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Shawn
13.2kI have a question. Without imbuing my personal life into the discussion too deeply, I simply became very wealthy. My first reaction for this new state of affairs in my life was to 'spend it on stuff'. I think this would be a reaction for 99% of people with money to spend from the lower echelons of society. However, given common rationality and backwards inductive reasoning from my own disposition I fathom that I can live a luxurious lifestyle just spending some money I make from dividends off the stock market.
Sorry if this comes off as presumptuous, but, I am simply part of the plutocracy in America, really, and I'm not entirely comfortable with this for paradoxical reasons, which I hope to spell out now. I'm worth something in the ten's of billions of dollars; but, will not announce my wealth. Have you ever seen or read stories of people whom you might have known that made a lot of money and then observed how money changed them, which I'm not interested in happening towards myself. If you have, then what do you think I should be aware of so that money doesn't alter me too much?
Given my youth and early adulthood, I have spent the majority of it in the lower share of economic income. I see this situation as incredibly strange that with my present wealth I only have to pay something like 4-12% of my income to taxes due to Donald Trump's legislation on taxes passed soon after becoming president. Intrinsically, I have no reason to become a Republican, and have always maintained myself as an independent and then latter as a moderate. Now, to boil down the issue, is that with such a low payment, I can comfortably invest in a Roth-IRA into some index fund into the S&P-500 or Dow Jones Industrial Index for the rest of my lifetime and devote my time to leisure and comfort from dividends, which I suppose is the ideal thing to do for anyone in my disposition. Yet, I think there's more I can do with my money than just sit there and watch it grow. How would you invest it and deal with it better?
I have spent my philosophical life mostly analyzing the genius of Wittgenstein, who decided to not become invested in his father's steel magnate business. I spent my life analyzing the US as a cohesive society through money. It's my personal belief that the society of the United States is largely utilitarian in manner, especially legalistically. I don't think I'll ever get involved in political campaign support in terms of special interests or such. It's strange that philosophy doesn't have much to say about money, or maybe it does if you take sides with Marx. The socioeconomics of communism aren't appealing, and there's the greater issue of making sure that it's a political system that can prosper yourself and your nation, since the history of communism has been tumultuous. I don't feel anything like what the political left might call 'guilt' or apprehension about my newfound situation in life. I've read some psychological studies that with wealth there really is a correlation with happiness, and the kind of happiness I'm talking about is not being homeless or being able to sleep in a warm room. Such basic needs are essential for anything else to realize in one's life in my opinion, and having some money does make me feel somewhat easier.
I'll wrap up this thread with a simple question. Why is wealth such a personal issue for most philosophers who don't comment on it? Why was Marx the only philosopher who decided to make wealth an issue of all others? I mean, I do seem to be a logical positivist in my own opinion, and they seem to be mostly socialists in my opinion. Yet, I don't want to involve in politics telling me what to do with my wealth, so what should I do about it with regards to philosophy? -
Mikie
6.7k
Are you trying to say you’re a billionaire? Or is this just to make a point?
Regarding the last part: it’s an interesting question. Like sex, money isn’t often discussed among many “famous” philosophers.
With regards to philosophy, try to use your wealth to help change the world for the better. Plenty of good people and good organizations to support. -
T Clark
13.9k
Alternative 1 - Give all but $20 million to the Gates Foundation or some other worthwhile charity. Give $10 million to family and friends, including trusts for your children. Live quietly off the rest until you die. Buy a small farm and raise pigs.
Alternative 2 - Call your therapist and ask him to increase the dosage on your mood stabilizers. -
Hanover
12.9kI can comfortably invest in a Roth-IRA into some index fund into the S&P-500 or Dow Jones Industrial Index for the rest of my lifetime and devote my time to leisure and comfort from dividends, which I suppose is the ideal thing to do for anyone in my disposition — Shawn
I think that's a good idea. The max IRA contribution is $6,000 per year, so you should be able to funnel your tens of billions of dollars into your tax free investments in a couple of billion of years. Well, maybe less because it increases to $7,000 I think at age 50.
But anyway, congrats on your big payday!! Was it your year end bonus? -
god must be atheist
5.1kIn the "Hitchhikers' Guido to the Galaxy", a man became immortal, via a freak accident in a warped experiment. Many people tried to emulate the experiment, but with no real success.
