
How to Make Trillions of Dollars - froggy
http://www.raptitude.com/2011/01/how-to-make-trillions-of-dollars/
======
DanielBMarkham
This was long-winded and flawed in many ways.

To point just one flaw out: part of the argument is that the modern culture is
designed by marketers to keep you unhealthy and consuming.

That's confusing, yet again, correlation with causation. It's just as likely
that modern marketers are just doing what people want. That the current system
of distraction, consumption, and unhealthiness is evolutionary and not some
master plan of a cadre of evil overlords. Sure, it makes for a better straw
man to bounce your essay off of, but it's flawed. If nothing else, it assumes
a personality for a thing that quite obviously involves tens of thousands of
people acting independently. Usually (almost always, really) such systems are
emergent in nature.

I understand all the emotional buttons that are being pushed with this, and by
all means enjoy your time reading it. I enjoy a good rant and pipe dream about
"rational social planning" as much as the next guy. All I ask is to take a
little time and ask "Am I being manipulated by people I should hate? Or am I
being told a story and a narrative about people to hate so that I can be
manipulated?"

EDIT: Of course the truth is somewhere in-between, and I didn't mean to make a
false dichotomy. Most times these types of reasoning errors are simply
artifacts of the way people solve problems. So, for instance, if you feel that
systems are controlled from the top-down, you are more likely to see a
dysfunctional system and assume that it was made that way from the top-down.
Those of us who have studied dysfunctional systems can only wish that things
were that simple. They aren't.

~~~
davidhollander
> _part of the argument is that the modern culture is designed by marketers to
> keep you unhealthy and consuming._

Welcome to the field of Applied Psychology and Cognitive Science. Once you
have reverse engineered the mind, the only practical application is
manipulating it.

> _just as likely that modern marketers are just doing what people want_

For a TRILLION dollars we are not talking about "marketers" in the Mad Men,
I-made-a-website-and-wrote-a-book, or "social media expert" sense. We are at
minimum talking about behavioral psychologist PhDs and global corporate
parasites like Coca Cola, Philip Moris Tobacco, etc.

In reality, those are still on the billion dollar level and not on the top of
the food chain. The only trillion dollar companies I'm aware of though are
financial institutions, so that would be my criticism of the article. If you
really want to make a trillion dollars, you'll need to be much closer to the
monetary spigot. In other words, a bank.

~~~
radu_floricica
> the only practical application is manipulating it

Or improve it?

~~~
gritzko
Manipulation is simpler and pays better.

~~~
radu_floricica
The proper answer is a bit longer. When you have more then one entity with
this knowledge, sooner or later you're going to have an arms race. Which has,
as a byproduct, all sides getting better and better.

So it's not really a question of one or the other. Having manipulation will,
long term, lead to corresponding vaccination.

------
jacoblyles
Hey guys, it has been too long since our last self-righteous anti-consumerist
circle-jerk. This one is good! You can smell the smarminess right through the
screen.

We live in a time where the individual has more freedom to do what he wants
with his life than ever before. When people live longer, survive perviously
unsurvivable diseases, and can get by with the least work. When the glorious
knowledge produced by human advancement is the most open and attainable it has
ever been. When world illiteracy, infant mortality, and malnutrition are at
their lowest point. When the most people ever get a college degree and work in
fields that challenge their minds.

This really depresses some people for some reason. Can't figure out why.
Mostly they just seem to get a kick out of criticizing how other people have
chosen to live their lives. I guess it makes them feel better about themselves
to imagine the great majority of the population are rubes and they are some
wise sage.

~~~
Evgeny
_Mostly they just seem to get a kick out of criticizing how other people have
chosen to live their lives._

Doesn't it make you sad that a huge number of people are unhealthy, unhappy,
die prematurely from perfectly preventable reasons or just plainly do not have
any slightest idea about what to do with their lives?

That's especially sad because it happens at the times when there are the most
possible opportunities available to almost anyone.

Of course, I understand the common response - "but shouldn't they just live
the lives they choose and who are you to tell them what to do with their
lives".

This is reasonable and true, but I'm still sad for some reason.

