Minecraft Billionaire Markus Persson Hates Being a Billionaire

There have been numerous threads about this in the last few days, including https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10139734 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10144309.

The Schadenfreude in many of the comments is vicious. Those of you posting those ought to reflect on why you do that.

Beyond that, it's wrong for us to be conducting message board threads about the happiness and mental health of a human being. It's off-topic for HN in any case, because it's garden-variety celebrity gossip. But it's also wrong, and I wish I'd realized this earlier.

It's time this stopped. Since more of these threads are sure to be posted, please flag them if you see them before we do.

I got the impression from the article that Markus is looking to the money and saying "money, are you making me happy?". He is spending it partying and dancing and doing gods knows what in Ibiza. He appears to not find happiness in that either.

For me I find happiness in having a small number of true friends, trying to have the best family relationships I can, trying to be as fit as I can be, being a good father, doing computer programming which I love, and pursuing my other interests like kickboxing and going to movies. It's not a billionaire lifestyle, and I'm very, very far from rich. Even if I had money though I wouldn't pursue much else for happiness except maybe some travel too.

I wonder if Markus might find happiness not in billions and the associated lifestyle but by finding happiness in the very ordinary.

Someone wise once said to me "You'll only become happy when you truly accept your mediocrity.". I think that's especially true for people who think they are not mediocre for some reason.

When he is not happy, he appears to blame the money.

I vow that when I do become a billionaire I won't do that.

Happiness is relative, yes I understand that logically, but you just won't be able to illicit empathy from others for the pain of having too much money.

His last tweet has it right, the guilt will pass, just relax, go somewhere no one knows you and disconnect for a while. Hell, you're in the billionaire club, go ask Musk how he handled it. He handles it by taking on larger problems I imagine.

Notch makes a bunch of early-morning tweets, these get dissected in the press with sentences ending in ", no really" and explanations of how much the toilets in his new mansion cost. And now the comments (even in here) mock him.

He has a history of mood issues and blogged about how his father killed himself due to depression. [0]

He is a human being in trouble.

You can do better, HN.

[0] http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/13/3763968/notch-father-minec...

At least he's not deluding himself that he's not still a regular human being. I prefer a super rich guy trying to identify as a regular person, even if cringey, than a rich guy who's suddenly convinced himself that he's special and gets to live in a different world just because he made money.

Until he figures out what he wants, the money is going to be a distraction rather than helpful. If I had that much money, and was finding life tricky, I'd start with a call to Tony Robbins...

From all the stuff I've read about and from Persson, it looks like he has an inclination to depression. Billions of dollars are not a known effective anti-depressant.

He and everyone here knows what he needs to do.

He just needs to do it.

Create.

Oh poor him. There's a rather easy fix for this if he chooses.

Seems illogical. Why did he buy a super-mansion in LA and go partying in Ibiza? Did he really want those things? If I got billions I would set up an enclave to withstand future societal collapse, like somewhere in Siberia.