn't work related

\- I'd probably also help my mother out a little more too.

\- Maybe contribute a little of my time directly to community related
projects, like volunteer work in something I found meaningful.

Sounds kind of strange, but I guess overall I'd like to be able to give more
of myself to others and make much more of a positive impact in other's lives;
sounds kind of tree-huggerish I know.

------
simplegeek
Go back to school and finish my degree first. These days I really want to go
back to school despite I've a good job. More I work without a degree more I
realize I need to learn more. But then again I'm getting married soon. Ah,
well......

~~~
RobGR
Are you sure that going back to school, and finishing your degree, will
address the "I need to learn more" problem ?

You may need a degree to address a particular social issue, like not being
able to be promoted in a particular organization, but presumably you would not
have that need if you "solved the money problem".

What if you picked a particular topic and set out to self-study it, but
instead of the usual "buy a text book, read one chapter, and never follow up"
fail method, you found a small group of similarly interested people who agreed
to meet regularly to discuss and provide mutual encouragement, pursued it that
way ?

~~~
simplegeek
_you found a small group of similarly interested people who agreed to meet
regularly to discuss and provide mutual encouragement, pursued it that way ?_

Well, thought about that. Unfortunately, where I live it's not easy to find
like-minded people who are willing to meet regularly and provide mutual
encouragement. Moreover, one thing that I really miss about school is the
social life. I almost don't have any friends I can count on. I mean I've
friends but number is relatively lower than someone who went to school for
four years. Besides, for some reason I really miss the energy and atmosphere
of a school. But your point is taken, and for most of my life I've self-
studied and it worked well.

~~~
RobGR
When I suggested the group meeting thing, it was because the social aspect of
college is very desired. I think it is also not as good at today's
universities as we would wish. The students seem very perceptive to social
status, and a lot of energy seems to go into reassuring people about social
status, and preparing for job searches.

I would suspect it is easier to find a group of like-minded people than you
think. If you do this right, you will start with some subject and 5 or 6
interested people, maybe half of whom make it to the weekly meeting in a
coffee shop or somewhere. You will pick up a few more interested people who
happen to listen in to the group's discussions. Keep careful track of
eveyone's emails, and at some point pick a new subject and send an email
around to everyone, and see who shows up. This is can be done even in small,
out of the way, non-college towns.

It's kind of like running a "salon" in ancient Greece or 1700s Paris, or a
coffee shop in 1600s/1700s London. Someone has to keep track of the social
network, so that people who drift out of the meeting group are eventually
brought back in when a more interesting topic comes up.

You might occasionally pick a topic just to bring in more people. I think I
good one would be to read a chapter of Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle every
week, google / wikipedia every character so you know all the inside historical
jokes, and then meet and discuss.

On campus, the students are too busy to do the type of social interaction that
supposedly makes college valuable -- we think of getting tossed at random into
a roommate situation with someone from a different culture and social class,
meeting life long friends at random in the library and future business
partners in lab groups, etc. But a lot of the college social scene seems to be
devoted to making sure you don't accidently meet up with anyone of a different
social class, or at least assuring the parents that the student won't; clubs
are strongly tied to a student affairs bureaucracy and create positions like
secretary and treasurer for people to put on their resumes, as much as do
stuff; and the students are busier than those of us that work full time, and
have even fewer independent activities and hobbies.

------
kicker
#1 grabbed my attention. I'm doing it right now in my spare time. Email me at
be288@yahoo.com if you want to trade some ideas.

It'd be fun to talk about it with someone else with the same idea. Most people
I tell this to stare at me like I'm a purple cow.

------
viggity
two chicks at the same time

~~~
eru
One is stressful enough.

------
matthewking
Id sail around the world, and just enjoy life. The ultimate goal is always to
break free of the confines of modern life, and live life as it was intended.
Note: No that doesn't mean getting naked ;P

------
mistermann
I kinda thought I had it solved, I had a 1 million portfolio, which is more
than enough for me to survive on, as long as you pay attention to what happens
in the world economy and markets, since I knew everything we are now seeing
was coming, and was making 20%+ per year I though I had it all figured out.
Until I got server, -70% in 2 months. So my personal advice is, never think
you are too smart. If if you know you are correct, and you are in fact
correct, it doesn't mean you can't lose your shirt.

------
streblo
I'd do what I've always wanted to do: -Buy old houses and fix them up and put
them back on the market -Buy a few bars and small restaurants to manage -Write
short stories and maybe a novel with the hopes of getting them published -Once
famous, go back to my alma mater and teach a class on something I think I'm
good at

Of course, I plan on doing this anyway. Some of it might have to wait, the
market being what it may, but you have to stay optimistic.

------
rsayers
With nothing holding me down to a specific location I think I would travel
most of the time, "live" in a certain part of the world for a time before
moving on.

------
steveeq1
Easy, I'd travel the world with my laptop and write code on the road.
Hopefully code that would change the world.

~~~
laut
That's what I'm doing these days. The big changes haven't happened yet... but
hopefully it will come.

------
vaksel
$100K/yr is really not that much now. I mean if you think about it the only
difference between 50K and 100K is a slightly bigger house, a slightly better
car and a slightly better vacation. A lot of programmers make close to that
already

~~~
bokonist
My question was, if you could get that salary without working, what would you
spend your time doing?

~~~
vaksel
get another job, since that amount is not really enough

------
arthurk
The same things I'm doing now.

------
paraschopra
I hate wishful dreaming!

------
fallentimes
Whatever the fuck I wanted, which is the true beauty of it. :)

------
esja
I'd work for the political party you started in point 4.

------
known
If I were you, I'd start a political party.

------
ph0rque
I'd probably work on molecular nanotechnology... in my spare time, I'd try to
solve poverty.

------
maxklein
I'd be building robots. I've never wanted to do anything else.

------
pavelludiq
I have no idea. I only know that its not going to be boring.

------
Prrometheus
I'd work for the Seasteading Institute full-time.

------
nickfox
What ever you would do is what you should do.

------
andreyf
Build the GUI of the 21st century :)

------
jcapote
I'd open up PARC again.

------
3KWA
what I am doing now with a tad more surfing :P

------
tyler
Hack.