~~~
jacoblyles
I recognize the diversity of the human experience and I understand that not
everybody would be happy living my ideal life. This respect for the choices of
my fellow humans often puts me out of step with passionate idealists who feel
contempt for folks who live in a manner outside their dogmatic parameters.

Living in Silicon Valley while growing up in the South East, being an Atheist
and coming from a religious family, being a programmer and rubbing shoulders
with MMA fighters and fans, and associating with Indians, Chinese, Europeans,
Israelis, South Americans, and Africans in school has reduced my instinct to
judge people who live according to systems of values different from mine. I
guess I am broken in that way.

~~~
Evgeny
Don't get me wrong, I'm trying not to judge people too. I just find it
incredibly hard to comprehend some things - how can people choose to not care
about their health, their future etc.

On a conscious level I know that I should respect their choices, on a
subconscious it just still doesn't make sense to me.

------
mmaunder
Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of
convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been
individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy,
on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic
formulation.

Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on
this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist, with whatever
suffering and injustice that it entails, as long as it is possible to pretend
that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is
an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can.

At this stage of history either one of two things is possible. Either the
general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern
itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity, sympathy and
concern for others, or alternatively there will be no destiny for anyone to
control. As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority, it
is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves.

But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social
planning in the interests of the community as a whole, and by now that means
the global community. The question is whether privileged elite should dominate
mass communication and should use this power as they tell us they must --
namely to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and deceive the stupid
majority and remove them from the public arena.

The question in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be
preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human
existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured; they
may well be essential to survival.

~Noam Chomsky, from "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media" 1992

~~~
jacoblyles
>"Now, it has long been understood, very well, that a society that is based on
this principle will destroy itself in time.

Bullshit. A society based on the principles of the free market will create
unprecedented human health and prosperity[1].

Anti-capitalists are anti-human. I wonder if the billion or so people that
climbed out of poverty over the last decade thanks to global capitalism would
change Chomsky's mind at all. But I doubt it, considering how invested the man
is in being a spokesman for a flawed worldview. It seems to me that anti-
capitalism is a symptom of simple ignorance of basic facts about world
economic development.

[1]<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/01/best-decade-ever.html>

~~~
anthonyb
There was a society based on the principles of the free market - Victorian
England. It wasn't so great for most of the population there - pitiful wages,
child labour, pollution, poor houses, squalour and misery.

Free market? Sure, it's a great idea, but minimum wage laws, workplace safety,
pollution control and so forth have all done just as much for our health and
prosperity.

~~~
jacoblyles
You couldn't pass a minimum wage law in Victorian Britain that would raise the
Victorians' living standards to that of today. Labor simply wasn't productive
enough to sustain living standards like ours. People were poor because society
as a whole was poor.

All a minimum wage law does is allow a society to shift its chosen point on an
unemployment/wage tradeoff curve. However, increases in labor productivity
shift that curve outward (this is usually because of technological progress
and capital investment). It is because capitalism has shifted the curve
_outwards_ over time that we are so much more wealthy, not because minimum
wage laws have slightly shifted our position _along_ the curve.

If labor productivity weren't near as high as it is, then you could pass all
the laws and regulations in the world and it wouldn't make us as rich as we
are now. Anti-capitalists fundamentally misunderstand the process of wealth
creation.

