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Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything.

Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy.

I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune on the stock market at the start of this millenium. Not filthy rich, but enough to never have to work again and live a comfortable, middle-class life.

I didn't "get out" because of greed, and voila, the bubble burst and the comfortable situation was over - I was at the mercy of my salary again, and everything that comes with it. Dumb colleagues, inept superiors, boring work, etc.

My employment situation didn't change - but when I had the theoretical opportunity to just quit with no financial worries, I was happy despite everything. Once that stopped, I became unhappy, or rather, baseline neutral again.

When I was in the comfortable situation, I was carefree and open to pursue ideas and projects brought to me which I knew were stupid and prone to fail. My colleagues loved it, of course.

I learned that worrying about whether I'll have enough money to live somewhat comfortably until death is what makes me unhappy, and extremely wary to avoid failure. There's nothing else to it.

View on HN

I can confirm. Stepping off the treadmill - or just slowing it down - gives you so much more space to be curious.

It's not just a matter of precariousness. You just have a lot more time and energy for these things. You can always sleep a bit longer, or delay work to follow an impulse with your full energy. There's always time for projects, even if they're not part of some hustle. It's an incredible privilege.

Forget about the American dream. The Victorian dream is where it's at. I want to spend my days being a gentleman scientist and a student of the arts. I want my best work to follow my morning tea in the garden, and I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it.

> I want to spend my days being a gentleman scientist and a student of the arts. I want my best work to follow my morning tea in the garden, and I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it.

Atop a healthy and happy family, this is all I want from life. I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it.

> I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it.

>> I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it.

I'd argue this already exists. We're on it right now...

I think HN overlaps a lot with what I imagine from OP's description. I personally would want more content along the lines of showing what random projects people are working on and far less focus on the companies that a particular VC firm happens to back.

> I personally would want more content along the lines of showing what random projects people are working on

YES. Anyone know of a good place for this?

hackaday is like this, but with an electronics focus rather than software

Lobste.rs does this occasionally, which can be interesting.

Yup, this is exactly what brings me to HN day after day.

I was thinking of meetup groups when writing that line. Some of them are practically adult show and tell.

Almost everytime I have a three day weekend I find that third day so enjoyable. My life feels better overall and it carries into the week. Literally having one more day off per week changes my mood drastically. I'm prioritizing a four day work week whenever I look for my next job because of this.

Ironically, the rise of the US as an economic power probably was what ended the Victorian dream of noble men doing nothing but looking for ever more refined expressions of art and culture. Huysmans wrote about it in his still very relevant novel "À rebours".

What about the Victorian period made this possible? Seems strange that we have so much more wealth and efficiencies now (even just refrigeration/freezers as one example) yet seem to have gone backwards in this regard. What could be the underlying cause of this?

The few people with the wealth to be able to live this lifestyle are the ones who left enough records to read about. The commoners definitely existed, they just didn't leave records, or the ones they did leave weren't preserved, or the ones that were, common folk don't study or read about. That's all.

In another 1,000 years, think about who around you right now might have the chance to be remembered. Someone like Bezos or Musk? Those reading about our life in the year 3,022 might believe everyone in our time was a wealthy CEO funding rocketship companies if they go by the names that have stood through time.

It was only possible in the Victorian period for the wealthy elite. If you were born into a family that owned vast swaths of land or used to run slave plantations in the Caribbean you were set for life and could devote your life to less crude pursuits than the gain of capital. You would also have a ready built network of others with similar wealth and social expectations.

And not only in England - all of Europe's elite, in France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Russia, spend their days sponsoring art and partying, basically. They were the ones paying all the famous composers, painters, etc. whose work we still marvel at today. The rise of the United States and its capitalist system brought an end to that. The businessman rose over the noble man, both in wealth as well as image.

Not the businessman, really; the _normal_ man. If we were back in the Victorian age, it's likely that you and I would be doomed to labor every day for meager sustenance, supporting the occasional noble and their leisure.

Just have to reply to this, so I can find your comment in my own comments. We'll put and I am trying to love like this for myself. Thx

You can also click on the timestamp of the HN comment (e.g. ‘1 hour ago’) and then click ‘favorite’. That will save the comment (publicly) to your profile.

Looking at your profile it doesn’t look like you have any favorites saved yet, so maybe you’re not familiar with that feature?

I'm not OP - but didn't know about "favorite" and thanks!

> Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy.

This is the myth that keeps people trapped in bad jobs, but it’s not true.

