Hey Oleander, I'm not sure if you will see this reply as I'm a little late to the "party" but if you would like somebody to chat to anytime, please put an email address or something in your bio so I can get in touch (or I've put an email address in my bio that you could reach me at).
I see from taking a quick look at a couple of your previous comments that you might appreciate a postcard, even from a stranger.
Please don't feel any obligation whatsoever to respond, for you have no obligation to me whatsoever. I'm just putting this out there from one human being to another. I don't know your circumstances at all, you might have a hundred friends and family members to talk to and support you, but you might have very few or none at all. Or you might be happier to be left alone. I don't know.
In any case, if you would like somebody to talk to, even just once or infrequently, please don't hesitate, because I do very much know what it is like to suffer (not in the same way that people like yourself with cancer do) and I think many people do not understand how unbearable and terrible suffering can be. I find the question itself, being posed by the title of this article, as repugnant as you do.
In any case, whether or not you wish to respond or correspond any further, I do wish you well and I hope that you are spared as much suffering as possible. I will continue to fight for as long as I live, with the limited resources I have available to me, for what I see as an inalienable right for people to choose a happier or at least more comfortable but shorter life than a prolonged and miserable one.
I am sorry that life dealt you this hand. Life isn't fair, suffering isn't equally distributed, and anyone who thinks they have a right to decide whether another person's suffering is, as you put it, sufficiently bearable, is being callous or ignorant in a way I simply cannot understand.
> Money is nothing. Poverty won't make you unhappy.
I'm sure the millions of people living in poverty, dying of treatable diseases and starving to death right now are ecstatic about it. Or are we just pretending those people don't exist?
Nope. I'm in Australia and enduring a living hell due to not being able to afford medical (dental) treatment. Affordable healthcare is not a problem that is exclusive to the US.
Spoken like somebody who has money. Do you have any idea how much pain and suffering a person can endure due to having no money? I don't think it's your place to say that person's life is worth living.
Thank you for doing that. As somebody who has recently received a discount from their dentist on an emergency procedure, I can't begin to tell you how much we as patients appreciate these acts of consideration and kindness. Even if we can't fix the larger, systemic problems in healthcare right now, these individual acts of kindness can really make a big difference in somebody's life.
It's almost midnight on the 25th where I am and this is the first time somebody wished me "Merry Christmas" today. Thank you. Merry Christmas and best wishes to all of you as well.
> I was talking from the silicon valley perspective. You need to adjust it based on the country you live in.
Yes, I can appreciate that.
And I appreciate your offer. It's honestly pretty nice just to know that somebody here understands, and cares. We have all struggled, and will continue to struggle, in our own ways. Kindness is everything.
> Seriously, read the thread again. This has nothing to do with comfort, it's about FU money.
I was responding to the HN comment, not the Reddit thread. If you're talking about having "FU money" and I'm talking about being "comfortable" then I think we are talking about different things.
> You're thinking that people who don't constantly have to worry about finances is what the poster is talking about, but that's worlds away from never worrying about finances again.
I agree, I think we have a different understanding of what it is to "worry" about finances. I am talking about the sort of worry that comes from not knowing where the next meal will come from, or not being able to pay rent. That, to me, is what worry is. I appreciate your explanation that others mean something different.
> I care about my finances. But I don't worry about them.
I think that is the key to understanding much of the disagreement here. Some people seem to concentrate on the possibility that something catastrophic could happen, which admittedly, is true. But I think it's possible to be comfortable in life, with that risk. Most people don't have a choice but to bear that risk, and many would still, I believe, describe themselves as happy and comfortable.
I think by "comfortable", some people mean "immune to any possible threat", in which case, I begin to understand their point of view.
If you had to guess, what percentage of people outside HN, outside Silicon Valley, do you think would consider having $10M to be a risky bet? I'm sorry, but I believe that is very, very disconnected from the reality that most people live in.
> I think one of the disconnections here is that you are talking about extra cash (over what you currently earn), whereas rgbrenner (and probably others) are talking about all income.
Agreed.
> And I think they have a point: $100k is a lot of money, but what if you got sick and couldn't work anymore, ever?