The guy then spent the entire eternity of the rest of his life by insulting every sentient being in creation.
I am not saying you should do the same or similar, but it's as good a hobby as anything else is. -
Nils Loc
1.4kI'm worth something in the ten's of billions of dollars; but, will not announce my wealth. — Shawn
Start a non-profit community/education center that focuses on helping folks with some aspect of development you think is worth it. You could probably afford quite a few of these.
Fund scholarships/grants.
Travel the world like Leon Logothetis and enhance peoples lives who demnonstrate unusual kindness.
Give money away to charity.
Fund the short story contest prize for $10,000
Hire me.
Tens of billions is an absurd amount of money. ABSURD!!! No one inherits it out of thin air. -
john27
693Yet, I don't want to involve in politics telling me what to do with my wealth, so what should I do about it with regards to philosophy? — Shawn
That's a tough question. I'd say just do what your heart tells you, and try not to trip in the process. I think you'll do alright though.
Have fun, and good luck.
:up: -
Shawn
13.2kAlternative 2 - Call your therapist and ask him to increase the dosage on your mood stabilizers. — T Clark
You're an engineer so, I'll disclose the generalities of the ideas of the patents sold for your benefit or amusement:
I made my money with a novel way to provide cheap and effective air conditioning consisting of utilizing sound waves or in an even more advanced version ultra-sound to decrease Brownian motion inside a chamber where the sound or ultra-sound waves decrease the volume of the coolant (PV=nRT) and with that expends the ambient temperature of the coolant. It's really much simpler than kinematic cooling through compression of the coolant.
I don't think making up these stories would make any sense. I really sold these ideas and made a profit. -
Shawn
13.2kI think that's a good idea. The max IRA contribution is $6,000 per year, so you should be able to funnel your tens of billions of dollars into your tax free investments in a couple of billion of years. Well, maybe less because it increases to $7,000 I think at age 50. — Hanover
Ah yes, I believe it is something I can not do. I totally forgot all the formalities with all the buzz around what's happening recently. Sorry.
But anyway, congrats on your big payday!! Was it your year end bonus? — Hanover
I'm not a CEO. I just sold some ideas. -
Shawn
13.2kStart a non-profit community/education center that focuses on helping folks with some aspect of development you think is worth it. You could probably afford quite a few of these.
Fund scholarships/grants.
Travel the world like Leon Logothetis and enhance peoples lives who demnonstrate unusual kindness.
Give money away to charity.
Fund the short story contest prize for $10,000
Hire me. — Nils Loc
Of all the things, I'd rather hire you. I'm very vigilant about what I should do with my money now that I finally have some.
Let me know what you'd like to do in PM or even here. -
Mikie
6.7kYes, I am a billionaire. — Shawn
Well that's interesting. You're in a rare club indeed.
I can only tell you what I would do if I had that money. But you've got to figure that out yourself. What is it that you care about? Do you care about humanity or not? What is a good life?
It really shouldn't change you much, it's just numbers on a screen. But knowing nothing else about you, those numbers give you far more opportunities than the average person -- hopefully to do some good. -
Shawn
13.2kI can only tell you what I would do if I had that money. But you've got to figure that out yourself. What is it that you care about? Do you care about humanity or not? What is a good life? — Xtrix
I'm concerned about trying to provide a means for educational games for young people that aren't that resource intensive on processing power of a computer. I used to play some games like that, that made school, where I couldn't pay attention no matter how hard I tried, an easy venture. It's very hard for me to explain just how difficult school would have been if I didn't play those educational games that provided the core concepts distilled and entertaining to learn whilst interactive.
There's somewhat a lot of interest in online games that are fun to play, and quite a lot of interesting educational games for people to utilize. I haven't seen anything engaging for young children to play anything that would tell them how to multiply large numbers in an easier manner than doing it on your hands. I also want some advanced concepts better explained or educated rather than listening to some Hindu on YouTube that is trying to make spare change, like the Khan Academy.