Yes, most of us have to continue working. But no, that doesn’t mean your job must be miserable and you must be surrounded by miserable people. Look around. Try something different. There are a lot of good jobs and teams out there.

Too many people in tech approach their careers as a simple compensation maximization problem and disregard everything else. They end up in companies that are happy to pay them 10-100% more but then demand they work 20-200% harder and deal with bad behavior and unrealistic expectations because the company knows they’re not going to leave behind that sweet total compensation to go somewhere less stressful.

You can have good pay and good working conditions, but you have to work to find it and keep it. The big company recruiters desperate to give you high total comp just to get you in the door (often to replace employees who turned over) aren’t necessarily the path to finding that optimal point, though.

I’ve taken a few salary down-steps in my career that felt scary at the time but ended up being well worth it for the increased quality of life.

Too simplistic. Some people are trapped - the availability of even just one alternative job with chance of improvement is not a given. It's question of age(ism), ableness to move to another city / country, and luck.

Or put differently, we're not all around 30 anymore, live in the bay area, and might have family matters, e.hg. a wife that doesn't want to quit a job she loves so you can maybe improve your happiness by 10%.

Also, companies change over time. A great place can become hell with just one bad superior getting hired and poisoning everything.

Can't agree more. I've turned away from many a high paying gig (and even left a couple) for exactly this reason. With (much) more money comes much higher expectations. If they aren't reasonable, you're typically going to deal with a load of stress.

This can also happen with lower paying gigs, so you still have to qualify your jobs appropriately, but prioritizing quality of life over raw compensation is a great trade in my book. With the high salaries of the current tech market, it's not actually that hard to make a very comfortable living while still staying sane/happy and avoiding burnout.

The upside being that you can also take some time to learn new tech / get your head out of the weeds, and often make much more important and broad impacts. Like Kent Beck used to say: "program as if you had enough time".

> You can have good pay and good working conditions, but you have to work to find it and keep it

The existential unhappiness of work is from depending on it for your livelihood.

As PP described, he was perfectly happy with his job until he became dependent on it and no longer had the ability to walk away at any time without caring about the financial consequences.

Among other things, as you indicate, as soon as you become dependent on your job financially, you take on an additional, and unhappiness-inducing, maintenance burden of constantly working to keep your job and then working to find a replacement job when your job changes or vanishes due to business conditions or the economy.

(And, of course, the work becomes something that you have to do, which creates reactance, etc..)

I know plenty of people who will say "you know what, I'm out" despite living paycheck to paycheck, or maybe having 1 or 2 months living expenses saved up. They're just open to the risk of going with the flow, and confident they'll find something to keep them going. They tend to be a lot happier than those I know who are focussed on money and career.

This doesn't work if you're literally struggling to make ends meet to the point that you're actually not making ends meet. But you certainly don't need anything near "never have to work again" levels of wealth to have this freedom.

I know someone who did that and in the end he went from well-paid technical sales to homeless with serious health issues. One piece of minor bad luck followed by more bad luck with the health issues, probably a consequence of the former. Some of his former colleagues, years later, when one of them had found him in the streets, collected money to help him out.

There is a risk of stepping outside. It's not all roses. People are not afraid for no reason and it's not just "all in the head" and an attitude problem.

The people I'm thinking of weren't so much "stepping outside" as they were "never inside". They have always worked casual jobs which they enjoy, and generally have strong social networks that can help them out when they're in need.

It works if you don't have many responsibilities. I recently lost my only source of income and that became crippling to my overall performance when it comes to side projects that could eventually replace that source. It was really surprising since I expected to head full forward with my projects. It used to be the case when I was a student capable of living on a shoestring budget.

> It works if you don't have many responsibilities.

Yep. Single person with minimal responsibilities has more freedom/flexibility than someone with a family (for example) - kids/spouse mean your time is not just your own, and your decisions have direct (often immediate) impacts on those around you.

> It used to be the case when I was a student capable of living on a shoestring budget.

It blows me away how easy it is to grow your expenses right along with your income. I started in this industry making like $60k/yr and somehow managed to live and go on trips. Now that I’m older I make substantially more than that but somehow my expenses grew right along side. Car payment, expensive apartment, Uber eats, fancier groceries, lavish travel, expensive hobby stuff… shit adds up. Not to mention I’ve got graduate level student loans, maxed retirement, etc…

I dunno… I know for sure if push came to shove I could do away with a large portion of that. But man can your expenses blow up so easily if you don’t pay attention to them.

Throw a wife and two kids into that mix and let’s see what happens to your side projects.

Yeah, it goes from 16 hours a day to MAYBE 16 hours a week.