I suggest you also look up my comments on the ill-argued anti-libertarian
"Victorian England" blogpost that I am assuming you are referencing from when
it was submitted here.

~~~
anthonyb
Nobody said anything about raising living standards to that of today. I'm not
sure exactly how you got there, and I'm also not sure how you or the
overcoming bias article you linked got to free markets causing the reduction
in poverty. The free market's been around for a bit longer than six years, so
I'd say it's more likely to be a rise in technology (particularly mobile
phones and solar power) rather than global capitalism.

And never mind a minimum wage law - Victorian England would've been a much
more pleasant place with some sort of health and safety law, restrictions on
child labour or a functioning welfare system other than slave labour in the
poor house. Did you read the People of the Abyss link that I posted earlier?
There's some scary stuff in there:

 _I worked at Sullivan's place in Widnes, better known as the British Alkali
Chemical Works. I was working in a shed, and I had to cross the yard. It was
ten o'clock at night, and there was no light about. While crossing the yard I
felt something take hold of my leg and screw it off. I became unconscious; I
didn't know what became of me for a day or two. On the following Sunday night
I came to my senses, and found myself in the hospital. I asked the nurse what
was to do with my legs, and she told me both legs were off._

 _There was a stationary crank in the yard, let into the ground; the hole was
18 inches long, 15 inches deep, and 15 inches wide. The crank revolved in the
hole three revolutions a minute. There was no fence or covering over the hole.
Since my accident they have stopped it altogether, and have covered the hole
up with a piece of sheet iron . . . . They gave me £25. They didn't reckon
that as compensation; they said it was only for charity's sake. Out of that I
paid £9 for a machine by which to wheel myself about._

(from
[http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss/chapter17...](http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss/chapter17.html))

25 pounds is about 6 months wages for the loss of both legs, and he has to buy
his own wheelchair! How much productivity was lost to society because that
factory and others like it didn't take enough care of its workforce? And yet
you and the rest of the HN libertarian echo chamber are trying to convince us
that the only thing necessary for happiness is a free market?

Give me a break.

~~~
Tycho
From what I understand, there were child labour laws, and when they passed the
result was that children were no longer able to work in the respectable
factories, so instead they ended up in dangerous, illegal establishments. Of
course, child labour in general was nothing new.

------
redemade
reminds me of a Carl Sagan monologue from Cosmos:

"Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the
beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours and every one of
them is a succession of incidents, events, occurrences which influence its
future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time.
And our small planet at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in
history, what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the
centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants, it is well
within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well.
If we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity we could plunge our
world into a time of darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of
classical civilisation and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of
using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth to
make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet."

so intelligent, inspirational and full of hope, but listening to it 30 years
later I can't help feeling bummed out, as it seems as though our civilization
has chosen its path.

also, Idiocracy.

~~~
jacoblyles
That's an inspiring quote. But it is flawed. It is designed to instill passion
and motivation in the listener's heart. But it is missing a virtue which is a
strictly necessary ingredient for making an actual positive impact on the
world: subtlety.

If you are motivated by addressing humanity's long-term challenges, please do
not attempt to bludgeon others into being more thoughtful or compassionate.
Instead, learn first how human society works. Learn how to motivate social
change in the least destructive way (all change is costly to someone). Learn
why people oppose you, and what their interests are, and try to come to a
common ground. Don't go off half-cocked. Learn subtlety.

Nobody talks about subtlety. It is an under-appreciated virtue, and one of the
most important.

------
momotomo
This struck a chord with me. Recently (and more or less intuitively), I got
rid of pretty much everything I own to charities, friends and relatives. A
couple of graphics workstations, home entertainment system, mountain of
business and philosophy books, clothes, TV's, etc. Everything bar a bed,
clothes, writing material and some basic kitchenware.

The outcome is the anti of the "typical person" inventory on that page. I feel
healthier, more motivated, my work life balance has shifted, I'm socializing
more and getting involved in more community / business opportunities. The
sudden understanding that I don't need technology, media or a mountain of
knowledge / reference to succeed at my goals is completely liberating, and I
feel much less resistant to change.

The additional time, clarity of thought and free cash is quite mind blowing,
it's basically re-oriented my life completely. No magic bullet, but it feels
like a step in the right direction.

~~~
matwood
"The things you own end up owning you" - Fight Club

The book/movie takes anti-consumerism to a grand finish, but I think there is
a definitely a continuum and that most people are too far towards the
consumerism side. The real problem is that people equate having stuff with
happiness. My issue is I look at people who have a lot of stuff and they seem
to spend all their time and money on maintaining said stuff. Owning a boat is
probably the prototypical example.

