A quote I like:
Nobody wants to solve problems. Everyone just wants to get rich enough so the problems don't apply to them anymore.
It's true. Same for disillusioned me nowadays too.
this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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Nobody likes to be generalized, because generalizations are shit.
I love it when I solve problems in my life. If I were rich, I'd be looking for problems to solve because otherwise I'm just a wallet keeping the money warm.
K
There are many problems that can only be solved using money.
What would you do with a million dollars?
Nothing man. Nothing.
Man, you don't need a million dollars to do that.
- Office Space
Two chicks at the same time.
Slight difference between doing nothing in a building and doing nothing under an overpass though.
Kind of reminds me of a sign that they have at Jimmy Johns.
The investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked…
Inside the small boat were several large fin tuna.
The banker complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The fisherman replied…
“Only a little while.”
The banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish? The fisherman said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The banker then asked…
“But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The fisherman said…
“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a nap with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my friends, I have a full and busy life.”
The banker scoffed…
“I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to a big City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The fisherman asked…
“But, how long will this take?”
To which the banker replied…
“15-20 years.”
The fisherman thought for a moment and then asked…
“But what then?”
The banker laughed and said that’s the best part…
“When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”
And, once again the fisherman asked…
“Then what?”
The banker said…
“Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take naps with your wife, stroll to the village in the evening, sip wine and play your guitar with your friends!”
Oh, the irony of having that sign at a corporate workplace staffed by wage slaves.
Not to mention the guy who started Jimmy John's .... Liautaud is an avid hunter and fisherman. In an interview in 2015 with the Chicago Tribune, Liautaud said that the largest misconception about him is that people still connect him to photos of him posing with big game from 10 years ago. According to Liautaud, he used to hunt big game in Africa on legally organized safaris, but he no longer does.[7] Starting in 2015, his hunting prompted people to call for a boycott of his business.[60] - Wikipedia
No longer because they are illegal now? Also, started small, only a 25k loan from his father
Yeah, but then the fisherman became ill and he couldn't afford treatment and lost everything. But the retired banker could fly anywhere and get the best treatment in the world then come back.
It's perhaps a contrived and bad example, but it does show the story glosses over quite a big difference in situation between someone who can choose exactly how they live, vs someone who can just choose a few things about how they live.
This quote is powered by a trust fund. Only someone with extremely wealthy and generous parents can inhabit an environment where the idea of normal people working for the sake of working seems to make sense.
WFH at a "if you get shit done, we don't care what your hours are" company. Or contracting with a high enough rate. I've done the former, now I'm doing the latter.
But this gravy train is not going to last much longer. Those companies are rare and with all the layoffs, the only way to get good contracting gigs is through industry contacts.
I still gotta work, but my minimum maintenance budget is about 40 hours a month. 100 means I can invest some, or splurge on niceties.
So I could sleep in if my toddler didn't have kindergarten (comes home at noon since we're still just practicing and not doing the afternoon nap there yet) and I absolutely could go to the gym in the middle of the day too (provided the aforementioned toddler is in kindy or I have a sitter. I'm a single dad).
This isn't really something everyone can do and I'm not sure how much longer it'll last for me so I'm going to start working more again when we're doing full ~8 hour days in kindergarten, but for now I'm kinda enjoying most of what the trust fund kiddie gets, without being a trust fund baby myself.
No surf though. Hour away from the beach. And I don't know how to surf.
He checked his privilege - and liked it.
I mean, if all the wealthy did this instead of their endless grind to own more and more at the expense of everyone else, the world would be a lot better.
The ultra wealthy have a hoarding mental illness. Most people would have stopped working long before they got to the point they did.
They could also shut the fuck up for like five minutes but nope. We get the Met Gala instead. Rich people parading around on TV for poor people to watch. It’s insane how mentally deranged all of it is.
But what if there was more than being really, really, really good looking.
ORANGE MOCHA FRAPPUCINO!!!
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I've had this same thought. Like, if I ever had the opportunity to be as rich as Bezos or Musk, I don't think I'd make it because I would've stopped so much earlier.
At a certain point, I'd just think "Sweet, we're set for life, and I can spend all my time with my wife and kids." Why would I sacrifice that kind of life just to see numbers on my bank accounts go up in a way that no longer meaningfully affects us?