I have a lot of experience pushing forward stuff with wife / kids. One must learn to delegate. Yes you can do "programming whatever", but you don't have the time. If you believe in the project, allocate.... $100,$500,$1k a month for a few months (whatever is your threshold) and outsource! It doesn't need to be in "expensive React with microservices".... you can do v1 in Laravel and a purchased template. (as example).

If one does not feel comfortable paying someone to do some of the work - it is a key tell the project may not be worth continuing. Momentum is key as projects natural state is "trending towards death"

This advice used to work years ago but user expectations have risen massively and you can no longer get away with a shitty cookie cutter MVP. You must do the big work upfront and come out very polished out of the gate, or else users will sense you don’t really have much skin in the game and not bother investing time in your niche project. This often means you must leverage the latest and greatest tech to get an edge, such as React.

Users have been burned too much by “lean startups” and “mvps” and have become wiser to their tricks.

Eh, I think this is a major fallacy that burns a lot of potentially viable companies to the ground.

Step 1 is validate your market and produce something of value - that is the focus of the MVP.

The MVP doesn’t need to go from $0 to $bln. and it’s a red flag in my opinion of something thinks it does. If the market is already established or there are established competitors, and you’re building out more capacity then sure - but then you should already be able to build a spreadsheet with all the market variables, or you’re fooling yourself.

If you can’t do that with 1 person and random tools, it doesn’t mean that isn’t a business. It does mean it’s a higher risk of failing, and failing catastrophically, and destroying a whole lot more money in the process.

If the value proposition is common, then yes it is hard. If it is novel, then no.

Agree design is much more important than before. But you can still pay a designer $1k or less and it looks pretty nice. Maybe not "uniquely different", but nice.

Agree the days of "simply put it up and get users" is probably gone. One has to work it, which is what distinguishes a project from a business. Developers may be good at one, but not both.

The problem with this advice is the same as with most advice for how to get ahead: It just does not scale, not even a little. It only works for a few. If more people follow it, it's just more stressful and/or expensive for everyone.

I mean, if this is the kind of society that any poster of such advice has in mind than I won't complain. Who am I to dictate what the end goal is? If people want a society for winners, so be it. I just wish that advice givers were aware of that and would show it. As it usually sounds like such advice is given without any thought for scalability.

Or you subscribe to the idea that a huge number of people could indeed have this 0.1% super idea. I can't really disprove that this would be possible I admit, a huge number of people suddenly having crazy good ideas all at once, and all or most not requiring a lot of resources (which they would compete over, and with all the old industries).

Blindly spending $100mln to make an awesome app without getting a MVP out to validate an idea for way cheaper is just ‘making up losses at scale’. It also doesn’t scale.

Almost swallowed my cuppa when you called React the latest and greatest

I know it's not, but I'm trying to draw a parallel to what many market devs would probably use and cause themselves more trouble for launching

Yeah, users care about React. [Eye roll]

As a user I care enough to make some effort to avoid it such as using old.reddit rather than the new fangled version.

They don’t care about React they care about having next generation web applications with complex state, not some garbage where you click a button and refresh a page everytime to re-render the screen.

No way - users care about speed a lot but usually could care less about a page refresh. That's why React apps are getting a bad rap with users as they are often slow due to poor engineering. If the app is fast and looks good, users like it.

Example - because many developers will fret more about the technology of their site than the actual business. <yes, it's common>

Or -16 hrs a week (made up by borrowing from sleep or other necessary time), which just isn’t sustainable.

This is what Tullio Kezich wrote in his book "Federico" to describe Federico Fellini's attitude towards life.

"He lived deep inside things with indomitable curiosity and perpetual openness, surrendering himself to what Dostoevsky calls "the river of life", in the serene awareness that it always takes you somewhere".

It always takes you somewhere.

I agree with what you are saying for sure. I have spent years working for myself in a variety of roles and while I was certainly happier than when I worked under a boss, the constant stress around lack of reliable income was stressful. Suddenly this last year or so all of the skills I had cultivated with my side hustles culminated in a way that I am both my own boss and making enough money my situation feels less dire. It was the combination of the two that really made a difference in my mental health

I reckon they're not 50 or older, though.

I think that's the best argument for UBI. If people aren't constantly worried about being homeless and not having food, they are happier, healthier, more productive and live more fulfilling lives.

Unfortunately policy is formed from a balance of competing powers, not as a result of an idea for doing what is best for people.

I think it's a mistake to think that captains of industry want productivity above all else. They'll happily sacrifice productivity for certainty and compliance.

