
Your human-size life - gmays
http://scripting.com/2016/05/31/1296.html
======
greggman
Sorry but I don't agree with this at all.

Okay, strike that. I agree with the idea that money isn't everything but ...
money is a huge enabler. I rented a 2 bedroom apartment even though I can only
sleep in one room. That other room? Friends from around the world visited and
stayed there all the time and I got to spend far more time with them than if
they had had to stay at a hotel. Heck, they probably wouldn't have even
visited the area if they had to pay for a hotel.

If you're rich and doing nothing yea maybe you're bored and unhappy but
there's all kinds of things I would do with money that instead I can't because
someone else with money is "the decider".

It really depends on the amount of money. Most of the games I'd like to make
(I'm a game dev) would probably cost in the $7-$14 million price range.

I'd love to open a gamedev co-working space. No idea how much money that would
cost to run long enough to make it profitable but it's probably more than I
have. And heck, if I had the money I'd consider doing it even if it didn't
make a profit. If we're talking money to burn then I'd be happy to burn it.
I'd also love to pay someone to run it. To make sure it had lots of events and
activities.

Similarly I'd love to do giant digital art exhibitions. The kind that require
several hundred thousands in equipment (projection mapping projectors good
enough for large buildings are not cheap) on top of having to hire all the
people to organize those types of events. Yea, I could beg others to let me
but if I had the money I wouldn't have to ask I'd just do it.

And yes there would still be struggles. Even with money lots of things are
still real work. Still it would be nice not to have my options limited because
I know I still need to save for retirement.

~~~
ybird
> Sorry but I don't agree with this at all.

The fact that this is the highest voted comment on this post makes me lose all
faith in HN.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Might I ask why?

~~~
ybird
The assumption that the answer to everything lies in achieving your dreams and
ambitions through your possession and redirection of money.

Studies have shown that the ratio of overall happiness per dollar in salary
decreases after you hit a certain level, and it can be proven that the level
required for happiness decreases as the average income decreases as long as
the expectation/experience is not there to expect that income.

While I'm a capitalist in a first-world country, I'm not in denial about this.
We are overprivileged. We are the economic equivalent of obese people whose
gut flora has become unbalanced and they feel that they need to eat carbs all
of the time. We are lazy fuckers that expect investors to show up and fund our
big idea, and that if they do, we deserve it; because we don't give a shit
about the many others who are much more intelligent, creative, and able than
we are, but don't have the resources or support structure that we have are not
our problem. Well- fuck that. Wake up and realize that you don't deserve a
trophy for showing up. We're all lucky as shit to be here reading this. It's
not a blessing to be overprivileged- it's a challenge; you are torn between
trying to make your family/self happier and your duty, really, to take care of
others. If you fail that challenge, which many do, at the least you are
significantly lowering the potential of the planet. Do you not realize how
many lives you could be positively impacting by helping others who are less
fortunate? And at worst, you are further dividing the haves and the have nots-
which is a cause of war.

------
hoodoof
When I was quite young someone I knew said to me that they didn't want to be
famous, and didn't want lots of new things.

These ideas struck me profoundly and I realised that in fact I couldn't think
of anything worse than being famous. I realised that many many people in our
society want to be famous - I'd never questioned that as a worthwhile desire.

I'm not rich but I have given thought to what I would do if I suddenly became
extremely rich - would I want it to be broadly known, outside of my close
family? I don't think so.... I suspect people treat you differently when you
are rich and I don't want to be treated differently - I just want to be
ordinary.

I used to want to be CEO of my own company, great office, lots of employees
etc etc. Now I don't want even one employee, and I certainly don't want an
office.

------
20andup
"You can buy a big house, but you can only sleep in one bedroom at a time."

This might be the most down to earth thing I have heard in a while.

~~~
firasd
Bill Gates: It's the same hamburger
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZWql53Fsys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZWql53Fsys)

~~~
dennisgorelik
Silly comments there.

------
johansch
The problem with those of us who make money in the tech field is that it's
often pretty much binary.. all work pretty much all the time (and decent to
great money) or no work (living on savings). Add to this employer's resistance
to hire if you have you haven't been working lately... :/

~~~
mifreewil
Try contracting.

~~~
johansch
That is easy as an individual contributor but harder when what you do is
running engineering teams.

~~~
ljw1001
Then don't run engineering teams :) - assuming you can code. When I realized
most software companies treat engineers better than they do managers, I
switched. I actually can't recall a single employer who didn't treat the
engineers at least as well as the (non-executive) management. It's not a
panacea, but there is a more regular sense of achievement and less BS.

~~~
johansch
I think you may be on to something. Whenever I fall back to actual coding I do
feel happier...

Being a non-executive manager, as you imply, is often the shittiest of jobs.
:/

------
dade_
“The best things in life are free. The second best things are very, very
expensive.”

― Coco Chanel

~~~
nojvek
Haha nice one. Money enables you experiences. That's how I see it.

------
chasing
> In the early years of this blog I wrote a lot about the personal struggles
> of people who had attained financial independence only to find out that it
> revealed that money was not what was standing in the way of happiness.

Spoken like a rich person!

For the poor and working classes who live month-to-month -- which is a large
and growing chunk of Americans -- money (or the lack thereof) is a huge source
of stress, fear, and -- yes -- unhappiness. It probably also shortens your
life.

And probably means you're not even getting one seat at whatever MLB or NBA
game you'd like to go see. Might even mean you're not sure you're going to get
to keep that one single bedroom you'd like to sleep in.

