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Comment by sgt101 | Hacker News Reader

Ok, no capital letters as a writing affectation is immediately upsetting... but I'll let my anxiety about that subside and focus on the content.

I get it, I really do. I find it a daily struggle. Last week I told my boss I couldn't travel this week. He was fine about it, there wasn't even a discussion. But I've worried about it ever since. Not because I want a raise or a promotion, but because I need this job and I worry that I won't get another good one if I lose it. I need it to cover my families needs, I need it so that I can live a good life post work. I need to think about post work because we all know that when your hair goes white and you struggle with the accessibility of the office you're not going to get another one.

So, there is no compact that will create the feeling of safety and fulfillment that this article wishes for. Just money.

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> So, there is no compact that will create the feeling of safety and fulfillment that this article wishes for. Just money.

Money is the best freedom buyer. Don't trust anyone who says "Money doesn't buy happiness". That's rich-people propaganda to keep the rest of us dependent.

As Lucy Liu said in a fantastic interview: Do everything in your power to accumulate fuck you money as early as possible. Because then you can say No.

Even a few months of buffer is enough to buy lots of wellbeing. Having FIRE money is obviously even better.

Collective action is the best freedom-buyer. Stop trying to atomize society. We need to work together to fight for our rights, not try to hoard what meager crumbs we get from multi-billion dollar companies.

The issue is game-theoretic. There’s value in having money, absolutely, but most people end up having to chase it and never get any. If one person chases money, emancipation results for him. If everyone chases money, as most of us are forced to do, we end up miserable, and nobody wins except the people we should be removing from power as fast as possible.

Money clearly matters a lot, though. Why? Because we live in an objectively evil society—an oligarchy that has no language but money.

It's easy to write "just get more money" from a Palo Alto coffee shop making six figures and screwing off on HN all day in between "looks good" PR reviews. The rest of America is a little more angry than that.

> The issue is game-theoretic. There’s value in having money, absolutely, but most people end up having to chase it and never get any

We are on HN. The typical person here can achieve freedom for themselves and their family. And we should work to change the system also.

Remember that someone with 2mil can easily FIRE in America and still be closer to the destitute than the billionaires. 2mil is pretty achievable to most people on HN and we should definitely encourage each other to get there.

Vilifying small scale financial freedom is part of tall poppy syndrome and plays directly into the hands of wealthy oligarchs. The more people who think getting rich is bad, the better.

We gotta always remind each other that a millionaire is closer to us normies than they are to the billionaires.

This is an excellent post and I agree. That said, we should vilify people who get rich (small or large scale) in reprehensible ways, e.g. class traitors and people who enforce the system. But the distinction between people who simply succeed in a corrupt world (because life is random) and those who are rewarded for making it worse is important and underacknowledged.

I think I've found my peace. I'm 24, planning to live my entire life without long term relationships, so I don't have to worry about responsibilities to others. I live in Europe so theoretically retirement is not a death sentence, but if it gets too difficult I can always kill myself. One advantage of this life is that it becomes quite easy to save money when you don't have pointless expenses. So far I am very happy and stress free.

It is peaceful and I'm finding myself in a similar place at a slightly older age. Responsibility to others can indeed be draining. But I'd encourage you to see beyond ending yourself as an alternative. There's always another way to go forwards and grow.

Oh, certainly. I am not suicidal or depressed, but I simply do not see a point in living further if I had to work myself to exhaustion every day just to feed myself, or became severely ill. Having an escape button feels quite nice even if I'm not going to press it.

Seek professional help

Thank you for keeping me from even opening the article. No caps just sounds like someone whimpering in a corner.

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