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challenger22on 25% of Americans say they worry about money ‘all the time’

U.S. stocks have appreciated at 7% (after inflation), on average, for over 100 years. And even if they don't, the 3.5% withdrawal rate has a 99% success rate if backtested on websites such as firecalc.com. Most of the time, this withdrawal rate leaves the investor with a portfolio worth several multiples of its starting value after 30 years.

challenger22on 25% of Americans say they worry about money ‘all the time’

Yeah, I think I will become more philanthropic soon, I can feel the limits of my hedonism kicking in, in a weird way. Currently my only philanthropy is volunteering at Habitat for Humanity every once in a blue moon.

The crossover point where I feel like I will actively enjoy giving to charity is once my portfolio reaches $2MM ($70k annual spend).

challenger22on 25% of Americans say they worry about money ‘all the time’

Yep, married now, probably 1 or 2 kids eventually. To add a bit of nuance to my first post, growth assumptions of 6% per year on the portfolio mean that the eventual expense associated with children is probably already baked into the plan, given how conservative a 3.5% withdrawal rate is. Not too bad to worry about financially.

Reasonable insurance means anticipated medical expenses are limited to out-of-pocket maximums per year, which is reasonable.

challenger22on 25% of Americans say they worry about money ‘all the time’

A question for you folks: when you spend money on goods and services that you know represent conspicuous consumption, and on ones that represent luxury, and provide little practical utility, how does it make you feel?

Using a 3.5% safe withdrawal rate, I've recently crossed the threshold where I could retire indefinitely at my current spending rate. Each day I continue working is now essentially only so I can spend more on a more luxurious lifestyle in the future. I'm fairly frugal, and it's been changing my perspective on work a bit. The first place I've been loosening up on is food.

challenger22on The World Blows over $5T a Year on Oil and Gas Subsidies: Report

Lack of externality-cancelling taxes is not equal to a subsidy.

challenger22on Hegelian contradiction and the prime numbers (part 2)

https://ianwrightsite.wordpress.com/2018/11/24/hegelian-cont...

Both TFA and the linked article referenced by TFA seem to me to be the ramblings of somebody trying really, really, hard to pull a rabbit out of a hat. By linking together abstract concepts you can prove that philosophy and mathematics are one and the same!

>So it’s very remarkable that Hegel’s mystical starting point, which is purely conceptual and abstract – and makes no reference to physical reality or empirical knowledge whatsoever – nonetheless implies a structure of ‘becoming’ that is equivalent to the fundamental structure found everywhere in physical science.

Well, you can read Hegel this way... I guess. Figure it makes for some really warm and fuzzy insightful feelings, regardless of whether they are meaningful.

challenger22on Combining finances

I would be very frustrated if I explicity had less fun money than my spouse.

challenger22on Dividends and Buybacks Now Larger Than Total Reported Earnings for Entire S&P500

It's also a more tax efficient way of distributing returns to shareholders than dividends. GP does not know what he's talking about.

challenger22on IQ rates are dropping in many developed countries

One claim I imagine that no sociologist will ever be able to prove (or disprove)-

If we are living in a crisis of confidence about society- one in which people are plagued by pessimism about too many humans causing global warming, secular stagnation, overpopulation, where all the low hanging fruits are already picked, lack of moral purpose, with the impression that humans are a plague upon the world-

Won't the average pessimistic person care less about trying hard to do anything? And won't this manifest as less effort to be smart and just?

challenger22on The Success of Nonviolent Civil Resistance

History class in U.S. high schools greatly emphasize the success of nonviolent protest, and it was surprising to me that they actually are twice as effective. I had recently come to the conclusion that this history lesson was mostly an intended plan to indoctrinate people away from tendencies to perform violent protest; it is nice to see that it is actually measureably correct.

challenger22on Global sea-level rise could be double our current predictions

Interesting bit: during a press event recently, Warren Buffett was asked whether increasing climate-related catastrophes would hurt the insurance companies in his portfolio. The answer was, to paraphrase, that they would help the companies more than hurt them. Even in a particular year that has unforeseen high levels of disaster, the companies will quickly update their risk models and increase their premiums, essentially bringing in the same margins as before on a larger risk pool = more profit.

challenger22on Show HN: Turn an Excel file into a web application

The OP's application is a bit of a shoehorn for a spreadsheet, but do you foresee alternatives to excel beating it at its own game at some point in the future?

challenger22on Experiments find higher social class more likely to have inflated sense of skill

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/02/06/correlation...

The scatter plots show a correlations strong enough that they startled me when I saw them. The higher the IQ, the lower the correlation though.

challenger22on Experiments find higher social class more likely to have inflated sense of skill

Considering my characterization of my own point earlier,

>Being too afraid to generalize the wealthy as competent causes yourself to miss an personal actionable moral lesson about goal-oriented behavior. It is entirely possible to make this judgement, and learn from it, without demonizing the poor as incometent or subhuman.

I wouldn't call your viewpoint evil, but I'd like you to characterize where I'm arguing from in your own words. Seems like you think I've jumped into the looney bin.

Putting too much emphasis on IQ is a bit distasteful, because people can't change their IQ very much. But conscientiousness is worth advocating for. To me, it seems like the left-leaning opinion is so afraid to make judgements between people's measurable differences that they want to immediately shame people for recognizing those differences.

challenger22on Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

Third world countries have been improving economically at a rapid pace. Look up "the elephant curve" for more info.

challenger22on Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

A less-good-than-it-would-have-been-30-years-ago life can still be a good life, easily.

