Viliam comments on Open Thread March 7 - March 13, 2016 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Elo 07 March 2016 03:24AM

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Comment author: Viliam 08 March 2016 09:49:32PM *  1 point [-]

To some degree it does, but often doesn't. For example, many people around me are obsessed with travelling to exotic countries. I am okay with staying home, or I travel to meet interesting people, but the idea of travelling to the opposite side of planet just to see a beach or a jungle seems completely silly. Some people spend a lot of money on fashion. Many people love to eat and drink in restaurants; I am okay with soylent. I only bought a smartphone because I wanted to develop mobile games. If the mass transit is reliable, I don't want a car.

Things that I value most are: having free time, and talking with interesting people. Also having a computer with internet connection, but that is relatively cheap today. If I would win a lottery, I would mostly try to achieve the situation where I never have to work for money again. (That doesn't mean I wouldn't do anything productive. It just means I would be doing things that I choose to do, and doing them my way.)

Comment author: ChristianKl 09 March 2016 08:31:25AM 0 points [-]

Attending conferences is a way to get to talk with a lot of interesting people. Seats at the TED conference or LeWeb are expensive and limited.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 10 March 2016 04:48:32AM 1 point [-]

Is that an optimal way of finding interesting people to talk with?

Comment author: Viliam 09 March 2016 09:06:13AM 0 points [-]

I guess the question is, if other people would get a lot of money, what fraction of that would go into competing for resources I care about. (I assume it's smaller than 10%, but I didn't think about this too much.) Then I wouldn't want other people to become so rich that even that fraction of their income would be higher than my whole income.