One of my other ideas is to invest into online video production for entertainment. It wouldn't make much money; but, in my opinion the quality of in-game graphics has improved so considerably that you can make some photo-realistic scenes even in something like Unreal Engine 4/5. See for yourself:
So, yeah, education and entertainment. -
Mikie
6.7kI'm concerned about trying to provide a means for educational games for young people that aren't that resource intensive on processing power of a computer. I used to play some games like that, that made school, where I couldn't pay attention no matter how hard I tried, an easy venture. It's very hard for me to explain just how difficult school would have been if I didn't play those educational games that provided the core concepts distilled and entertaining to learn whilst interactive. — Shawn
Seems like a noble pursuit. If you're worth 10s of billions, which is an outrageous sum, you could invest 0.001% of it in a new company that specializes in exactly this and be well ahead of Khan Academy or any other similar institution.
The question is how much you want to give away, really. How much is enough to live the rest of your life (and your family/friends' lives) comfortably enough? 1 billion? 100 million? 50 million? Once you figure that out, the rest is just numbers -- then you can invest into a multitude of projects. I'd take a look at this thread here for some ideas.
Education is certainly a major issue. I'm glad to hear you're interested in it. Climate change is another, and one that I tend to focus on -- seems to overshadow everything else, since nothing else will matter if the environment is destroyed. On that issue there are plenty of organizations doing excellent work. There are indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest who risk their lives stopping its destruction that are certainly worth donating to, etc. You could be a hero to these people just based on your wealth alone.
You're only the second billionaire I've spoken with in my life, incidentally. (That I'm aware of.) -
jgill
3.8kYou're only the second billionaire I've spoken with in my life, incidentally. (That I'm aware of.) — Xtrix
Congratulations on your good fortune. My only experience with a billionaire was to drive around Jackson Hole sixty years ago in a model T with him picking up pieces of scrap metal from junk piles. He was a dirtbagger back then. -
Pinprick
950
Just my two cents. :wink:
I think that while the influence you’ve gained from your wealth is important and worthy of considerable deliberation, what’s most important is who you are/become as a person. I would say the majority of people think the ultra wealthy are mostly greedy assholes who just use others to get what they want with no conscience. Just by being a nice person you could at least change some people’s opinions. Don’t be another bad example.
Also, I think you’ve mentioned some mental health concerns before; struggles with happiness, etc. This should be a great opportunity to see what makes you happy. Travel, live in the jungle, rub elbows in Dubai, be a philanthropist, whatever. I’m sure there’s something out there that can help make your life feel worthwhile. Or, if you’re happy with how your life is now, there’s always the option to just spend whatever is needed to maintain it and then donate or will the rest to someone, or several people, and let them decide what to do with it. I don’t think you’re obligated to do anything with it. -
Pantagruel
3.4k
Interesting. Having found out recently that I am coming into enough money to finally retire, I have been asking myself what I would like to do.
Of course, there's a big difference between having just enough to live comfortably, and having a great surplus. But that's kind of the key to me. Life is just a series of habits. As we live, so we think. For me, my thoughts are to have a nice home gym, to establish healthy patterns of eating and exercise, to read and write a little more, to donate a bit more to and also volunteer a bit with some local charitable organizations, like the food bank. Maybe we will buy ourselves a nice, new electric vehicle (I'm thinking of a Hyundai Kona).
If I had a whole lot of money, and allowed my life to become about buying a lot of things, well that would become one of my dominant and defining habits. I'm not sure how that advances the set of cognitive habits that constitutes me. It doesn't really make me anything more than a consumer, a hyper-consumer. That's not something I aspire to be.
What do you aspire to be? -
Manuel
4.1k
Damn. That's a lot, significantly more than my family, and we live pretty comfortably.
I mean, Marx is simply just very well known, there's also the whole anarchist tradition in philosophy to consider such as Bakunin, Proudhon, etc.
It's interesting to note that, Descartes and Hume were relatively right wing figures, as was Schopenhauer. But we also have to consider cultural factors of the time, such as the Church and a different mind set too. Not that culture isn't a massive issue now.
As to your questions, well, you have a lot of freedom. You can donate to organizations and political movements and the like, find candidates that are actually good instead of typical politicians. -
MAYAEL
239I love the idea of trying to see what kind of different answers and responses you get from people on here if they truly believe they're speaking to a billionaire but unfortunately you're not going to get very satisfactory answers out of people or at least from my perspective that's the case.