Only having people working for them who want to work for them seems like an easy way to be sure of certainty and compliance.

That doesn’t ring true in my decade of management. Some people are just incapable of doing a bad job, and others just incapable of doing a good job. Whether or not they want to work for you.

A decade of management under a system where people have to work whatever job is available to them just to survive. That's a huge, screaming confounding variable. If the people you've managed have a meaningful choice in where to work, then they aren't the primary target of UBI.

Considering we’ve never (to my knowledge) had a system where People didn’t have to work to survive at some level - how would anyone know?

Even idle noblity had expectations (military service, patrons of arts and society, etc).

No, that's an argument for a proper social safety net, as implemented in many European countries. Most fulltime jobs pay better than a UBI ever could, so if you have a job,

a) either your standard of living is so high that a change to UBI-only would be very disruptive and you'd still be worried about losing your job,

b) or your standard of living is so low that you'd quickly accumulate enough of a financial buffer that you wouldn't have to worry about losing your job.

Therefore, a UBI wouldn't be better than a social safety net in this regard. In both cases you wouldn't have to worry about starving, but you'd still have to worry about losing your income.

The "social security net" we have in Europe isn't perfect, though. At least here in Austria they make you jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops to get assistance. There's not a single type of assistance you get, there's like 10 different things you can apply for, they all have different preconditions and navigating them is almost a full time job. And before people take a job, they have to think about which aid they are going to lose, etc. At the sametime they have to deal with the stigma of depending on social security.

With UBI you wouldn't need any bureaucracy, you would always get more money if you worked even a shitty job, and noone would be jealous that you are freeloading because everyone gets UBI.

> The "social security net" we have in Europe isn't perfect, though.

You're comparing the imperfect reality of an actual situation (unemployment benefits) against the utopian fantasy of an imagined best case scenario (UBI) – of course the imagined scenario will come out on top. The real result of a UBI will almost certainly look less rosy than the picture you paint, just like every other plan once it gets implemented. For example, this:

> noone would be jealous that you are freeloading because everyone gets UBI

would likely be wrong, because people would instead be jealous because you're "freeloading" by not working and therefore not paying taxes. Other ways a UBI could conceivably be bad or even worse than the current status quo:

* Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line.

* Any realistic UBI is too low for people with special needs (like disabilities), so you'll again need a bureaucracy to deal with those cases.

* If the UBI is independent of local cost-of-living, it'll most likely be too low to survive on it in high COL areas, like most large cities. If it's dependent on COL, the exact implementation won't please everyone.

> Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line.

By far this is the easiest to predict, but least likely to be addressed (by the proponents) concern I have with UBI.

A social safety net shouldn’t be a hammock, as it is said. I’m concerned with AI and what happens when it’s pointless to hire people because a $100k robot can do the same work as 3 of them and do so 20 hours a day. By then UBI may be our answer. But it doesn’t seem so now.

Totally agree with this. Otherwise, I don't see UBI solving anything, but creating new problems.

None of what you posted is serious criticism of UBI.

> Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line.

Governments will respond to economic factors that diminish purchasing power in order to maintain the effectiveness of UBI, as a part of UBI.

> Any realistic UBI is too low for people with special needs

Diminished support for disabled or sick people is not a part of UBI. UBI should become a part (within or on top of) of their support. Bureaucracy will still be diminished for non-disabled people.

> If the UBI is independent of local cost-of-living, it'll most likely be too low to survive on it in high COL areas

So people in those areas will have to have jobs. UBI still allows them to go quit their job and move out to the country if they want to subsist on it. UBI would go nicely paired with rent controls and maintaining individual purchase power, but it doesn't even need those things to be a net positive.

UBI should have been implemented 20-40 years ago, it will surely be necessary going forward, it's time to get on board.

> Governments will respond to economic factors that diminish purchasing power in order to maintain the effectiveness of UBI, as a part of UBI.

How? Using which political, economic, and financial tools? And what will be the side effects of those policies? That's exactly the point I was making: UBI proponents assume a downright utopian best-case scenario where everything works as planned (even though those plans are vague at best, and wishful fantasies at worst), and politicians and voters behave perfectly rational.

>> How? Using which political, economic, and financial tools? And what will be the side effects of those policies?

There's a simple answer for that: please look at communist Poland 1980-1989 - trying to counter raising prices with government intervention leads to supply crisis (since production is not economically viable anymore). Imagine all stores having nothing to sell, literally empty shelves, forcing common people to fight for scrapes.

