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Lumifer comments on Open thread, Oct. 20 - Oct. 26, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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If you're making money with the goal of being financially independent you're done when you have X so you can and should stop. Where does Y come from?
I don't agree with the "should stop" part.
Until you reach X, you work because you have to. To some degree you are motivated by fear. You probably take jobs you wouldn't take if you were born in a billionaire family.
After you reach X, the fear motive is gone. But you can still do things for other reasons, for example because they are fun, or because you feel competitive. Some of those things may bring you more money.
OK, so maybe you shouldn't stop, but if you're not primarily motivated by making money any more, the likelihood that whatever you do will incidentally bring you noticeably large amounts of money Y is not very high.
There are different kinds of "motivation by money". Some people are in a situation where if they don't make enough money, their children will starve. Some people already have all they need, and more money is just some kind of "score" to measure how successful they are in their projects; to compete against other people in similar situation.
Some activities bring average money reliably. Some activities have a small chance of huge success, and a big chance of nothing. Not having to make money frees your hands to do the latter kind of activities, without putting your family in danger of starvation. For example, you can spend all your day writing a book, with the goal of becoming famous. If you fail, no problem. If you succeed, you can make a lot of money.
Yes, the probability of such outcome is small, because it is P(doing something like this if you already have enough money) × P(succeeding).
So, we agree that the probability is small.
And, actually, it's P(doing something like this if you already have enough money) × P(succeeding) × P(what you like to do has high-variance outcomes and could generate a lot of money). Maybe what you really like is just long walks on the beach :-)
You can also be motivated by "Earning to Give", or something to the same effect. That was largely the point of my thread.