Well, first of all, if you set aside enough money for retirement, you can retire early. Example: If your retirement accounts are 84,000 dollars at 64, you probably aren't retiring early. But if your retirement accounts are 84,000 dollars at 29, retiring early looks far more practical. Imagine being able to be retired at 50 instead of 65.
Second of all, if you have enough in your retirement accounts, rather than having your descendants support you, you can support your descendants. Personally, I think my descendants (in this case, my nephew, I don't have any kids of my own yet) are awesome (happy bonding family brain chemicals are like that.) and would love to give to him support.
Third of all, if your government has a certain level of dysfunction, you may not trust your state to give you a good retirement plan.
Fourth of all... I don't need to spend the money now for more utility. The marginal gains on money for utility trades are fairly pathetic right now. The best results I get are "luxury" food items because I actually have time to eat them. Other than that it's a solid regiment of allocated time (even rest time is usually pretty well allocated doing social maintenance). And I can't easily take vacation days with my current workload to only enjoy things. When I take vacation days (or honestly, even sick days) it's usually to visit relatives, or run errands, or more social maintenance.
On the other hand, if I had more time (because I was retired) I could do all sorts of things with money to get utility.
I know I said I'd be gone... but this was just a comment originally, and I noticed it may actually be relevant.
Elharo said in Munchkin Ideas:
I'm interested in the following:
Why should people invest in retirement? Or, instead, why should someone invest as much as most do in retirement.
Few facts that make it a boggling question for me:
You are 10% to 20% likely to die before you enjoy even your first retirement year.
People adjust much more to harsh economical conditions than they believe they would. They remain happy, as many studies by Seligman and others show.
People who retire are only happier as retirees if they retired by choice (I lost the paper, sorry).
Most people here live in rich countries - darn, hate to be the exception! - , and their state would happily provide them with at least the maximal retirement plan legal in my country (aprox 2000 dollars/month). And surely would provide them with double the minimal (about 200/month) if they needed.
If you have descendants, they may support you in case you are still alive, and if you are not rich enough to keep a house, you have a good excuse to be in company of loved ones (you have nowhere else to go).
Last, but not least: That person is not even you that much anyway.
Given all that, I have no clue what the whole fuss about retirement plans, and being 60% of a rich old person with a crappy body is all about, specially if you are in the grave.
I mean, in the cryopreservation chamber, of course.
Edit: A related question not worth its own post, but maybe worth discussing, is Should inheritance "jump" a generation. Everyone inheriting from grandparents, instead of parents? Just the abstract ethical question. Regardless of implementation procedure.