That reminds me of a German joke about the German Democratic Republic ("East Germany"):

Ein Mann geht in ein Kaufhaus in der DDR. Er fragt den Verkäufer: "Gibt's hier keine Socken?" – "Nein, hier gibt's keine Hosen. Keine Socken gibt's in der zweiten Etage."

Translated (roughly): A man visits a department store in East Germany. He asks the shop assistant: "Do you have no socks here?" – "No, we have no trousers. No socks are on the second floor."

(The joke relies on the word order of German syntax; properly translated, the dialog would be:

"Don't you have any socks?" – "No, we don't have any trousers. No socks are on the second floor"

But then the joke doesn't really make sense anymore.)

Oh really? So when the United States subsidizes our otherwise non competitive corn industry, it leads to economic collapse?

When we control oil prices by using reserves and trading agreements, does that cause people to fight for scraps?

How about when we subsidize silicon chip manufacturing? Did that collapse society?

You cannot, in a serious conversation, compare Soviet Union economic policies to modern socialist ideas. It's just silly.

Subsidizing any industry is always bad for economy (because you are shifting money taken from good businesses to bad ones), it's just that the amount of subsidies given to corn industry, or even amount that can be given to chip manufacturing are nothing compared to US GDP. Try make that a general rule across the whole economy and see what happens.

"Modern socialist ideas" are basically the same ideas that were already tried in Soviet Union, just dressed in fancier words.

As an opponent of UBI you should know what economic and financial tools would be available, and then explain why they wouldn't work, rather than act like they don't exist. It would help your counter argument.

No, is the other way around. You claim UBI would work and the problems some of us said are not real problems because it could be solved. So now, it is your turn to explain which mechanisms would avoid those problems.

Otherwise I could say "erasing money would make us live like aristocrats" without explaining how or why, and you should try to figure out why I could think that way, what kind of tools and mechanisms I thought of and after that, explaining why it would not work. Obviously, I could say those are not the right tools for my idea, so you have no real counter arguments, yada yada yada...

Of course! government intervention in prices and supply and demand! How nobody thought about it before? Well, they did. And it failed spectacularly, as central planning of prices doesn't work due to the impossibility of getting all the information needed in time and the results of the analysis on time too in order to correct the market.

And as a proponent of UBI, YOU should explain how it would work, not the others. What financial tools or mechanisms would use a government to control the inflation or the rise in prices? I mean, even in the late Soviet Union had to look at capitalists countries to have an idea of the prices for basic products, because they coul not put a price that would make it work.

> would likely be wrong, because people would instead be jealous because you're "freeloading" by not working and therefore not paying taxes

There's a precedent why I think that people will approve of "universal" income: We have "Familienbeihilfe" in Austria. It's a payment of roughly 200€ per child that parents get. Everyone gets it, regardless of income, so noone is jealous. It's the best way of distributing financial aid in my opinion.

Regarding special needs, in my experience it's much easier to get aid for disabilities. I have a kid with special needs, and it's incredible how helpful people are. Social workers are calling us to tell us what kind of aid we should apply for and help us fill out forms etc. It's completely the opposite experience of applying for unemployment or for aid with rent payments etc.

What about the childless, and those who never want children?

They pay for everyone else's children through their taxes. Money they could use elsewhere for their own needs or pleasure.

-- To be clear, I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. I don't have population charts of Austria on my desk and I'm too lazy to Google it right now, I'd assume it tracks a similar trend to the rest of the Europe and it's slowing down. In that case it might be for the common good and might come back as a positive to the individual at some point in their life.

I'm just saying it's not easy to come up with a scheme that is/feels fair to everyone involved, especially if there's no justification for it. One could find justifications for child support maybe, but can you justify freeloading just as easily?

That's exactly why everyone should get UBI. Because then noone is left out. Some need it more than others, but you get it even if you don't need it or don't deserve it.

I'm pretty sure people would be a lot more hesitant to complain about others getting UBI if they get it themselves.

There are already problems with this written in a comment above. I recall it would be like: do residents get it too? How long they need to be in the country to get the UBI? What about expats working in the country? and their kids? Should the kids get the money since birth or later?

And last one: as UBI comes from taxes (the state generates 0 money, just collect from others), what about those who decide not to work at all? How long until some of them stats asking for an increase in UBI because they cannot get a rent in the city?

It seems you have an idealistic view about human nature and that everyone is good and honest, not greedy, etc. The reality is not bad, but not so naive.

You sound like the motivation behind social security and UBI are different.

It's nice to present a clean (modeled) plan, but it's something different when it hits reality. Social security now, is what UBI will look like a few decades down the road.

