Comment by sverige | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sverige | Hacker News Reader

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The people you think you want to hang around with in your 20s can seem really ridiculous when you're in your 40s and 50s, and I say that as someone who ran with some people in my 20s who most here would recognize immediately. Those who achieved these things received almost no parental assistance when we were in our 20s. Many of those who were subsidized have gone on to spectacularly mediocre careers.

With regard to the job search, work on reducing stress. That carefree attitude that helps in getting job offers is directly (and sometimes geometrically) proportional to your ability to recognize all of the good things you have at any given moment. Sometimes that includes changing (not lowering) expectations.

I say all of this with the caveat that 1) fame and fortune are overrated as human goods, especially by young people; and 2) I am neither famous nor wealthy, but I am exceedingly happy with my life compared to my 20s. I'm now in my 50s and generally successful in curbing my urge to bail out my 28-year-old daughter out of the messes she sometimes makes.

Edit: But I have been there a couple of times where it was help her or she ends up on the streets.

To keep it polite and short, that's really not how the world works anymore. These days your (at least financial) success in life is very much correlated with the wealth of your parents. If you're from Sweden (as your username would indicate) you can take Stockholm as an example. My non-independent friend (and their parents) there are millionaires from housing appreciation and savings, while my independent friends are are spending all their salaries on renting short lease 3x normal rent sublets.

Just because you inherit some capital doesn't mean you are actually able to use it to make more. Actually, most people can't, meaning the only thing they can do is spend it. How pathetic is that?

If you count success in life as buying a house with money you were given, great. But that isn't success. I don't even know what that is honestly.

The middle class is disappearing. Either you know how to make money (and that's not by working a job) or you don't. If you don't, you'll eventually be replaced by software, or a robot, or your job will be optimised away, or you will have to compete with 50 other people who want the same job because less jobs will be available in the future.

The only thing that isn't disappearing is having great ideas. Great ideas, combined with an interest in executing, generally lead to freedom in life and (some) wealth.

> Just because you inherit some capital doesn't mean you are actually able to use it to make more. Actually, most people can't, meaning the only thing they can do is spend it

It really depends on how much you inherit. If you inherit a million dollars, yeah, it's easy to spend it all. If you inherit a billion, it's not hard to sit on that money and live off a fraction of the earnings. Which is why major familial wealth tends to stick around for generations. (That and the connections that major wealth can provide.)

Sure. But not many people in the world are worth a billion. There aren’t THAT many UHNWIs globally (~187k). But there are a lot of millionaires.

My personal opinion is that most people should be able to make $100-200k on their own online, doing something they love. If you actually start looking with what people are making money with, it's pretty interesting. This can range from a recipe subscription to a newsletter, or something completely different.

Will it be easy? No. Will you be able to live a free life? Yep.

Definitely. Inheriting "generational" money is not common.

The world hasn't changed that much. The wealthy are wealthy. The famous are famous. The powerful are powerful. The happy are happy. Like the OP, I'm neither wealthy nor famous nor powerful. I'm not quite in my 50's, but pretty close. I live in a tiny rented flat in the countryside. I own exactly 2 pairs of trousers (much to the dismay of my wife). And I'm happy. SO much happier than my 20's that it defies description.

Yeah, I have friends who are millionaires. I have friends who are famous. (I don't have friends who are powerful... never ran in those circles...). All of my rich friends either inherited their money or won the DotCom lottery. All of my famous friends worked their butts of in obscurity for decades and then won the Celebrity lottery.

None of them are happier than me as far as I can tell. (And, yes, I can afford another pair of trousers, but who needs 3 pairs of trousers!?).

I want to put this delicately: your definition of happiness might not be shared by a lot of people in society today, and neither should it be. While I am glad that you have found happiness in your simple lifestyle, a lot of people would be thoroughly depressed with it (and I'm trying to say this in the nicest way possible, no judgement intended whatsoever on your choices).

You may be surprised that I don't disagree with you one bit. Merely posting to help those people who find that fighting a losing battle against acquiring wealth is not working out for them. There are other ways.

His point remains valid whether you like his life choices or not:

Fame, wealth, and power are only loosely correlated with happiness. They are neither adequate, nor necessary.

Your wealth has always been highly correlated with your parents' wealth. The fact that you think this is a new development makes it look like your worldview is really narrow. If anything the correlation has weakened significantly over time.

Very true. An extreme example: as someone who knows someone who is part of the aristocracy, it is mind blowing how some of these families have held onto wealth generated from massive plots of land they acquired in the 12th century (or earlier).

BUT: there has never been an easier time in history for someone to make money on their own.

Yep. Competent aristocratic families seem to mostly maintain existing wealth. You don't need to earn when you have wealth to support your family for generations hence. You just need to not be incompetent.

Edit: I fully agree that it's easier than ever to build wealth from limited means.

Yep, and that's what I love about software. If you build and sell something on your own, pretty much everything is profit. You don't have that in many industries.

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