Comment by mihaic
2 months ago
I think that a lot of people with money need to be reminded that having wealth is a social responsibility in itself. If you can live just from passive income maybe you should just gift interesting people the excess money and have them accomplish their goals.
Talk to a bunch of people and realize what you want to support. If some of them need 10k to start a business just give it to them. Or, if you want some equity, put it in a non-profit that reinvest its earnings. Go to a film school, organize a contest and fund the movie of the most promising students.
I was never rich like the author, yet I once gave a bookbinder that I had hired to make a cool leather-bound book the starting capital he needed to make his own shop just because it turned out so well and he was so passionate about it. Looking back, it still feels great to have helped someone like this.
Humans need activities that produce meaningful outcomes, they don't need careers or work.
Really beautifully said. Wealth does indeed carry the responsibility of giving back to your community the same way the community gave to you to gain the wealth to begin with.
Bettering your community not only benefits the receiver but also, I strongly believe, one’s own conscious and sense of belonging to said community.
> Humans need activities that produce meaningful outcomes, they don't need careers or work.
Human needs purpose in life, does not matter whether it activities for meaningful outcomes, careers, work, family or God, it's in our very nature.
The blog post appeared to me of someone who have achieved mostly what they have aspired to become (rich and freedom from jobs) and at their top apex from their own perspective, however the main dilemma is that after achieving the goals still something important is missing i.e. purpose.
> Human needs purpose in life
Not sure if I agree with it in this form, as I think people can get by quite well without an explicit purpose. My grandparents were farmers, and I've never pictured them to feel any specific purpose. They were still content with their lives, as they simply didn't even considered the question of what their purpose was.
Modern success is all about fixating on a single measurable goal, and grinding that out. What if there is no single purpose but rather a diffuse set of meanings? Even worse, half the battle is you figuring out what this set of meaningful goals is, where before the goal was given to you (make lots of money).
Sorry, as a farmer you have a very clearly defined purpose (and it might be more implicit than explicitly said out loud, but it's very clear nevertheless). And that's to make sure that you have enough to eat for your family and your animals, and enough to sell, and enough seed for next year.
That's why there's no ruminating for a purpose - it never comes up, because it's so clear. And that's why we're often quite rudderless once the basics are secured.
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My grandmother lacked vocabulary that can be used to describe 'purpose' -- or mental issues. One word she would very rarely use was 'dharma' i.e. duty. Though I am not sure if she used it in this way.
There were only a few things she really cared about: the health and general well-being of her children and grandchildren and when her grandchildren will have children. It seems to me it was her 'purpose', at least she values these things so much that can be easily confused as purpose.
Why do we need purpose beyond existence? We're here to experience a unique life that nobody else will experience, no matter how many commonalities are shared. Yet people are never content with that, and feel they must have a "greater" purpose, when reality is that there is no greater purpose than mere existence.
> having wealth is a social responsibility in itself
We even have a word for this, noblesse oblige. It used to refer to the aristocracy, but I don't see much difference between the aristocracy of old and the moneyed classes of today.
What about being smart?
If you're smart you regularly walk through life seeing people hurt each other by letting screwed-up systems fester.
Even if you're really callous and rational about opportunity cost, you can only walk by so many systemic-equivalents of burning buildings before you're eventually like, "damn it, okay I'm going to save this kid but just this once".
Being smart and systems-aware in today's world is like walking by a burning building every day with very long, fireproof arms. "Noblesse" is the wrong word but something like this is a thing. Mathiness oblige?
No. He wanted to help DOGE dismantle the US government. People like that should just blow their money on themselves and the people they like and leave the rest of us alone.
Honestly for some people, just getting debt paid off might be enough of a life changer, in some cases the debt isn't substantial but the income / debt ratio is just not in the best spot. Heck having one or more less bills to worry about could be a tide changer with immense impact.
I know if I could worry less about my mortgage even for a few months, it would have major impacts on my family's life. I cannot imagine others on similar situations, or with way more debt but the income isn't enough.
>need to be reminded that having wealth is a social responsibility in itself
read up on the "is-ought problem": from whatever is, you cannot get an ought nor a should. You simply have to adopt them as beliefs, just like belief in a diety (though some might argue that's an "is" :) and others may not share your beliefs, nor... should... they
I'm not sure what you mean. I do believe this is essentially a value judgement, but one which I think is essential for any well functioning society, at least based on my personal interpretation.
> having wealth is a social responsibility in itself
Warren Buffet has said that every dollar he owns is an IOU that he owes to society - somebody worked hard, produced value, he is in custody of it for the time being, but it has to be paid back by him.
Can your find the quote?
Are you sure he wasn't talking about money invested with his company or shareholders?
To me, the above paragraph reads like:
"Having wealth makes you responsible to others, therefore you should do arson."
If you manage to help make a powerful machine and then convert some piece of it into liquid value, you are probably good at stuff and whatever responsibility you have to others includes using that alongside the liquid value.
And worse, it's not just on you to do what people say they want. You're also actually responsible for trying to figure out what they would find most valuable. ("If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”)
You're making a strong implication that the companies that make money are the things that people need. The correlation seems to be growing weaker every year as far as I've seen.
Is your point that the money should go to companies that make things that people need as opposed to want? Or is your point that the money somehow flows to companies that make things that people neither need nor want?
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This is pure capitalist brainworms.
And I say this as someone who's not even particularly anti-capitalist.
It's an unpopular opinion for sure.
Try to think about it in less capitalist terms. Say you built the world's first bicycle and can now move faster / more efficiently than anyone else.
What is the most likely thing that will happen if you give the bicycle away to the person who appears to need it the most and go do something else? (One broken bicycle.)
On the flip side, isn't the most important thing you can work on something like, "figure out how to make a bicycle—and maintenance supply chain—for everyone who wants one"?
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> If you manage to help make a powerful machine and then convert some piece of it into liquid value, you are probably good at stuff
Not at all. Nobody is "good at stuff" in general. People have particular areas of competence at best. Disasters arise when someone who has achieved success off the back of one particular skill set assumes they have general competence at everything and then makes leadership decisions from a position of blind arrogance.
If you manage to help make a powerful machine, you are probably a good machinist. This does not mean you should become a CEO or a venture capitalist or some other sort of "value decider." Your skill is in making powerful machines. If you want to move into a new field, you have to do so as a beginner.