Years ago I owned nearly nothing. My apartment living room consisted of a
couple of deck chairs and a small TV. My bedroom had a bed and the office had
a small desk with my computer on it. There is great freedom in knowing that I
could leave and the only thing I would need to grab would have been my
computer. My life hasn't changed very much today, except I would add my camera
to the list of things I would also grab.

Another thing to note is that it's not just owning things, but also the
attitude you take towards what you own. Owning some nice things is fine, but
you can't let them control your life. You have to remember that they are just
things.

~~~
momotomo
The maintenance aspect is the biggest hidden cost I think.

Your last point is interesting - one of the guys that used to mentor me in
meditation often said that the attachment to not having things is just as
painful as the attachment to having things. It's a true point.

~~~
matwood
That's an interesting point to the attachment of not having things. I might
have been on that path until a previous girlfriend brought me back towards
balance in the other direction. She convinced me to buy a couch and replace my
plastic deck chairs. :)

I was thinking more along the lines of how people act differently with stuff.
A personal example would be my dslr camera. I purposely bought the least
expensive that I could get away with, but still have the basic features I
wanted (used nikon d60 if you're curious). I take it everywhere and use it all
the time because I don't worry about it getting broken or banged up. Obviously
I'm not going to toss my camera out the window, but I'm also not going to go
nuts if bangs on a rock while I'm hiking. Things are just things.

Contrast this with a friend of mine who bought a d3 (~$10k!) and a bunch of
lenses that go for over $2k. He rarely ever uses the camera. It's like he's
afraid to mess it up. In my mind his camera is owning him rather than him
owning a camera.

~~~
loewenskind
Well, personally my strategy is to try and get things to pay for themselves. I
bought the most expensive camera I could in the hope that some day I could
sell a few photos. Passive income is, after all, the holy grail. So if I'm
taking photos for a hobby anyway, maybe this hobby can start paying for
itself. I wouldn't want to engage in an expensive hobby that didn't even have
that potential.

~~~
matwood
Unless there is a certain feature you needed a more expensive camera for
(higher fps for sports photography for example) photos are much more the
photographer than the camera. Glass is a much better place to spend money than
on a camera body.

The professional photographers I know or even the guys who just sell pictures
on the side use relatively inexpensive equipment compared to what is available
for sale.

------
fleitz
In all honesty Tyler Durden summed it up much more succinctly, "Working jobs
we hate to buy shit we don't need."

Reminds me of the Vampire Weekend song Kids Don't Stand a Chance. Particularly
the verse:

    
    
      I didn't like the business
      But that was at first glance
      Your pillow feels so soft now
      But still you must advance
    

In particular I think he hits it perfectly on the head with the idea that 'the
man' just doesn't know any better and is part and parcel to the culture. 'the
man' are just the individuals who are particularly adapted to this way of life
and thus succeed in it.

~~~
ttttannebaum
Illustrated even nicer by this comic:
<http://buttersafe.com/2011/01/27/traps/>

------
3am
Start with quadrillions of dollars and invest in airlines.

------
DanI-S
Human civilization (and not just our current iteration) is like a gigantic,
uncontrollable beast. It tramples thousands underfoot, growing fat on their
fears and impossible dreams. Some people may be riding up on top, out of
trample range, but they're still riding on top of a gigantic, uncontrollable
beast with no real aim other than its own continued survival.

Not much to be gained from blame or envy. Just try to set a good example. It
might help, over time.

~~~
kiba
Well, look. I decided that I will get rid of the useless things in my life.
Books and papers, trash, and so on.

I also decided to save and not consume much. Therefore, I resort to making
homemade sandwiches and finding water bottle.

A few days ago, I made a pencil holder out of a discarded soda can. Why the
hell not?

There are cool things that I want to buy. But, they're mostly for making
cooler projects.

I am a prosumer. I find it fun to make stuff and sell stuff just so I can make
much more interesting stuff to sell.