Somebody will find a way to exploit UBI and that hole gets patched, then there's another patch and another. Not to speak of how different political ideologies will apply their own modifications to previously established laws

Confused. If the income is universal (the 'U' in UBI) then what possible hack is there? That's the entire point really. Its why you can get rid of the bureaucracy, since there are no rules to exploit.

I'm confused too. How is that engineers here talking about UBI as a solution to this pressure to keep your job don't talk or consider how to pay that? Besides, when everyone has a base level of income, inflation came in play (as a consequence of supply and demand of goods) and then we go back to the same problem: getting a good life or just the basics to life becomes expensive even with UBI.

Also, I would recommend to read "Debunking Utopia" about the social system Nordic countries implemented in the past, some kind of model for solving the problem of living decently for people without possibilities and/or problems to make a living. The countries are slowly but steady reducing that system because it solves nothing and creates extra problems. With UBI, which is a bigger plan than the system Nordic countries had, you would end up with the same if not worse problems than they faced: people decide not to work for low wages or in jobs that are needed but unappealing (and I don't blame them, for sure), but because someone has to do the jobs, wages increase a lot, which in turn, increases the costs and price of those services. And, voila, we are at the beginning of the problem, were people are stressed or unhappy because they have to keep jobs they don't enjoy or like.

The difference is that the UBI would be the new penny, because you could not buy anything. Maybe with AI and automation we would get there, as robots would not complain or care.

> If the income is universal (the 'U' in UBI)

Will residents without citizenship receive the UBI? If yes, how long do they have to reside to be eligible? Will expats with citizenship receive the UBI? Will children receive the full UBI starting at birth? If not, when will they? Is it an abrupt step (if yes, at what age?), or is it gradual?

There are many subtleties to the meaning of "universal". And that's just what I've come up with in 2 minutes...

I think you are discounting the fact that in the second scenario you don't have to work. I don't know about y'all but that is my fantasy.

> I think you are discounting the fact that in the second scenario you don't have to work

*for a while. Only very few people are able to save enough to never have to work again, even with a low standard of living.

If the plan is to live off the savings, probably not. The idea is to make some investments, either stocks or real estate (for renting, for example), and have the money work for you.

It is not easy in any case, that's for sure. Besides, I sometimes think if I could get there, I would work time to time in interesting projects.

> Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy.

This is bleak way of looking at things. There's one thing to have f-u money but there's another base level of security that lets you leave a job or group and move on without too much disruption. Marriage helps there too. I'm nowhere near "secure for life" money, but if I was truly unhappy with my job I'd leave and find something else in a month or two. Around a quarter of people who left their jobs in the US don't have a new role lined up and turnover otherwise is pretty high telling me people do have a choice. [0]

> When I was in the comfortable situation, I was carefree and open to pursue ideas and projects brought to me which I knew were stupid and prone to fail. My colleagues loved it, of course.

I've found the reverse. When I was most carefree and comfortable as a child and young adult, I didn't pursue ideas or projects. I didn't do much of anything. I watched TV and hung out with friends. I went through the motions at work. Only later when I had actual responsibilities and had a partner did I get ambitious and pursued more ambitious projects. "Worrying" about making it is what gets me up in the morning and keeps me motivated and feel like I have a purpose

[0] https://time.com/charter/6138353/new-rules-of-quitting/

You're touching on something here. I think real insecurity can be a motivating, albeit stressful, factor particularly in young adulthood (you have lots to gain and less to lose for taking risks) but once you've really experienced it it stays with you. That can lead to conservative, safe choices to avoid unknowns. For those like this it's easy to see why they project that a promise of security would enable them to behave differently, even if it may be irrational.

What stands out searching my memories at that young age is there was little cognizance or care about national/international issues, let alone survival. There was nothing particularly special about what I did with my time (some of it was creative, mostly not), but I was de-facto optimistic about my future. I may have had immediate concerns and worries (I was often lonely too), but they passed. Until they didn't. And I became sufficiently aware for social anxiety and fear of failure to take hold, alongside bad coping habits. Today I have stability, but learned conservative behavior. I have to be conscious about trying to shake things up now and then.

> Marriage helps there too.

Yeah. My “wife” (girlfriend of 22 years) was recently able to say F-U to her old hated job and start part-time growing a private therapy clientele because my pay has gone up so much in the past four years or so. Having a support structure really helps.

> I've found the reverse.

Agreed. When I had nothing external motivating me I became largely idle, despite my best intentions. I joke about early retirement but I’m not sure it would be good for me.

