If you ever discover what money seeks, please inform me.
I'm willing to change my ways.
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Rich and the Poor
- Thread starter Quetzal
- Start date
I'm willing to change my ways.
Sunstone, you replied to this sentence "The formula for a healthy population seems to require that wealth be something not easy to get. Otherwise people stop working." It was not backed by a scientific study, but I'm going to explain best as I can. I think typical human emotions explain it -- mainly that we care that our gifts are valued, and this becomes stinginess. Soft Science is very limited, and that may be why I can't find anything for or against the statement. I have found some information that suggests riches actually do cause people to become stingy. That supports my statement and my intuition and personal experience.
I think all people are on a spectrum one end of which is hoarding. We hate throwing things away or feeling like we are. Its confusing but this positive human trait (conservation) twists into stinginess. They are tied. Therefore I think the ability to value and to manage is tied to concern about what happens to things, to products and to gifts. When you are feeling generous what do you do? You look for someone deserving. You also try to find a suitable gift. That's all it is. Its our own nature turned against us.
Stinginess of course leads to a gathering of resources, a buildup of unused stuff. All that unused stuff could be used, but its not. To get it you have to work. Why? Its because you have to prove you deserve it before people will let you have it.
Let me examine my assumptions: People work for more than money. We are motivated by the excitement, the challenge, the honor the cooperative experience, the achievements and the security. We like to provide and to give to certain people, and money is a tool towards those ends, taking us beyond the limitations of barter. Sometimes we're afraid to give, but money helps us to, promises us a return, opening our tight fists, so we let go of that rusty bicycle, that empty warehouse, that unused stuff. Rather than give things away we can sell them, causing us to release something we own in exchange for a the promise of something later...but also the promise that the stuff will be valued.
I think all people are on a spectrum one end of which is hoarding. We hate throwing things away or feeling like we are. Its confusing but this positive human trait (conservation) twists into stinginess. They are tied. Therefore I think the ability to value and to manage is tied to concern about what happens to things, to products and to gifts. When you are feeling generous what do you do? You look for someone deserving. You also try to find a suitable gift. That's all it is. Its our own nature turned against us.
Stinginess of course leads to a gathering of resources, a buildup of unused stuff. All that unused stuff could be used, but its not. To get it you have to work. Why? Its because you have to prove you deserve it before people will let you have it.
Let me examine my assumptions: People work for more than money. We are motivated by the excitement, the challenge, the honor the cooperative experience, the achievements and the security. We like to provide and to give to certain people, and money is a tool towards those ends, taking us beyond the limitations of barter. Sometimes we're afraid to give, but money helps us to, promises us a return, opening our tight fists, so we let go of that rusty bicycle, that empty warehouse, that unused stuff. Rather than give things away we can sell them, causing us to release something we own in exchange for a the promise of something later...but also the promise that the stuff will be valued.
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Hehe. They were refugees from the Sri Lankan war. I somehow doubt if they knew Edmonton subsidized housing rules before they fled. He came first, with the two eldest sons, and made enough dough to sponsor his wife, and 5 more kids. They found out from the application form.
As to the topic, I think it's culture shock, moving in either direction. The poor can't understand the rich, and vice versa. Many a tale has been told about that. It would help to live in each other's shoes for a few days. Do a house switch. I see no obvious solutions, but I've always hoped for a wider spread compassionate nature in the rich.
Some of my Sri Lankan friends have experienced the difference between scared and poor versus upper middle class. It gives them an odd subconscious. Not filthy rich though.
Why? Because it brings down property values?
Or perhaps more likely because they represent something that could happen to anyone? Yes, that's a good reason to dislike being around those less fortunate than yourself.
One rich guy I know started his life in an orphanage.
He knew poverty.
Well, here I'm going to disagree with you. You know the old saying, "there, but for the Grace of God, go I." Usually, of course, said of someone who is much worse off than the speaker.
We all tend to shrink from things that make us uncomfortable -- like people suffering from an obvious skin disease, for example. And we don't really like getting too close to the street beggar who doesn't appear all the hygenic.
These are examples of human capacities and instincts that fight against one another. Yes, we have a capacity for empathy -- we feel (more strongly than many will admit) another's pain -- that makes us want to help. Then, we find that countered by our instinct for self-preservation, which makes us not want to "catch" whatever that other person has. And that can include poverty.
Oh, maybe the Kochs don't worry about impending poverty, but the office worker making a decent, middle class wage, let's say around $70,000 a year, is at least subliminally aware that this could end really easily -- by a nasty accusation by a co-worker of the opposite sex, by a vindictive new boss, by a sudden illness -- an illness that could wipe out every penny ever saved for the kids' college funds.
I really think that while we may honestly care about the sick and the poor, they are also constant reminders of the possibility that we could easily and quickly be counted among their numbers.
I find it seeks out cracks between couch cushions, floor mats in cars, and the washer/dryer.
If you can line your surroundings with such, I don't see why you wouldn't be rich in a short period of time.
Yeah it happens.
Agreeing to disagree is good.
I wish more people would follow your example.
Of course, somebody else built his business for him.
In my younger years, my oldest son's father would confiscate my paycheck, leaving me with next to nothing. I remember complaining to my coworkers on my birthday that I couldn't afford a cake(I simply adore cake). When I left work, there was an anonymous gift card to the grocery store that was a block away, with the instruction to buy cake. The thought probably meant more than the money.
Imo what one does with it can't cover over how it's obtained. If someone makes their millions or billions by explotivie unethical practices, does it really matter if they also donate to the poor some small section of what they made through exploitation?