Would you rather be born in the year 2050 or never exist at all?

challenger22on Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

They could, but most people are coming out ahead now. That is more relevant.

Turns out that when some consumption categories outpace inflation, the people that consume the most of those categories pay more!

challenger22on Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

I imagine GP was referring to US emissions, considering that his other points were US-centric. You are correct globally.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...

challenger22on Millennials and Gen Z Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds

If you let sensationalized news stories dominate your worldview, you will give in to apathy. If your strongest moral convictions are about events you cannot influence, redirect those convictions to something that is inside your locus of control.

What I urge people is: be conscientious in your day-to-day tasks. If you can see your efforts contributing to people's happiness, the apathy will disappear. Society is built of individuals; if these bricks do not care for the health of the structure, it will sag or collapse.

challenger22on Experiments find higher social class more likely to have inflated sense of skill

Your claims do not disagree with my claims that you are replying to. It's true that if you are poor, any misstep you make is more likely to make for a truly bad outcome.

challenger22on Experiments find higher social class more likely to have inflated sense of skill

Competence is the ability to do something (a goal) successfully or efficiently.

IQ measures the ability to perform abstract reasoning tasks successfully. Conscientiousness measures the willingness and desire to perform one's duties well. Additionally, among people that earned their wealth, the fact that they are wealthy demonstrates that they achieved their goal of becoming wealthy. These all indicate competence to me. Wealth, in general, can also be imagined as a state where one's needs are met, which is (for people that earned their wealth) almost always closely related to having achieved certain goals.

I would have a hard time imagining an argument that rejects these claims and also demonstrates that wealth and competence do not correlate positively.

Bear in mind that this is talking about populations as a whole- correlations are something we can tease out via sociological studies, and experiments are few and far between. There are facts about human nature that we will never prove conclusively, but to be an effective agent in the world, you should try to learn things about people that cannot be proven. Being too afraid to generalize the wealthy as competent causes yourself to miss an personal actionable moral lesson about goal-oriented behavior. It is entirely possible to make this judgement, and learn from it, without demonizing the poor as incometent or subhuman.

challenger22on Experiments find higher social class more likely to have inflated sense of skill

The "It's hard to take risks if you don't have a safety net" thread that's been active today has plenty of evidence for it (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19958301).

My argument is the flip side of (and generalization of) the usual claim that poor people are discouraged to try anything entrepeneurial.

Another competing claim could be that rich people are honestly less competent than poor people. I could easily argue against that one; IQ and conscientiousness are highly positively correlated with income, based on numerous sociological studies. People who dispute this fact have an agenda.

challenger22on Experiments find higher social class more likely to have inflated sense of skill

When you will still be wealthy regardless of the outcome of any decision you make, you can try more things and take more risks. This fosters as confidence. If you are competent in your risk-taking, it shows up. If you are not, it manifests as overconfidence.

Wealth does not create overconfidence; it only reveals it.

challenger22on Trump unveils 'merit-based' immigration policy plan

Poverty is not a unique property of capitalism.

challenger22on [dead]

>The dynamic basically foists the burden of making men feel comfortable on to women

To be fair, it puts an increased burden on both parties. Any situation in which people cannot even socialize comfortably is not ideal for productive work.

It's obvious that there is sexual tension between individuals at work sometimes. Given that relationships at work are fairly taboo even assuming both parties are interested, there are not obvious pathways to resolve this without risking your career. Anytime I've ever had any interest in a coworker, the main thought I've had in my mind has usually been to try not to even THINK about getting involved. But, work is just work. Gotta get paid. if I were to to prioritize my actions on my terminal values, what I really want in life, notwithstanding the risk described above, I would try to pursue these relationships.

challenger22on Trump unveils 'merit-based' immigration policy plan

There is plenty of evidence that wealthy people are better citizens. They commit less crime, are more economically productive, and consume more goods and services from other people, thereby boosting the economy. A nation that only accepts wealthy immigrants would be a nation with less of the problems associated with poverty.

The questions are more like: 1. is this fair? and 2. would the reduction in number of immigrants be harmful to economic growth?

challenger22on Study Finds Ultra-Processed Foods Drive Weight Gain

I often wonder how much the difficulty of chewing a food effects how healthy its consumers are. Processed foods are "pre-chewed" and easy to eat very quickly.

challenger22on Robot can pick tomatoes without bruising them better than humans

The gotton gin processed picked cotton, necessitating more pickers. This machine picks tomatoes, reducing needs for pickers. After picking, all remaining processing for tomatoes is highly automated/ bulk operations (trucking, washing, canning or packaging and distributing as fresh produce).

challenger22on Close to 735k Fraudulently Obtained IP Addresses Uncovered and Revoked

See ebay listings for how you can buy R-12 by stating you are a reseller:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/R12-Refrigerant-12-Virgin-Pure-R-12...

>An EPA certificate is required to purchase R12 Refrigerant "OR" a statement saying you are purchasing this for "Resale Only". The "Resale Only" statement can be in the form of an e-mail.

Pretty easy for Joe Handyman to buy.

challenger22on SAT to Give Students ‘Adversity Score’ to Capture Social and Economic Background

pretty damn kafka-esque.