Marriage only helps if your partner can support you, if push comes to shove.

If they're incapable of holding realistic employment, and it's all down to you, then you're in a worse situation than being single.

Possible requirements, from best to worst:

(A has job) || (B has job) // Robustness!

(A has job) // B won't have job, but A's is enough.

(A has job) && (B has job) // Cost of living is more than max(A, B) and less than A + B.

Your comment smells like resentment made into a social theory.

> Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy.

Not being secure for life is what 99% of the world experience their entire life and out of these 99% a lof them are happy. I know in the Silicon Valley microcosm the perspective of being secure for life is something everyone is after but most people are happy to live paycheck to paycheck, save a bit of their revenue every month and enjoy their life.

I’m not sure that “happy” is the right term for being content living paycheck to paycheck, and I’m even less sure that it’s necessary for so many to live like this in today’s bountiful world. Wealth is getting far too concentrated within a very small percentage of society.

I'd flip the script. Start willing yourself to be super positive, interested and committed, and no matter what you'll get much better. More than that, you'll become better liked in the eyes of people who write the checks, and overall be considered more indispensable. That will parlay into additional opportunities, responsibilities and eventually pay. After that, leverage to either negotiate pay, or attract interest from other places.

This is a move you can pull from almost any position. No need to score a stock windfall (though sorry to hear about your dramatic rise and fall)

Successful people make their own luck! You are so right - our attitudes have more to do with our own happiness than we often like to admit. Which is why I see the cesspool of negativity that often permeates the online world as being so pernicious. It's hard to not get caught up in it, even if you are aware it's there and inherently evil. I've dramatically cut back on the amount of time I spend online in general and I am noticeably better off for it!

Is this the thing that I see in many Americans giving presentations? They are always uncomfortably excited and happy, regardless of what they are presenting. I get it, you're excited, but please accept that I'm here for the information, not your personal endorphin levels.

/rant off.... Sorry just came out of a workshop where the presenter spent half the time trying to get a bunch of technical people excited rather than just presenting the information we came for. Very exhausting.

There's a difference between putting on a show, and genuinely being into whatever it is you're doing. What you're responding to is the former. What I'm suggesting is the latter.

> There's nothing else to it.

Your response seems too generalized as if it relates to everyone. Let me disagree.

I myself can be considered that kind of genius OP is talking about, at least in my earlier days. First 15 years of my career I've never had any (ANY) savings, and most of the time had some amount of debt. But I always felt simple enough to walk away from any situation I don't want to be in and was ready to live in any condition. But I always loved my job, always was super-curious and eager to learn, and employers were always looking for me not the other way around.

I can say that OP is right, at least for some subset of people.

Sorry but I don't think a real genius would call himself one.

Maybe growing up with this kind of money has that effect, but not acquiring it midlife.

I got the money to get out and that's exactly what I did. I got out of everything. I'm not any more open than I was and I'm not happier. I just feel more secure and comfortable.

They mentioned they were happier having enough money to get out, but not actually getting out. Maybe that’s the difference? Just knowing it’s an option?

It definitely makes a difference knowing you have the option, the startup I worked for exited last year leaving me with a significant but not life changing windfall from cashing out my options. I'm still in the same job, but now working for a big corporate, and some days I absolutely hate it, but I at least know that I'm here by choice rather than necessity. Should it become too much I've got enough money in the bank to just rage quit and walk away without needing to immediately find another job.

It's more than that - it's also coming in to work and knowing you are better than 90% of the people there at a leisurely pace. There is a huge difference between coming in and working 16 hours just not to seem stupid and working 4 hours and being considered indispensable. Has NOTHING to do with some idealistic outlook perspective.

The idea that this positive state of mind is resource dependent is itself a preemptive loss of that state of mind.

Interesting that you're suggesting you were given stupid/risky projects at work. For most of us, it's the boring stuff across the board. At any rate, did those realistically pose a risk for your future employment, or is it a symptom of feeling more conservative following financial insecurity (I've felt this myself)?

I have a bit of time I could reserve personal projects, as a means to bridge myself to more interesting things, but I usually don't bother with much. This becomes a source of pressure on myself. I see it as my only viable option for deviating from things as they are. I have to fight through fatigue and search through crumbs for sparks of interest.

I can testify this is not the case, at least in my experience. Being able to say "I'm out" does not guarantee happiness. Compare it to people saying "when I win the lottery, all my problems are fixed". Surely you have heard about studies that conclude quite the opposite. So what makes happy, instead? Being able to cooperate with, surprise people in positive ways, and getting appreciation from that. But this also means investment: being open to ideas of others, being creative and working hard. No pain, no gain...