That's a fair point. I don't really worry too much about getting sick and never being able to work again ever. I think some of this comes down to the level of risk that each individual is content to live with. If I had children or a family, perhaps I would be a lot more worried.
> you’ll just find yourself arguing with a self-selected subset of people targeting it when you post on a place like HN
Very true, and thanks for my first chuckle of the day.
I certainly don't wish ill on anyone. I've suffered a lot, in various ways, but that has made me more compassionate, and I think therefore there has been value in that suffering. I have learned how to make do with very little.
Yes. What has become clear to me in this discussion is that some people, when talking about being "comfortable", are talking about maintaining a much more lavish lifestyle, funded by passive income, than many people like myself, are used to or feel that they need. For many, comfort is simply feeling like they aren't at risk of starving or becoming homeless. That's the definition I'm working with, but it's clear to me that others are talking about something different, as you have articulated in your comment. Thank you.
For starters, you're assuming I'd want to live off the investment, instead of continuing to work.
Regardless, I shouldn't have mentioned the arbitrary figure of $100K, which has made it so much easier for people to ignore my point, that many people are comfortable with much less than $10M.
I appreciate your comment. I know that having more than $100K in the bank would be a better safety net. Hell, having $5K would feel fantastic right about now. My point is merely that many people feel happy and comfortable with so much less than $10M, and it's absurd to believe otherwise. Most interlocutors here seem to have latched on to my pretty arbitrary figure of $100K and forgotten or ignored that original point.
> I would be very surprised if you could live worry-free with the investment proceeds of $100,000.
I think you have made the assumption that I would stop working. That might be the goal of many people, but it's not mine, and it's not how I would define being comfortable.
Aside from that, yes, I was using a fairly arbitrary number to make a point. I hadn't done the math. Which, here on HN, was probably a mistake. But for somebody who has never had more than $3K to their name, $100K in the bank still seems like a very comfortable safety net.
Nowhere have I said that $10K per year is comfortable. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow that I don't yet know how I am going to pay for. I can't remember the last time I got a Christmas or birthday present, or the last time I went on a holiday. It sucks, but there are people worse off than me. And there are three orders of magnitude between $10K and $10M. If anyone thinks they need $10M to feel secure and comfortable, than I honestly feel sorry for them. I think that's the kind of insecurity that would be very difficult to escape. Probably even harder to escape than poverty.
Again, I apologise if my comment/s seem impolite. I am not having a great day, but I don't mean to come across as disrespectful. I understand that I live in a different world to many of the people here on HN. I also think we may be talking past each other a little bit, using different definitions of "comfortable". I think it's possible that I don't know what comfortable is supposed to feel like, at least not the way most people here seem to be using the word. To me, comfortable is just having a loaf of bread in the cupboard, a roof over my head and a healthy body. I feel like that is all I need, and that's the point I was originally trying to make.
I see from taking a quick look at a couple of your previous comments that you might appreciate a postcard, even from a stranger.
Please don't feel any obligation whatsoever to respond, for you have no obligation to me whatsoever. I'm just putting this out there from one human being to another. I don't know your circumstances at all, you might have a hundred friends and family members to talk to and support you, but you might have very few or none at all. Or you might be happier to be left alone. I don't know.
In any case, if you would like somebody to talk to, even just once or infrequently, please don't hesitate, because I do very much know what it is like to suffer (not in the same way that people like yourself with cancer do) and I think many people do not understand how unbearable and terrible suffering can be. I find the question itself, being posed by the title of this article, as repugnant as you do.
In any case, whether or not you wish to respond or correspond any further, I do wish you well and I hope that you are spared as much suffering as possible. I will continue to fight for as long as I live, with the limited resources I have available to me, for what I see as an inalienable right for people to choose a happier or at least more comfortable but shorter life than a prolonged and miserable one.
I am sorry that life dealt you this hand. Life isn't fair, suffering isn't equally distributed, and anyone who thinks they have a right to decide whether another person's suffering is, as you put it, sufficiently bearable, is being callous or ignorant in a way I simply cannot understand.