Heh - lucky you. I am orbiting a supermassive black hole (at least I think that is what it is) 8.5 kilo-parsecs away. At least the fusion reaction is nice and warm.
That's not how wealth perception works. Wealth is a relative substance. We compare ourselves to our peers to construct an image of our own success.
When I just moved to US I made less than 30K in my first year and I did not feel poor. In fact I made more that year that both of my parents combined. I also remember seeing a happy family at a parking lot near Lincoln Park in Chicago. They did not speak any English and they were all posing in front of a brand-new, shining red Toyota Corolla, laughing and taking pictures. It was probably their first brand-new car, very possibly an unthinkable achievement among their friends and relatives left in whatever country they were from. I am sure they felt richer at that moment than Paul does now.
I would like to re-phrase Paul's though, assuming I got it right. To westerners, who are already born rich by most standards, money most likely mean the freedom of doing whatever they feel like doing. PG mentioned it in his essays as the only driving factor behind programmers trying to make money - to set themselves free to work on problems they enjoy.
Thing is, you don't have to be rich to work on something that makes your life exciting. Joining a startup that fits your needs is another way of not wasting 2/3rds of your life while @work.
My personal pet theory is that most people, given appropriate education and development, are pre-programmed to work on something they love. This is precisely why so many Hollywood style millionaires like rock and movie stars end up dependent on drugs facing alcohol problems, etc. They never had any creative nuclei in them and had been working simply to put food on the table. And when they end up with more food that they can swallow, they literally go nuts: wealth can be dangerous, even life-threatening to unprepared.
Almost everyone using this site is in that position, or at least can get there with a few months work, whether they know it or not. The exception, of course, are those folks who have a family to support. But if you're single and a nerd, you could do 6 months worth of contract work, and live for a couple of years on the proceeds, if you live frugally.
I've done it a few times, and I don't even have a college degree worth speaking of (community college, but that doesn't count). In fact, I've just come off of two years of doing so--Virtualmin, Inc. has recently become profitable enough to pay me a nice salary, but I lived for the first year completely without a salary, and the second on about $1000/month. I'd saved up for a year before knowing I'd be quitting contracting and working full-time on something cool. I did the same for my first company--decided I wanted to start a company, worked for six more months at my old position and then quit with about one year of runway in the bank.
The "basic needs" bar is actually much lower than most Americans think it is. You don't need cable, you don't need a $75/month cell phone plan, and you don't need a McMansion or a sweet apartment in the swish part of town. Hell, you probably don't even need a car, though I've considered living in a van and traveling the country (which really cuts down on rent--campgrounds run $6-$20/night, with discounted weekly rates)...I might even still do that at some point.
You don't have to be a millionaire to have the luxury to live your life as you choose. Sure, it's nice to know you never have to go get a real job again. But, if you live below your means, no matter what those means are, you're in a very flexible position.
"though I've considered living in a van and traveling the country (which really cuts down on rent--campgrounds run $6-$20/night, with discounted weekly rates)...I might even still do that at some point."
I guess I'm not disagreeing with you, just pointing out that when you don't have money, its much more difficult (maybe near impossible for some people) to find out/concentrate on what else you want out of life. Whereas if money is not an issue, you can spend everyday doing what makes you happy.
About 1/3 of the worlds population would be happy with 3$ / day. In the US it's reasonable to live on rent + utilities + transportation + 10$/day. However, most tech people pass this so quickly it's not obvious.
Anyway, I am 27 and make twice what I did at my first post collage job and I still spend most of what I make. Back in collage a friend of mine went to school full time made ~10$ /hour and supported his wife and kid on that. I think he was happier then than I am now because he was going to make it to a better place. It's easy to assume you need have some life style to be happy but I think a reason for living is far more important than your income or your wealth.
For me, more than I have now. It could be that no matter how much money you make, its always 'more than I have now' (but then again I'm a poor college student so that may just be me).
But anyways, my main problem with your original article was that whenever someone tells people that you can't buy happiness, it seems that person is always well off. Maybe thats because they're the only people who would know for sure, but it seems a bit like me going to some third world country and saying, 'You know, living in America and not working in a factory for 14 hours a day really isn't all its cracked up to be.'
So if "happy" == "completely happy", it's somewhere around $2E6 for me. Enough interest to cover the basics so I can work on anything I like. Anything after that is just icing on the cake, and it's still fun whether I win or lose (the bills are already taken care of).
I imagine answers to this question vary wildly, but tend to cluster around 3 points: $0, something like my rough calculation, and some large-ish percentage of the GDP.
- Spend more time with my wife (including doing some of the rest of these things together), when she's not working to achieve her goals
- Hack on several ideas that I have, work with/invest in interesting startups (what I would normally save or put into less risky investments)
Also
- Help my friends out of the rut
- Read more math, physics, sci-fi
- Learn to fly planes
- Keep my thumb on what's going on in the tech world via the web
- Build cool stuff: electronics, etc.