Bezos, Musk, et al. feel that they have not yet received what the world owes them. And since that feeling is a form of psychosis, they never will.
Only thing owed them is a sharp and heavy piece of rapidly falling metal.
I live for the day I see Elon Musk’s arms and legs poking out from under an anvil, cartoon-style.
Plenty of people probably did, but the ones that don't are the ones that stand out, so they're the ones we know. Nobody cares about the guy who made a billion dollars and fucked off somewhere; even if they're still a blight on the country with that much wealth, we've got bigger fish to fry.
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Im poor asf and still retired. I'm living this life without the money part. I have zero need to fuck up other peoples lives just because i dont work.
But think of how many people's lives you could ruin with that kind of power!
Me too. Honestly, I’ve gotten to the point where I believe one is actually required to be sociopathic and all that comes with it in order to become that ultra wealthy. Capitalism essentially rewards these traits and concentrates them into the greed for power at the cost of all else that we see as a through line with these people.
People like us and most everyone else just aren’t wired that way, as ultimately we each have a limit to what and who we are willing to sacrifice for material means. We all have experienced greed to some degree within ourselves, but the difference is that it has a ‘bottom’ so to speak.
Because you have a mental disorder forcing you to do anything to feel important and validated as the genius you hope other people will see you as
I'd just think "Sweet, we're set for life, and I can spend all my time with my wife and kids." Why would I sacrifice that kind of life just to see numbers on my bank accounts go up in a way that no longer meaningfully affects us?
I'm sure there are a massive amount of rich people with this mindset. we just don't hear about it cause the few that keep on getting wealthy for the sake of power ruin it for everybody
There's a lot a billionaires and far more millionaires out there we don't ever hear about. I think you're probably right.
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Yeah, exactly. This lifestyle described requires a fair amount of wealth, and yet there are many people who have that kind of wealth and choose not to live that lifestyle.
Not sure what’s worse, then you have their nepo baby kids who never worked but now have all that money and can buy whatever companies they want and make whatever shitty business decisions they want.
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You could do all of this with very little money ... if you're willing to live semi-homeless near the beach. Maybe live in a van. Most expensive thing here is the wine, and wine doesn't cost that much.
I actually did this for a while. I bought a sailboat with a friend, moved onto said sailboat, and bummed around for a bit. It's cheap in bursts, but then you need things. What happens when you have a sudden need for money, like an engine breakdown or a medical emergency? What happens when you suddenly need to travel, like for a funeral or a friend's wedding?
What happens when one day you need to afford anything beyond the daily living expenditures and you need to get a job and now employees side eye you for having a year or two gap on your resume? This is possible, obviously, but it's definitely a lot more than it sounds like on the surface.
now employees side eye you for having a year or two gap on your resume?
What gap? You weren't unemployed, you were a ship's captain and chief of engineering.
I know people who have done the ski bum/beach bum thing at various phases of their life (probably most fun between the ages of 20-30): get seasonal jobs in tourist areas where the job gets you subsidized employee housing and free passes to something like a ski mountain, use the local favor economy to give and get free or heavily discounted stuff, and just have fun.
Subsidized housing is the critical part and is becoming rarer by the year.
There are a lot of annoying things needed that aren't accounted for......like heating and running water and waste drainage. But if you're willing to get creative then anything is possible.
Plenty of places in the world where heat is not necessary. People lived with hand wells for centuries. If you want to trade 8 hours of your day for heat and running water.. Go for it.. Do society's dream, get the new car, bigger TV, thousand dollar cellphone on payments
People lived with hand wells for centuries.
people died of cholera for centuries.
Yup. All you have to do is get lucky and stay healthy
Eating well is definitely the most expensive thing.
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Personally thats way more than what I want, my goal in life is to own a small single bedroom or even studio apartment in Inwood (Northern Manhattan) and maybe have enough time to bike with a job thats stable yet not very demanding.
None of the things they mentioned actually require much resources at all. Even if this person worked a part-time job, there’s no reason this life should be unobtainable. The reality we’ve been given unfortunately doesn’t allow for this though.
The biggest chunk is affording rent or a home close enough to a beach area. If you can work some artisanal wood carving job or something where you can set your own hours, but make good enough money to cover your basics, then you're set.
The biggest chunk is affording rent or a home close enough to a beach area.
Live in an old van, and that gets a lot cheaper.
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