Comment by rdiddly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rdiddly | Hacker News Reader

On one of my harder-hearted days I would've felt schadenfreude (rich assholes waste obscene amounts of money on tacky shit, get burned, film at 11), but today I feel sorry for them. The whole thing is just sad. On the macro level, such a tragic mis-deployment of resources. And on the micro level, misplacing one's priorities on material things and finding out the hard way that it doesn't bring any meaning to your life. I know someone going through this now in a more modest house... slowly but surely, starting to get tired earlier and earlier in the afternoons (granted, she smokes), getting sick of chores like cleaning gutters, mowing, clearing spiderwebs etc.

And all those empty rooms in the photographs! I don't imagine they see many days of being filled with smiling, laughing guests. Which is really the only true use of a house that big... you need to entertain, you need hundreds of friends to share it with, right? Otherwise what's the use? Maybe that's just me. I would probably get supremely depressed otherwise, all that space around me, waiting to be used, reminding me how empty it is.

Everybody gets old. Everybody dies. Everybody follows each other in a grand parade to oblivion. These people won the game the mid-20th century told them was being played, but everybody ultimately loses the Big Game.

With the lack of 'wealth' that many Millenials are experiencing, it's not only real estate that is going to be affected. Stocks and other areas are also going to feel the effects. Strangely, it's not a lack of supply that will be the issue here, it's a lack of buyers. Millenials just don't have the cash to pay the Boomers for the houses and stocks they accumulated and the Banks can only buy and sell the properties to each other for so long, collecting fees each time they hand off. Though we're in a good job market right now, we're still not seeing any real rise in wages.

EDIT: As an example of the Banks buying up houses: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/20/business/econ...

Concentration of wealth won't cause a lack of buyers for stocks. The wealth is still there, the very wealthy will just buy more stock. The value of a stock stacks in a way that the value of additional giant houses doesn't.

(Being able to buy ownership of a business, via stock or other means, is why wealth is concentrating in the first place.)

Yes, of course.

But you start getting into monopsony then. The people that you sell to are hyper rich and may pay a fair price, but there are a lot less people overall and their tastes aren't distributed like the general population. It's not the same market at all.

> Everybody follows each other in a grand parade to oblivion.

You sir, are a genius. I love that wording. That should have been on the welcome brochure we all get as babies, assuming we could read it.

I mean, that’s a pretty common theme in the Bible:

As one dies, so dies the other—they all have the same breath. Man has no advantage over the animals, since everything is futile. All go to one place: All come from dust, and all return to dust.

In the Qur'an as well! Chapter 102:1-2, very roughly translates as "Surely the accumulation of wealth distracts you, distracts you until you visit the grave"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-Takathur

> I mean, that’s a pretty common theme in the Bible

Actually, it isn't. The book of Ecclesiastes, which you quoted, goes very much against the grain of the rest of the Bible, which generally tends more towards the idea that man is distinct from the animals, and does have a higher purpose, which is to serve God. Ask any Bible-thumping evangelical and they will be very quick to tell you that all do not go to one place, because their whole raison d'etre is to persuade you that if you don't follow exactly whatever particular flavour of Christianity they are pushing, then you will end up going to a very bad place indeed whereas they, of course are already assured of their entry into a not-so-bad place for all eternity. They will also tell you that the Bible never contradicts itself. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

”Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind."” ― Kurt Vonnegut

The economist just had a really fascinating interview with parents of extremely gifted children. Apparently many of these types of children start obsessing over this grand parade and it can become quite debilitating for them.

This one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19925859

Hah! Well thanks. I think the idea partly came from Cormac McCarthy - was it No Country for Old Men? The protagonist has a dream where he and his dad are on horses at night, and the dad rides ahead, into the "darkness," and is waiting for him to follow.

Maybe someone could disrupt the ownership model here and invite a number of families to move in together?

Not so much a disruption, but splitting these huge homes into duplexes is an easy ticket. HOAs and neighborhoods will fight it because "there goes the neighborhood"

The design of many of these doesn't really lend themselves into being split into duplexes.

This is already being done. I read an article about it a few months ago. It's like living in a dorm. There's a shared kitchen and bathroom, but you have a private bedroom. I don't remember the term for it. ("Shared Living" seems to be about people with disabilities, but it was a name similar to that.)

Zoning laws or local regulations (not just HOA) most likely would prevent it. An example is in Seattle some of the most expensive neighborhoods have strict rules that prevent multi-tenancy housing and the people living there actively fight to preserve that.

Does that stop share houses? If so how?

I do not wish to live in that kind of complete nightmare. And there is no such thing as too big house. How can someone even come up with that. I encourage that person to move into 10m^2 room and live there for like 8 years or so.

10m^2 is probably too small for many people, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some inflection point where the marginal cost of upkeep outweighs the marginal utility of additional space. As an absurd example, would you want to live in a house the size of Montana, and be responsible for all of the maintenance, or would you prefer something more human-scale, like a 40-bedroom mansion?

Size of Montana would be too big :-) But anything with at least 100m^2 would do, below that would be way too small for normal living

I grew up in a 4000sqft + finished basement house. It was a wonderful home and created a ton of memories. But there were rooms that we just never used. I remember going into rooms just because I haven't been in them for 6 months. Reflecting on that contributed to my significant shift in priorities.

I just bought my first house which is about half that size and even then it feels too big at times. But it's a house I can afford. Being mortgage free by 39 means I get the flexibility to decide what the next act of my life will be about (spoiler: my kids). All it cost me was, I guess, a pool, a hot tub, an extra car, etc.

Not going to analyze your apparent state of mind, but: many people find mansions built centuries ago by incredibly wealthy people fascinating, beautiful, desirable. Who cares if they are dead, they left pieces of art. If anything, the lack of taste and craftsmanship is a problem with today’s “McMansions”, not their size or depressed Millennials’ lack of imagination.

You lost me with the millennials bit - how do they come into play?

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