The Man's strategy? Did he even really exists? What's there to blame and be
envious?

The intellectual life is worth more than the cars, the fancy houses, and 2 1/2
kids. Things are in itself an interesting intellectual exercise. Selling them
is merely a way to keep points about which is the most interesting things to
the most people.

~~~
tabsa
From your comment it seems that your are advocating an "intellectual life".
Isn't this the same old consumerism, just a changing real goods for virtual
ones (aka information)?

~~~
kiba
Hardly, because for your life to be intellectually interesting, you must
discriminate between information. You're choosing not what people will think
of you, but what is interesting to you.

~~~
DanI-S
I'm sure most people at least in some way try to develop interests in certain
areas so that other people find THEM interesting!

------
corin_
"A single, lifelong customer who lives his life spending the way you want him
to is worth six or seven figures. A single one."

Let's say that "lifelong customer" spans 47 years (aged 18-65). In order for
him to spend seven figures s/he would have to spend $1750/month. And,
depending on what they're paying for, a lot of that won't be profit...

So not sure why it's worded as if everyone should realise that a single life-
long customer is worth a huge amount, chances are, for most companies/people,
they won't be.

~~~
jat850
I don't fully agree with your math. Mine is potentially no better, but:

A single customer, spending $500/year on whatever it is you do, wherein you
make 5% compounding profit off of their $500/year, nets $100,000 in 45 years.
I feel that's a bit more realistic of an approach.

~~~
corin_
I wasn't taking interest into account in my example.

5% profit of $500/year is $25/year. I'm too lazy to work out compound interest
over 45 years considering that a new $25 is being added each year, however:

45 * $25 = $1125

If you invested $1125 for 45 years at an interest rate of 4%, you'd end up
with $6571. (And investing $1125 over 45 years gets you more back than only
adding $25 a year to the investment.)

Obviously it's possible to do better than 4%, but I would suggest that, then,
however you are investing the money is "how you are making money", not "having
a lifelong customer".

So, have I completely misunderstood your example, or was your maths way way
off?

~~~
martinkallstrom
His math is not off, I get about the same using
[http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calcu...](http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calculator.htm)

When he said 5% profit he meant 5% interest. Result depends on the figures you
put in, but if you can get people to spend hundreds of dollars on your
business every year of their life, you are probably in possession of a
mechanism providing interest well over 12% or 15% annually. Which makes the
value per customer much higher.

IKEA is one of the companies that successfully transformed the culture of one
or several nations to their own benefit and routinely creates lifetime
customers from infant to the grave.

~~~
corin_
Ah, assuming a _profit_ of $500 does make the maths make sense.

But $500 profit a year from a single customer is way above the average for the
majority of businesses.

~~~
martinkallstrom
So it follows that the majority of businesses does not make trillions of
dollars either. :)

Still, there are several businesses that are making on average over
$100-500/year profits on me. More or less my bank, car maker, gas station,
energy company, furniture store, favorite soda brand, supermarket, fast food
chain... what else? Scary thought.

~~~
hessenwolf
Your bank might not be. They are often just acting as a middle man and lending
money to you that they borrowed from the bond market, taking the spread as
their admin expenses.

------
exit
reminds me of a story i just read by charles stross:
<http://www.bestsf.net/presents/RogueFarm.html>

about a future in which bioengineering allows individuals to become self
sufficient (adding photosynthesis to their genome, for example). this causes
the economy to collapse as many consumers no longer depend on society.

~~~
joe_the_user
And indeed, once people are self-sufficient, why would they care if the
economy collapsed?

The only problem with the scenario is if/when wars between the self-sufficient
farms erupt.

------
acconrad
The best articles can take a hackneyed concept (the ills of materialism) and
still manage to say something worth listening to. This is one of those
articles.

------
phrotoma
I can't decide if this article is pure paranoia, depressing as hell, or
inspiring.

~~~
jerf
Excessively anthropomorphizing the Man is a quick way to sketch civilization,
but leads to a failure to understand it deeply. If I were going to put a word
on it, it would be _glib_. Sort of Malcolm Gladwell-ish. It's not necessarily
that it's wrong, it's just so incomplete a view that it might as well be
wrong.

