One thing that struck me was reading 1984. The inner-party elite of Oceania were barely middle-class by a material standard, and their society was falling further apart every year, but they held a lot of power. Materially, they weren't in an enviable position, any more than kings who died horribly of now-curable diseases are enviable, but the perverse and horrible (like O'Brien) could enjoy the shit out of their power and others' misery. The boot stomping on a face for a thousand years.
Most dictators enjoy their peoples' misery, and they get more out of the power than they would out of the 1-10x bump it would give their financial status (they have enough money, and unlimited means to get it) to be leading a healthy nation instead of a failing one. Kim Jong-il? While he was alive, I bet he was one of the happiest fuckers out there. And the U.S. corporatist-fascist oligarchy isn't morally superior in inclination; it's just that there are social structures (like laws and elections) in place retarding their progress.
Some people judge wealth and prosperity in absolute terms: what we can do, experiences we can have. That's how most of us on HN feel: it's a positive-sum, win-win mentality. But a lot of people see these things in purely relative terms: they like elitism and exclusion, and that others are suffering from bullshit they don't have to deal with. It makes sense when one considers that excessive financial ambitions are usually sexual in nature, and the sexual benefits derived from obscene wealth are based solely in relative social status (being "alpha").
The OP needs to be read by a lot of people (who probably won't read it): people who conflate $400k/year neurosurgeons who got "rich" and startup new-money by working their asses off (who are generally held to deserve their good fortune, and I agree) with an entrenched, culturally underaccomplished, fascistic, and depraved aristocracy of indolent, manipulative parasites that society should be getting rid of+ through whatever means necessary.
(+ To make it clear, I mean we need to get rid of the aristocracy as an institution, not "get rid of" the individual people. I'd find it quite morally acceptable to solve society's problems in a way that finds them bad, if they weren't willing to decline peacefully and gracefully, but I also think revenge is an utterly stupid impulse and find it most useful to not care either way what happens to them, as long as they're removed from power.)
Wow great post. You already touched on this but to reiterate after achieving a certain amount of wealth, freedom and comfort in life, I wonder whats the point of exclusively striving for more. I can understand wanting to not be a slave to your mortgage, employer, etc etc (in fact it is something Im actively trying to do right now to dedicate myself to my own work) and generally wanting to better your life but after a certain point the marginal difference in lifestyle achieved by more wealth becomes negligible and possibly negative.
I know this is going to sound like rainbows and unicorns but its hard for me to understand why the mega rich aren't all motivated to diligently invest a significant portion of their money and efforts into humanistic efforts. It seems like they understand money and investment in monetary terms but they fail miserably at understanding the non-materialistic and 'big picture' returns.
I wonder whats the point of exclusively striving for more.
Some people love the game and it's a way to keep score. It provides a rush, and seems to provide a high similar to drugs or gambling. Then there is the obvious power trips (probably secondary to the money at that point) that come along with continuing to win.
And for some people it's simply all they know. If I suddenly became beyond wealthy tomorrow I imagine I would still program every day and continue to be interested in technology because it's what I do.
Five tiers of material aspiration: Necessities, Leisure, Comfort, Social Status, and Power. The sane place to "get off" is somewhere in the middle of the Comfort tier.
Leisure is freedom-to (travel, be educated), Comfort is freedom-from (housework, annoyances), and Status is mostly about the ability to maintain maxed-out Comfort (about $2-3M per year, post-tax) without doing anything of value, i.e. being able to get all that just for being "special" (the narcissist's dream). Power is the ability to dick up and down peoples' Status on a whim, because a lot of people who've maxed out the other tiers get bored and need something to do.
Of course, these tiers are fuzzy. Most of us would find business-class travel to be enough Comfort, but some people require a private jet. Also, people with severe psychological issues (which can manifest as greed, which is slightly more glamorous than crippling panic attacks, I guess) will never be comfortable, which is why they soar into the Status and Power tiers but are (internally speaking) still trying to achieve basic Comfort.
>entrenched, culturally underaccomplished, fascistic, and depraved aristocracy of indolent, manipulative parasites
The article specifically mentions the "financial services or banking industry" in this context so that's who I assume you're talking about. Now, this sounds great when you use a vague sound bite, but are you really prepared to say that society should strive to "get rid of" anyone who makes a lot of money in the financial sector?
