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Comment by Ma8ee | Hacker News Reader

And that many smart people have better things to do with their time than making more money. I have everything I need and really want. I much rather play with my three year old son in the garden than being able to afford a new Tesla.

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“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

> This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

A lot of money simply isn't useful for anything interesting or valuable. Surviving is great, some comfort is nice, but after a certain order of magnitude, it's not so much people having money, it's money having people. While large scale projects are also important and those need money and other resources to be pooled in some form, but they don't require any involved person to be filthy rich.

And maybe that if you are smart (or think you are, based on previous success) you might be more relaxed about not optimizing for maximum monetary gain at every step of the way since you think you will always have plenty of good options down the road since your smarts is not a random one-off occurrence but something you can tap into repeatedly.

Personal anecdote: I used to be very anxious about making the absolutely "best" choice at every fork in my life and would agonize and analyze every decision meticulously. A few years into my career, I have had enough positive experiences and successes under my belt that I feel much more relaxed about the choices I make because I think I'll always have the ability to correct or pivot if I make one wrong move right now.

See also: "If you're really so smart, why do you care so much about being rich?"

Because have lots of money gives you the economic power to survive adversity, pursue interests that are more fulfilling, do more good in the world, etc...

Do more of your version of good ;)

Lots of rich well intentioned people doing harmful good. A tangent, I know.

I think what TheOtherHobbes means is you can survive adversity and pursue fulfilling interests without rising to the level of 'rich' - unless your interest is something like having colleges name buildings after you!

Indeed, it would be a poor reflection on our society if you had to be in the top percentile for income to merely be economically secure.

Yeah the underlying causality between intelligence and wealth/success is always strange for me. Researchers, artists, philosophers... There are a lot of smart people actively choosing to pursue interests that are not valued by the market/don't bring shareholder value. Is this a cultural thing? It's a bit caricatural but where I live I find it's the opposite, "real" smart people should not pursue such lowly material and gross goals as money, being rich is kind of suspicious. But maybe there are nuances in the different kind of smartness that are talked that I miss.

TIL: Didn’t know I was stupid for having different goals than starting a family.

In non mockery voice: I think there is nothing wrong in being smart and perusing academic titles, wealth or recognition. Can’t I be happy travelling the world because I have so much passive income that I don’t care how much I spend? Can’t I be happy running megacorporation without a child?

If that makes you happy then fine, but it's wrong to assume that it's the ultimate goal for everyone to be mega rich. Honestly it's a very common mistake for people to be totally sure that everyone in the world desires to be rich and famous

>>that everyone in the world desires to be rich and famous

Keep the fame, I just want the freedom that money buys. I was never famous; but I have been asked for autographs and been stared at by total strangers with hero worship in their eyes--it is bizarre, and it made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I can't imagine anyone wanting that.

I think it was Naval Ravikant who said recently that the ideal is to be rich or financially independent enough to not worry too much, + anonymous. Rich AND famous is a never-ending nightmare and poor + famous is pretty much the worst outcome because you have such reduced freedom and privacy and don't know who your real friends are.

I don't care about being kicked out of the 9-zero club or whatever, I just want to lay about all day or if I want to take a week trip to Kenya or Moscow... and NO BOSS

An expression of one's own values doesn't have to imply a judgement of others, especially if they're about what makes one happy.

Of course you can. True happiness is something that can't be controlled. So anyone who tells you you can't be happy doing a particular thing isn't right.

Granted there are some things we shouldn't be happy doing but I think that we all know what they are and it goes without saying.

If you calmly re-read the post you were replying to, you will see that they didn't question different goals than theirs, at all. They said "many smart people", not all, and they didn't say that those outside that subset are stupid.

Generally, happiness is a reward from doing what your genes want you to do. The greatest happiness therefore, should be found in the process of breeding and caring for offspring.

Social status (consumption, skills and achievements) helps you secure higher quality mates and offers greater security to your offspring. That's why gaining social status, feels worthwhile, but without kids it feels a bit empty.

Before kids, I knew the breeding was pretty good fun, but my genes gave me no indication that having kids would be fun too.

Perhaps thats just to ensure those genes are spread far and wide and to concentrate on social status before the all consuming process of caring for offspring begins.

overly reductive evolutionary psychology 101 but ok...

> Generally, happiness is a reward from doing what your genes want you to do.

I disagree. Generally happiness comes from being happy/content/thankful for what you have (as opposed to "having a lot"). You can be happy having no children, no fortune, no fame, etc. Conversely all of these do not guarantee happiness - Robin Williams committed suicide despite having them all, I think it's fair to assume he was not happy.

> Robin Williams committed suicide despite having them all, I think it's fair to assume he was not happy.

That's why I added 'Generally' and 'should be found'. It would be fair to say that Robin Williams was ill.

That was one of the more butt hurt of all possible interpretations of what I said. And without knowing anything at all about you, and only judging from your comment, my guess is that hit a bit of a nerve. Why is that?

And I didn’t mean to say that playing with three year old kids in the garden is the only thing that is worth pursuing. It was just an example close to my hearth right now in my life in my circumstances and in my part of the world. Of course there are many other worthy pursuits. My point was only that trying to get a bigger pile of money than other people I don’t consider one of them.

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