Mass_Driver comments on How To Have Things Correctly - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Alicorn 17 October 2012 06:10AM

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Comment author: Bugmaster 16 October 2012 05:04:36PM 2 points [-]

If money doesn't buy you happiness, you don't have enough money.

For example, what would you do if you had ten billion dollars ? Some people would answer, "I'd buy my own zoo !" or whatever, but the real answer is, "I would never work again; instead, I'd pursue whatever projects I found interesting“. That kind of freedom could enable you to be quite happy.

I'm not sure if this kind of experience scales to lower amounts of money; there's probably a minimum threshold above which wealth becomes entirely self-sustaining, and below which you'd still have to work for a living. Still, even below the threshold, you can still spend your money on automating and outsourcing smaller chunks of your daily drudgery, thus indirectly purchasing happiness.

Comment author: Mass_Driver 16 October 2012 05:58:28PM 7 points [-]

If money doesn't buy you happiness, you don't have enough money.

It's trivially true that multiplying the amount of money you have by 10,000 will probably make you much happier, but the interesting question is whether this is the easiest or most efficient route to increasing happiness. Since most people have no practical path to acquiring ten billion dollars, and most people could learn to enjoy their possessions more, Alicorn's piece is quite useful.