Eh. I can imagine many different reasons why having money would be great.
Unfortunately many people who fantasize about wealth tend to engage in Richie Rich thinking about it, instead of Scrooge McDuck thinking. They imagine buying all the crap which they can't afford now and so forth, as we see many emotionally immature and not particularly bright celebrities do when they get their short-lived windfalls of money.
This way of viewing wealth ignores its real advantages, namely:
You can exert more control over the use of your time. You don't have to go to a job you hate every day, when you could just sleep in and go to Fight Club every night, if you choose.
Related to 1, you could also live according to your natural cycles instead of, say, guzzling those disgusting energy drinks advertised on TV to keep you awake at the office so that you can stay employed.
You can afford health care, disability care and retirement for yourself and your loved ones. And you would also have the means to pay for your children's educations or fund their business ventures to get them established on their own.
And perhaps most significant given today's headlines, you would also have the means to move yourself and your family out of harm's way.
BTW, regarding the last, I saw a news story the other day that said that nearly half the American population has fewer than $500 in savings. I can believe that from my business experience, because I encounter people all the time who tell me not to charge their debit cards for trivial amounts of money (on the order of $100) until they can deposit their next paychecks. I submit that financial irresponsibility presents a more tangible and corrigible existential risk to ordinary Americans than many of the speculative things discussed on transhumanist websites.
Villiam Said "Maybe it's different for other people, but I have trouble imagining a person who could make millions -- I mean really has the necessary skills, both external and internal; not just imagines having them to raise self-esteem -- and just avoids it because they see absolutely no benefit in doing so. If someone told me they are that person, I would still give them 99% chance to just rationalize."
That depends on several factors. I do not posses millions. I do possess more money than the average american savings (which is not hard to do, ...
There is a bit of nice and recent discussion going on about money here, "money" in the sense of the common peasant "I want more money" not in the senses of "Unit of caring" "Utilon buyer" "Trade-able entity unavailable for acausal trade" etc...
There is also, on the web, and in your local store, hundreds of thousands of advices on how to make money: fast, more, passively, selling your body, or brain, or virtual structures.
People who have money (entrepreneurs, owners), study money (economists) or focus on money (stockbrokers) have a lot to tell you about something closely related. Incentives. They studied and understand when incentives work and when they don't. Some have become masters of creating the right incentives, for employees, customers, CEOs, everyone.
I wont lie, usually, the incentive is money. Pure, abstract, trade-able, feeling-of-power causing, money. Sometimes (Citibank, Safra Bank) also travelling.
What I don't see around a lot, and would like to ask you to help me brainstorm, and list (later I'll edit by adding suggestions and maybe commenting) are the incentives to make money themselves that work, and those that don't.
There are a lot of LWers, I know, who excel at domain X and are emotionally averse to making money, out of X, or sometimes, at all. Money-making is, in a word, impure! Item 6 will deal with that.
I'll say some random unconventional things and open the discussion for those with more experience:
1)Belonging to a society that lacks money and money making altogether is a very powerful incentive for wanting money. The Indians of Brazil (my homeland) frequently engage in juridic battles and bureaucracy to obtain more money from governmental organs, more time than they would dedicate to get medical attention, for instance.
2)I've heard that having a lot of money is an incentive to make more, by making it easier to do so. Spiteful Billionaire meme makes fun of this hypothesis
3)Also heard that not having money is a great incentive to make more. This seems more logical. When you see the empty plate in the horizon, or being thrown in the streets, some sort of alarm must trigger. (If you have experience with this, relate it please)
Yet, I find that even though there is a strong correlation (within the brazilian cultural elite I hang around with) between having a job and not having money at ages 18-28, there is no correlation at all between not having money and efficiency of making money (by either already be making a lot, or in a career with such prospect). It is as if the emergency button can get you to hike a hill, but not to climb a mountain.
4)Morals against munching on others. Traditional, moral or religious frameworks of mind will make an individual believe (probably truly) that munching on friends, family, couchsurfers, franciscans, altruists and other exploitable folk is a bad/undesirable thing to do. One who doesn't want to munch has a stronger incentive to get his own money.
5)Pride. Lots of people are very very proud of having money, theirs or familial. I never understood that, but here it is, just a fact, stated.
6)Nobility times. My mum points out frequently that in our day and age (in Brazil, but also in the states) there is an idealization of making money. Sometimes it is great, sometimes it is nauseating. Her point though is that during the medieval ages when social class was fundamentally determined from birth, working was seen as a lower activity. It was nearly opposite of Self-Madesmanship. Only the needy, with little status shall work. Same view was held by Aristotle, who, in his conception of working, never worked a day in his life. Something like how we see manual tough labour nowadays, but looking down on every worker. Some people, her and me included, were raised somehow in this anomic (mislocated) environment which persists in many European colonies and perhaps among the descendants, within Europe, of past nobles. Worse for them in a changing world.
7) Your suggestions will be listed here soon...
I ask you to suggest things which are incentives for, or against making money. And I don't mean "Good Reasons" and "Bad Reasons" I mean which incentives, in economic jargon, work effectively as an incentive for people to make more money. Then after that you can write about their goodness and badness.