Not in a physical sense -- we're not to guillotine territory yet -- but seriously... how much value do these people actually create vs., say, engineers, doctors, good executives in productive industries, skilled craftsmen, etc.
People get all bent out of shape about pro athletes making too much, but it seems like the financial elite are by far the most overpaid people on Earth. Many of them seem to create negative value -- the systems that they run are liabilities.
I don't think anybody is arguing we dispose of these people. I think the problem is that money is supposed to be in essence a signifier of creating social value. In a well structured society money should be correlated to producing advances or doing something 'good' but in our current socio-economic climate money in the financial sector is being distributed to those who destroy value.
No, of course not. I know some hedge fund managers who grew up middle-class and achieved their wealth through grit and hard work. Whether we like what they do is another story; they're not part of the parasitic upper class, and they're generally not evil people. They have more in common with startup new-money.
The people I'm talking about come from a closed, powerful social network. They're not part of a social network because they're rich. They're rich because they're part of a scumbag old-boy network. And they get their wealth the same way corrupt government officials (notice that corrupt politicians are always rich) do: they steal it from society.
By the way, it's not arbitrageurs (which is what many hedge fund traders are) who are destroying society. Actually, most of them make markets more efficient in a way that's rather harmless. It's investment banking/M&A types-- people like Meg Whitman who make fortunes spinning IPOs (that is, robbing companies during the IPO process). That's another rant however.
Evil? Maybe not. Hard working? Quite possibly. But almost definitely overpaid.
How much value does the banking industry really create? A whole lot of what this industry does could be replaced by algorithms and put on autopilot.
Maybe I'm ignorant, but it really looks to me that the smart and courageous decisions about allocating capital are being made by entrepreneurs, angel investors, and wealthy individuals who earned their money in value-producing industries (Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk come to mind). The banking industry seems to just squat over a lot of toll bridges, and doesn't seem to even do much in the way of bridge maintenance.
It's the many great leaders that end up transforming lives and countries, and so the tragedy of overcompensation in the finance industry is how it has attracted-away the world's smartest and most charismatic. Now these elite college grads hang out with each other instead of mentoring, inspiring, and setting an example for others. Instead of leading teams to accomplish great things, they are figuring out how best to fool the next guy.
Large-scale prosperity is far more likely when more America's smartest and most charismatic are leading instead of wheeling-and-dealing. Decline was inevitable as soon as high-finance ceased being the province of the boring and bookish.
Evil? Maybe not. Hard working? Quite possibly. But almost definitely overpaid.
Absolutely, and most of them will admit as much.
The banking industry seems to just squat over a lot of toll bridges, and doesn't seem to even do much in the way of bridge maintenance.
I have a lot more respect for traders, quants, and quant developers (who do an honest job, if a socially useless one) than for investment bankers ("eye-wankers") and private equity douches.
Most dictators enjoy their peoples' misery, and they get more out of the power than they would out of the 1-10x bump it would give their financial status (they have enough money, and unlimited means to get it) to be leading a healthy nation instead of a failing one. Kim Jong-il? While he was alive, I bet he was one of the happiest fuckers out there. And the U.S. corporatist-fascist oligarchy isn't morally superior in inclination; it's just that there are social structures (like laws and elections) in place retarding their progress.
Some people judge wealth and prosperity in absolute terms: what we can do, experiences we can have. That's how most of us on HN feel: it's a positive-sum, win-win mentality. But a lot of people see these things in purely relative terms: they like elitism and exclusion, and that others are suffering from bullshit they don't have to deal with. It makes sense when one considers that excessive financial ambitions are usually sexual in nature, and the sexual benefits derived from obscene wealth are based solely in relative social status (being "alpha").
The OP needs to be read by a lot of people (who probably won't read it): people who conflate $400k/year neurosurgeons who got "rich" and startup new-money by working their asses off (who are generally held to deserve their good fortune, and I agree) with an entrenched, culturally underaccomplished, fascistic, and depraved aristocracy of indolent, manipulative parasites that society should be getting rid of+ through whatever means necessary.
(+ To make it clear, I mean we need to get rid of the aristocracy as an institution, not "get rid of" the individual people. I'd find it quite morally acceptable to solve society's problems in a way that finds them bad, if they weren't willing to decline peacefully and gracefully, but I also think revenge is an utterly stupid impulse and find it most useful to not care either way what happens to them, as long as they're removed from power.)