
Inside the Minds of the Ultrawealthy - dnetesn
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/your-money/inside-the-minds-of-the-ultrawealthy.html
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pmoriarty
I highly recommend a documentary called _Born Rich_ [1] to anyone interested
in this sort of thing. It was made by one of the heirs of the Johnson and
Johnson fortune, who interviews and follows the lives of many of his friends
who were also, as the title says, born in to ultra wealthy families.

It's pretty interesting to see how differently they react to their privileged
position, some of them embracing and others rejecting it. It was also
interesting to see how the parents of these kids reacted to the documentary
itself. Many of them were strongly against revealing anything to the public
about themselves or their wealth.

The director of this movie also went on to make a follow-up documentary called
_The One Percent_ [2], which was not nearly as good.

[1] - [https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Born-
Rich/70008257](https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Born-Rich/70008257)

[2] - [https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-One-
Percent/70092779](https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-One-Percent/70092779)

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csomar
This reads to me like an ad for this agency, rather than a
scientific/statistical research into the subject.

There is no disclaimer of that, however. Are such articles in the NYT common?

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rodionos
I've got the same after-taste, but I think it's more common in real-estate
such as this one: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/realestate/write-an-
essay...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/realestate/write-an-essay-win-
this-house.html)

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jdpigeon
"In our research, we have found that financial dependence is associated with a
lack of passion, creativity and drive, and is also associated with feelings of
resentment towards whomever controls the purse strings. Money is a powerful
reinforcer of behavior, and when it is given freely and is not attached to
desired behaviors, it can reinforce a lack of initiative or drive."

That right there is currently my biggest concern about universal basic income.
It might work for a generation, but it's possible that many people who grow up
in a culture where work is unnecessary will fail to develop the ambition and
work ethic required to be productive.

That said, I'll have to look more into this research that they speak of before
I come to conclusions.

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pmoriarty
I am not convinced that the economic whip is the only means we have of dealing
with lack of passion, creativity and drive. I would be interested to know if
the authors of the study controlled for education.

The United States has a really horrible K-12 education system overall, and
it's well known that the wealthy (a tiny minority) have disproportionate
access to great education, while the poor (the overwhelming majority) tend to
have poor education. Children could be taught to be more creative and to
recognize that there is much to value in life, and their passions could be
nurtured without requiring them to scramble just to survive.

I am reminded of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.[1] The lower, more fundamental
needs need to be met in order for the higher needs to become relevant.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

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anigbrowl
What a shallow bullshit article. Of course thinking how to get around the
system correlates well with high wealth. But that's easy to do if you have
high wealth. How do you do so when you _don 't_ have leverage the leverage
that capital provides? It would have been much more interesting to hear how
these ultra-wealthy individuals applied that mindset when they were just
getting started.

