You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

John_Maxwell_IV comments on How can I spend money to improve my life? - Less Wrong Discussion

15 Post author: jpaulson 02 February 2014 10:16AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (230)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 03 February 2014 05:11:59AM *  1 point [-]

Some ideas:

However, it seems worth noting that at a certain point you will have purchased all of the low-hanging fruit and it will be harder to improve your quality of life, etc. through additional purchases. I'm also an early 20s computer programmer in SF; most of the items listed above are purchases I made in the past year, and I still had a lot of money left over.

I think a more compelling selfish case for making more money is that you can use it to buy vacations. I'm too unselfish to do this but it sounds like fun.

ETA: I think the approach taken in this thread is a bad one if you're actually trying to optimize your life. You're better off starting with goals (e.g. be happy or live long) and work backward from how to achieve them rather than starting with the question of how to get rid of all the money you're earning. If the best way to achieve your goal seems to require willpower maybe use your money to hire a life coach.

Comment author: RomeoStevens 03 February 2014 07:57:40AM 7 points [-]

Pepper spray is not a magic force field against arbitrary assault.

Comment author: lmm 03 February 2014 07:12:37PM 5 points [-]

Arbitrary assault is (for most people) much less likely than you instinctively think. If a placebo adjusts your emotional reaction to something more appropriate to the actual risks then it's a good buy.

Comment author: Alsadius 09 February 2014 06:35:25AM 1 point [-]

Thing is, there's lots of places in the world to explore that aren't sketchy. Unless sketch has appeal, why bother taking even a comparatively small risk?

Comment author: lmm 09 February 2014 03:46:31PM *  -1 points [-]

Shrug. If you don't enjoy going such places then by all means don't. But my impression is that generally most LWers advocate seeking out "exciting" experiences rather than the safest possible hobbies.

Comment author: Nornagest 03 February 2014 06:17:47AM 0 points [-]

Nice clothing (http://www.makeyourownjeans.com/ to get custom-designed jeans that fit really well

This is pretty cool if it's legit, but something about it looks a bit sketchy to me. Particularly for the leather stuff; materials cost there is high enough that a $100 leather coat is pretty much automatically suspect. (Lower-quality and reconstituted leather can be that cheap, but they react very poorly to wear.) What's your experience with the site?

Comment author: ephion 03 February 2014 02:45:04PM 2 points [-]

I have no personal experience with that site, but that's mostly because reddit's /r/malefashionadvice thinks they're terrible.

Comment author: jsalvatier 06 February 2014 08:25:36AM 2 points [-]

They are correct. I bought some jeans from them early in my fashion development and they're not very good. /r/malefashionadvice is great though.