~~~
nick_urban
The term "The man" may be glib in many cases, but if we understand that "the
man is us" then we reach some place more fundamental.

Heidegger has a fascinating analysis of this phenomena, which he calls "Das
Man" or "The They". Most of the time, all of us are "the they" instead of
being authentically ourselves.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heideggerian_terminology#.27The...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heideggerian_terminology#.27The_One.27_.2F_.27the_They.27)

Note: if you decide to read Heidegger, it may take as much time as a
television habit.

~~~
jerf
"may be glib in many cases"

I agree with you in general, but I think this is one of the "glib" cases in
the original post. Buying into "vs. the Man" is, ironically, one of the Man's
main tools in the contemporary US; there are entire ethnic cultures in the US
being held back in no small part by the belief they are being held back by the
Man, which in turn requires them to be externally rescued by the don't-look-
too-closely-just-believe-we're-not-the-Man-Man.

There's truth in the "Man" analysis, but the escape is to transcend the
narrative, not engage with it. (The synthesis of the man/vs. the man thesis
and antithesis, I suppose.) Which I doubt you disagree with, I'm just being
explicit.

------
StavrosK
I would say, don't get too hung up on the "the Man" aspect of the article. For
me, the most profound part was the one about keeping people wanting useless
gadgets more and more and thus keeping them in jobs they hate. People can
easily live with much less and do work that will allow them to be much
happier.

From what I've seen, higher earning potential doesn't correlate well with
happiness.

~~~
ljordan
In the study I heard about from a family member it correlates strongly up to a
threshold, say $90,000 for a family of 3-4 living in the midwest (ex-Chicago,
etc.), but thereafter increasing income doesn't increase happiness (and
possibly erodes it).

~~~
StavrosK
Yes, obviously having a very low income would come with worries, but above
that, as you said, there's not much correlation...

------
icarus_drowning
The entire article rests on the assumption that the things which are produced
in order to be consumed have no value-- or at the very least, that, as more of
them are produced, the total value in "the system" doesn't increase. While
this is undoubtably true for many things, is it true for _all_ of them?

I mean, sure, I can't accept that enormous piles of consumerist junk
manufactured every year don't really represent the creation of much value. But
that isn't everything, and, I'd argue, it is dwarfed by the enormous amount of
_valuable_ materials, goods, and services that are produced.

In order for this kind of invective to carry in weight, one has to implicitly
agree with the hidden assumption that the trillions of dollars of goods and
services produced every year represent essentially no value to human beings.

And that seems to me to be a pretty ridiculous statement.

------
InclinedPlane
_"...create a nation of people who typically: [....] have learned, through the
media’s culture of blame-mongering, that the key to solving public and private
issues is to find the right people to hate"_

It's funny that someone could write that as part of a scathing critique of
consumerist culture and yet not see the irony of it.

There are things that are a lot worse than materialistic, shallow, consumerist
culture. Specifically a moralistic, prudish, puritanical culture which is at
every point so very concerned with what is the best for everyone else. At
least consumerist culture is easy enough to escape and ignore.

------
Tycho
Personally I have no problem with consuming stuff for entertainment.

I just don't kid myself that consuming a poem through oral tradition in a
field without electricity would be somehow more noble/satisfactory.

------
ttttannebaum
You can call Chuck Palaniuk an overrated writer all you want, but this is what
Fight Club is about and did a good job of illustrating.

------
michaelcampbell
"First, start with hundreds of trillions of dollars..."

~~~
kongqiu
I'm not a fan of Chomsky, but I completely agree that all too often we "go
along" with ways of life that are sold as "normal," but which are in fact
unhealthy and unsustainable.

------
mkramlich
absolutely brilliant piece. and i agree with his perspective. i've thought
almost exactly the same thing for over 2 decades now. it is extremely rare to
see someone say it, and say it so well.