- Buy cool gadgets and hack on them
- Maybe some political stuff, EFF or atheist issues
- I like the OLPC project, I think they should work with American kids too.
- Pick up the piano and violin again, maybe travel a bit
- Say what I think more often
- Some normal leisure stuff now and then
Of course, this would be after 2 weeks of sitting around in awe that I had arrived at what I dreamed of as a teenager.
I can do many of these things in some capacity right now, but I can't really dig in to most of them. I do my current job in hopes of freeing up a half-of-my-waking-life time slice so I can, but that is definitely a gamble. Self-determination is an enticing thing.
I imagine that, even though I've done a fair share of it, there is some introspection to do when you arrive. I wish I had more time to think about this question. What's the view like from there?
The main difference is that, except learning to fly planes (although I've looked up nearby flight schools, know how much time+money it requires, read up on the basics, and learned what is required to get a private pilot certification) and working with OLPC, I have done these things in my free time already, even concurrently. And when I had more free time (just a couple of years ago), I did them more often.
There is just very little doubt in my mind that the choice afforded by a nice passive income would help me do more things that make me happy.
I also wonder if an entrepreneur who already has their $2E6 could focus more on what the user wants. You don't have to worry about what the landlord or electric company wants.
Define "how much" - some people think in terms of a good salary etc (but then question of security dilutes value) - a lump sum in some liquid form? Or cashflow from a passive income source.
I guess its not just money but the security that it brings.
"Love your work" is often just a way for startups and other small companies to extract unreasonable hours from you, with little payback.
I've done the startup thing. I've worked 9-5 er I mean 9-6, oh, wait it was more like 10-7:30. In the end, any job will require you to put up with things you don't like. Obviously, some jobs are a better fit than others.
There is a psuedo-empircal monetary value to enjoying life. Consider a thought experiment where you plot "free time" or "enjoyable time" versus "salary." Now consider a job where your enjoyable time is ~ 0, coal miner 100 hours/week, for example. How much would you need to be paid? Now maximize the other dimension, how much salary do you need to live, but have a rewarding and stimulating job?
For me, the numbers are like, $1M a year and $50K a year. This means that if I manage to maximize my enjoyment axis, I'm an enjoyment millionare. My personal goal in life is to be on the manifold that connects those two points.
Thank you for reminding this. I don't live according to or even agree with the Buddhist way of thinking, but I do respect it as one of the ways to be truly happy.
The problem with freedom is that most people aren't very good at optimizing their own happiness. At least when you're stuck in an institution there is some base level of engineered happiness as a by-product of that institution's need to fulfill its stated goals. Otherwise, freedom may start with travel and book-writing, but it has this habit of quickly devolving into sitting around reading Reddit and Slashdot. In other words, in their state of nature people have this tendency of doing just enough to make themselves minimally happy, even if greater happiness is ultimately attainable. Look how many people sit around all day playing World of Warcraft.
I guess what I'm saying is that even if you need freedom to achieve maximum happiness, complete freedom also leaves you with a much greater chance of getting stuck in some minimal existence. Which basically describes about a quarter the population of Japan.
The level of freedom I would like requires me to own a federal reserve bank or a popularly traded currency backed by oil or delivered joules or water, so I don't plan on getting bored anytime soon. Then I can start playing World of Warcraft. :)
You're right, states of minimal happiness are depressingly common. It scares me how appealing alternate worlds like World of Warcraft are to society at large.
I think another factor is that people watch TV and play video games not because they "choose" stay within the local maximum, but because their daily jobs have drained most of their energies, that they don't have enough left over to tackle anything ambitious.
Also people's off hours are periodcially scattered, which makes it difficult to focus enough time and energy to create sufficient escape velocity for exiting the vicious cycle.
Well as long as I'm playing Bodhisattva, commit yourself to something that forces you to leave the house and do something at least once a day. If you don't forcibly inject randomness to break up your days they tend to form a tightly-packed crystalline lattice of self-similar negativity.
Money is nice, that is true, but freedom comes from the inside. Many rich people are still slaves.
Also, more money doesn't always mean more freedom. Most people simply dig in deeper when they get a little more money. They buy a bigger house with a bigger mortgage, fancy cars, and other expensive junk. Then they're really hooked.
I am certainly not a millionaire, but I have a few friends who are and judging from the way they are, I can guarantee you that anyone who says " there is more to life than money" is telling you 95% bullshit. That is unless you live somewhere Capitalism is not KING.
Many are not. In fact, statistics would suggest most, by far, even if you're willing to believe (which i have seen nothing to backup) that "hackers" are more likely.