I'm not sure if you're doing it just cuz you're bored and want to see just how vastly different people will treat somebody when they think they're a billionaire in comparison to just a regular schmo over the internet
Or if you have a specific agenda rather be good or better mischievous behind this particular angle of approach IDK but I've seen others try this on occasion and I can ever make heads or tails of what the purpose for such a story would be because generally is all you'll ever get is a bunch of questions being asked by a ton of coincidentally respectful and polite people LOL that would in any other situation just troll the hell out of your post -
gikehef947
86
What you have is a lot of imagination. A billionaire does not stay in a philosophy forum. A bloody storyteller, yeah. -
180 Proof
15.3k
:clap: :cool: Excellent!I made my money with a novel way to provide cheap and effective air conditioning consisting of utilizing sound waves or in an even more advanced version ultra-sound to decrease Brownian motion inside a chamber where the sound or ultra-sound waves decrease the volume of the coolant (PV=nRT) and with that expends the ambient temperature of the coolant. It's really much simpler than kinematic cooling through compression of the coolant. — Shawn
Well, it's not for me, or anyone else, to say what you should do with your newly acquired wealth. I think I can say what I might do with far more money than I (plus my small circle) ever need for material security for the rest my life (their lives), but I'd have to give the question quite a bit of thought, especially having worked as a paralegal in the financial industry the last twentysomething years. All I'll say then, off the top, is that I would
(1) subsidize TPF with no-strings attached grants (the details tbd with site owners/admins, et al)
(2) provide grants (re enough to live on for a year or two at a time) to TPF members who are writing books of original scholarship-research in philosophy science history art biography or fiction ... with an eye towards, at the very least, self-publishing (selection criteria details, again, tbd)
which I admit reflects my own concerns and aspirations. Anyway, that's the least of what I'd do, Shawn; good luck with whatever you decide. :death: :flower: -
Shawn
13.2kOf course, there's a big difference between having just enough to live comfortably, and having a great surplus. But that's kind of the key to me. Life is just a series of habits. As we live, so we think. For me, my thoughts are to have a nice home gym, to establish healthy patterns of eating and exercise, to read and write a little more, to donate a bit more to and also volunteer a bit with some local charitable organizations, like the food bank. Maybe we will buy ourselves a nice, new electric vehicle (I'm thinking of a Hyundai Kona).
If I had a whole lot of money, and allowed my life to become about buying a lot of things, well that would become one of my dominant and defining habits. I'm not sure how that advances the set of cognitive habits that constitutes me. It doesn't really make me anything more than a consumer, a hyper-consumer. That's not something I aspire to be.
What do you aspire to be? — Pantagruel
Thanks for the input and reply to my question. I suppose we can only speak for ourselves, and what you would so seems like a little modification in your life.
AI aspire to go to somewhere like USC in California for possibly a masters in behavioral economics. That seems like a natural extension of my abilities that I could hone in on. I want more education in my life. One of my old wants in regards to education is to finish a degree in philosophy, especially analytic philosophy.
There ain't much I want to do with my money other than park it somewhere. I think that offering it all to XYZ isn't as rational as growing it and doing what Warren Buffett wants to do with his wealth upon his death.
Regardless, I want to finish my masters first, and then see what avenues that opens for me and my wealth. -
Shawn
13.2kAll I'll say then, off the top, is that I would
(1) subsidize TPF with no-strings attached grants (the details tbd with site owners/admins, et al)
(2) provide grants (re enough to live on for a year or two at a time) to TPF members who are writing books of original scholarship-research in philosophy science history art biography or fiction ... with an eye towards, at the very least, self-publishing (selection criteria details, again, tbd)
which I admit reflects my own concerns and aspirations. Anyway, that's the least of what I'd do, Shawn; good luck with whatever you decide. :death: :flower: — 180 Proof
I'm actually considering reaching out to Paul to refloat the old PF, and see how that goes, and finance it. I had some ideas of paying the moderators and seeing what they can do with providing resources like SEP and posting their thoughts new topics. I really missed Postmodern Beatnick, and would be looking around for mod's that have phil degrees and offer some financial assistance to support their work and promote it their. I also think, I would look forward to inviting actual philosophers more for anything ranging from AMA to posting about their philosophic writings. I also would like to have a chess corner built into the forum software if @Paul could organize that.
I might reach out to you about (2) in the future. That's all about that I've got in mind.
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