~~~
joshuakcockrell
I agree. Money is a hygiene factor: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-
factor_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory)

There is a point where more money != more happiness, but "dissatisfaction
results from [it's] absence."

------
kinkdr
Money cannot bring happiness, but lack of money can certainly bring, and most
likely will bring, unhappiness.

~~~
enraged_camel
In the US, lack of money can also bring, literally, death. Healthcare is very
expensive.

------
datalus
I'm struggling just to live that middle class lifestyle. Housing ain't cheap!

------
mordae
Hmm, money. Just today I have thought: "If only I had $630 to buy my
stepsister a decent laptop so that she can study outside her noisy home with
her heavy aspie brother."

~~~
greyhat
Check Amazon and eBay. I got my sister a great used i7 Thinkpad for Christmas
/ graduation for around $200. I added more RAM and an SSD but those were
pretty inexpensive too. She's been super happy with it.

------
reasonattlm
The core thesis is really only true if money can't be exchanged for some
expectation value of additional years of healthy life. Up until fairly
recently (say 20 years) that was the case. You couldn't really do a lot with a
lot of money to swing odds, any more than you could with just a little money
and some forethought. The free stuff like planning, exercise, and calorie
restriction outweigh everything else, and by the time you're in late old age
how far you get is a complete lottery of genes and happenstance.

It isn't true any more, however. You can outlay money to increase your life
span down the line - though it isn't an individual thing, it is increasing
life span for everyone. It is a collaborative effort.

How: money can be used as a lever at all levels of research and development in
the science of aging to increase everyone's life expectancy by pushing forward
the right lines of development. Whether that is by being an insider putting in
five figures into a seed round in a useful startup, or by being a billionaire
establishing a research foundation, you can move the needle. Early stage
research is dirt cheap. Venture capital is overflowing the sandbags for any
venture that can do something credible with its seed round. There are startups
at various stages today that have means of repairing/removing some of the cell
and tissue damage that causes aging, and are pushing towards human testing.

The game of life used to be limited. It used to have a line at the end, you
are done. Everything in life and all of our culture is very much defined by
the existence of that once-immutable endpoint. The endpoint is fading,
however, in the sense that bringing aging under medical control is a research
and development project that can and has been envisaged in some detail. But
next to no-one has yet adapted to the new reality: the world is still full of
old people playing the same old game of gathering points in politics and
markets for some final score, and of young people aiming to be in the same
position.

If there was sanity, the old game board would be thrown out, and immense
interest and investment would be directed towards the biotechnologies of aging
and longevity. There is a big difference between a world in which you can't
buy time with money, and one in which you can.

~~~
pjmorris
I think the lifespan issue misses the point. The core thesis is that 'more' \-
money, houses, lifespan - doesn't buy you happiness. You've still got to
figure out what to do with each day you get, and that's where happiness either
happens or doesn't.

~~~
forloop
If you have 10 units of happiness per day, and live twice as long, then you'll
have twice as many units of happiness at the end of your life.

Arguments for _not_ expanding lifespan are often easy to debunk.

------
jessriedel
You can have other goals besides personal happiness.

~~~
ljw1001
Sadly, you must have other goals besides personal happiness. But given that
you only live once, why would you prefer a different goal?

~~~
jessriedel
Because it's selfish and boring.

~~~
ljw1001
I think if you read the original, the choices discussed were personal
happiness vs money and status. Choosing happiness in that context is wise, not
selfish.

Also, I think you're confusing happiness with the pursuit of pleasure. Most of
the science suggest that happiness requires both enjoyment and a greater
purpose.

Apparently you're unselfish and deep; maybe you could be less judgmental, too.

------
chipsy
Human-size applies to many activities, too. You only get so much time in the
day, so "someday" can be put off no matter how long you wait. You never become
so exceptional that all problems are within your comfort zone as if you were
an overpowered game character. Long term, you can only sustain about 4 hours
of max effort on a difficult, out-of-flow mental task like a hard coding
problem. You can never entirely brush aside your ordinary failings just
because of your accomplishments elsewhere.

------
zandorg
If you can speed up your brain by a factor of 10, you could read a book 10
times faster.

This is relevant because you might be reading only 1 human-sized book, but you
can read 10 times as many!

~~~
nell
When 10 books is your norm, you start worrying why only 10?

------
feiss
Once you have a minimum income for providing your family with the bare
--Baloo-- necessities (rent, food, utility bills..), the pursue of trying to
get more and more money is just a way of wasting your time and health.

That getting rich is not the key of happiness is so obvious that I don't
understand how this kind of articles are revealing or enlightening to anybody.

------
vatotemking
Its all about our human connections. You can be rich and still maintain these
human connections. We are social beings after all.

------
advancedpara
To be frank, you could achieve immortality, anti-aging, everlasting youth,
different bodies and so on. But at 800 years old, you're gonna have one
wretched mind.

Nothing will excite you anymore. All those friendships over 800 years? You've
had enough misunderstandings and quarrels that you're done talking to those
sick bastards. You have probably exchanged a dozen partners by now and you
don't want anymore. Sex? All those positions have been tried out. Now its more
like a keep-fit regimen. Landing on Mars? That was like a kid trying ice-cream
for the first time. Obviously with eternity we can't have everyone giving
birth to immortal babies, so reproduction is strictly controlled. You saw a
few grandchildren, and they're all grown up now. Everything is a blip in
eternity.

No thank you. I'd rather let my mind get garbage collected whenever the time
comes.