I may be making a mundane observation here, but I've tried living with less money and more money, and more money makes me much happier. People who aren't happy with more money (and assuming there are no trade-offs with time spent at work or work-induced stress, say moving from 100k a year to 500k a year), are deserts of desire.

> Being able to say "I'm out" does not guarantee happiness.

It doesn't seem to me that anyone was saying it was a guarantee. Rather, that being able to say "I'm out" is in something along the lines of the "necessary, but not sufficient" category.

It sounds like you went through a path that helped you learn things about yourself, that's always a good thing.

It probably a mistake to try and project this too broadly though. I'm sure there are lots of people who would respond similarly to the way that you did, but also lots that would not.

You make a good point. Are people successful because they are happy, or vice versa?

Secure situations make successful people. Children raised in well-off households with no financial worries do better in school and later in their careers, on average. Sure, you get the rich kid wasting their life on parties or drugs, or the poor kid beating the odds by hard work and determination, but those are outliers. That's why there are so many of these characters in literature, movies, and TV - they're not the norm.

The mechanism is:

- a rich kid wastes 3 years on drugs and partying, gets caught once or twice, gets bailed by parents, moves on to do something productive

- a poor kid wastes 1 year on drugs and partying, gets caught once, it snowballs from there, recovery is very hard if at all possible

My personality is like the happy math guy above; I grew up in poverty, but I had a ton of loving security from both parents centered around love and commitment.

We used to have to collect change at McDonald’s for lunch. Eventually I graduated from MIT.

I understand it is not the norm… :)

I think you're asking the right question. Very unpopular opinion, but I think some of it comes down to genetics. I know a guy who is just always happy, no matter what. I've just never seen him feeling down. He grew up in a somewhat challenging situation but it doesn't seem to matter. I really think some of it is just the way he's wired. He has a lot of energy, is physically active everyday and doesn't fall asleep easily. This dude has the personality of a friendly dog (in a good way). He's a very reliable friend and I would trust him with my life.

The complete answer is probably that it goes both ways. People have a natural tendency to be more anxious or more energetic or happy or sad, a baseline if you will. If you take care of your body, it helps. If you're exposed to stressful situations, especially in childhood, that can become a risk factor later. But, IMO, there's definitely people out there who are genetically lucky in this area, and others less so.

I'm going to note that just suggesting that there's a genetic component is controversial because it goes against the modern day idea that "you can do anything if you just try hard enough" a little bit. The fact is though, we're all genetically unique. I think it's a good idea to acknowledge that we all start in a different place. That doesn't mean you can't work on yourself. Even short people can run a marathon and develop a lot more endurance if they train as opposed to playing videogames all day.

It also comes down to knowing your strengths and weaknesses. I feel like I have a natural tendency to feel more down and tired than others. I've developed healthy coping strategies and structured my life in a way that I can minimize stress. Being aware of my own limitations makes me better able to cope with them. Pretending that I'm one of those always happy people would not.

All behavioral and "personality" traits are partly heritable and most (all?) of them are due to many genes of small effects. This is a very general and solid result of behavioral genetics, <<the modern idea that "you can do anything if you just try hard enough">> is made with people who have no clue about the realities of life and speak because they can. It has the same intellectual value as "love will find you."

Although personalities tend to be sticky throughout life, that some people can substantially change their personalities is also quite obvious to anyone with (figuratively) open eyes.

What is “be successful” other than being content with your life?

Dudes who make bank almost always have to work really hard to get there. Or at least make a lot of sacrifices (for example trade most of your social life / relationships / etc for work).

Personally I just want to make enough to enable me to buy shit for my hobbies and personal projects. I’d like to do that while maintaining the ability to take lots of time off. I’d trade hobby money for time off. I’d trade a lot for time off…

> I’d trade a lot for time off…

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the moment my company comes to me and says "would you be interested in taking a 50% pay cut to work 20 hours a week?" I'm taking it. Even though I'd get the short end of the deal by doing more than 50% of what I'm doing now.

This might also be why religious people are so optimistic. I mean actual religious people who welcome poverty and their own death, as opposed to those using it to socially/politically get ahead.

This is exactly what i feel but did not thought about until i read the post. Is there a name for this pheneomeon. Dejavu is kind of tangential to this.

ennui, perhaps?

So I assume you are now saving and investing as aggressively as you can to reenter that situation?

This is why you take money off the table and put it into index funds.

^ Words that would likely not be written by a genius

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