What if money didn't matter...

[Mighty AC]

What would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8nif01WZ9aI

[betsy]

If money were no object.....happiness will be harder to find, I think. If you can acquire everything you want with a snap of your finger, life becomes too boring. It can also corrupt. Only the spiritual would keep me grounded.

SO....I'll be initiating and involved myself with special projects. Meaningful projects that of course would be to spread the Word of God, but also to help others....to help make the world a better place.

Edited December 29, 2012 by betsy

[Mighty AC]

I don't think the video is implying that you could acquire anything you wanted with the snap of your fingers. I think it's really asking what you would do if your needs were met regardless of your choice.

I like travelling, teaching, beer, food, the outdoors and the satisfaction gained from helping others. So I think I would like to be a brewery, restaurant and cafe owning, travel writing, doctor without borders. I know it fails to answer the "what would you like to do most" question, but that's a hard question to answer sometimes. It's amazing how much our goals and wants can change over time too. Fifteen years ago I would have given anything to be a professional outside linebacker, now I rarely even watch a game.

[Argus]

I'd spend the rest of my life sailing around the world on a three hundred foot yacht with an all-female crew, and my three companions (blonde, brunette and redhead)...

Edited December 29, 2012 by Argus

[dre]

Id sink your sailboat with my battle ship and steal your wenches.

[betsy]

I don't think the video is implying that you could acquire anything you wanted with the snap of your fingers. I think it's really asking what you would do if your needs were met regardless of your choice.

I like travelling, teaching, beer, food, the outdoors and the satisfaction gained from helping others. So I think I would like to be a brewery, restaurant and cafe owning, travel writing, doctor without borders. I know it fails to answer the "what would you like to do most" question, but that's a hard question to answer sometimes. It's amazing how much our goals and wants can change over time too. Fifteen years ago I would have given anything to be a professional outside linebacker, now I rarely even watch a game.

I have to admit I didn't watch the video. I simply responded to the post. Sorry.

[Moonlight Graham]

reminds me of the live extended lyrics to one of my favorite songs:

You back the cause

get out of school

you get a job

the job gets you

and somehow everyday

you end up serving somebody else

If that ain't panic that you're feeling

well you damn well better start

you can drive it into that head of yours

with that hammer in your heart

And it's alright now

take the world and make it yours again

[August1991]

What if money didn't matter? What do you mean? What is "money"?

------

Here's another question, MightyAC, along the lines that I think you probably meant in your OP.

Imagine that a scientist invented a drug to perpetuate life: if you take this pill daily, you will live forever, and never age. Unfortunately, this pill costs $100,000 annually. (You can imagine that the pill involves a critical ingredient from the Martian soil, and costly rocket ships to go to Mars and back.)

Canada's GDP per capita is about $40,000. So, here's my question: who should have access to this pill?

Edited December 30, 2012 by August1991

[Merlin]

I would spend the rest of my life in school as a professional student gaining multiple degrees. Not really for the degrees sake but for the sake of learning. Expanding my horizons and broadening my opinion on all matters, truly becoming an expert on many subjects.

[August1991]

I would spend the rest of my life in school as a professional student gaining multiple degrees. Not really for the degrees sake but for the sake of learning. Expanding my horizons and broadening my opinion on all matters, truly becoming an expert on many subjects.

Apply for a government research grant.

A "research associate" costs about $50,000/year, before taxes and with administrative costs. In effect, it's almost like the magical "live-forever" pill.

Edited December 30, 2012 by August1991

[WIP]

I can appreciate Alan Watts's attempt to try to motivate his mostly Buddhist audience to reject materialism and value things that can provide real meaning and satisfaction in life; but what's missing is the acknowledgment that it is a very difficult task in today's world....which is becoming more ruthlessly materialistic and focused on money as inequality grows.

More than 100 years ago, an economist named Thorstein Veblen, coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" to describe a form of materialism that has far more to do with demonstrating one's place in society than it does with meeting a physical or other need. He discovered that materialism had more to do with using products to establish someone's position in a social hierarchy, than actually enjoying what they had purchased. What later sociological research has shown since then, is that as a society becomes more unequal, the focus on conspicuous consumption increases. And as the society becomes more stratified by wealth, the ideals and goals of what should be achieved, move farther and farther out of reach for most people. Every time they earn more money, and can buy more things, 'happiness' becomes more expensive!

In one analysis, in 1986, when median family income was only $29,458, survey researchers found that on average Americans felt they really needed far, far more - $50,000 - if they hoped to fulfill their dreams. Eight years later, in 1994, what people felt they needed had more than doubled - to $102,000 (while actual median family income had risen to only $38,782 ). So, no surprise that as incomes have grown over time, Americans (and other societies increasingly unequal) have not experienced greater happiness. On the contrary; given the expanding dimensions of their unsatisfied aspirations, millions feel they are on a treadmill running faster and faster simply to stay in place.

Ever more expansive materialism is driven in significant part by the pattern set by those who can afford high-level purchases. After "the rich and super-rich began a bout of conspicuous luxury consumption" in the early 1980s, sociologist - Juliet Schor reported that members of "the upper middle class tried to copy and imitate the luxury spending of the super-rich. In turn, the 80 percent below who lost ground also "engaged in a round of compensatory keeping-up consumption."

Psychologists Tom Kasser, Richard Ryan, and several other researchers have shown that low levels of life satisfaction in social and family relationships are strongly correlated with high levels of materialism. "Faced with the loneliness and vulnerability that come with deprivation of a securely encompassing community," New York University professor Paul Wachtel writes, "we have sought to quell the vulnerability through our possessions. What is often interpreted as materialism, is in reality a "demonstration of the pathologies of social deprivation." What is really being sought "is participation in authentic social and natural worlds."

So, what if money didn't matter? I think making this sort of breakthrough depends mostly on where you are in life. I can't imagine many 20 year olds....especially in this day and age, not feeling the power of money and feeling anxieties about their own social status, no matter how much meditating or other personal development strategies they try to do. But, if you're older, and you start noticing that some of the people you knew since school, who have bigger houses filled with more stuff than you do, are also fat, out of shape, and a buffet or two from needing one of those hover-round scooters, you may be asking 'how much are they really enjoying life now, after a life of overindulgence and focus on material things'? And, if you're healthier and fitter than most as you get older, then status and money just don't mean quite as much as when you are younger!

Edited December 30, 2012 by WIP

[betsy]

I'd still do the things I mentioned above.

AND to leisurely visit places (small towns, rurals, nature) - starting with Canada and the US - at a very, very slow pace, spending perhaps a month or so in each place, absorb it and get to know the people.

[Argus]

Ultimately, money is the power of freedom to do whatever the hell you want -- and to not do what you don't want. The need for money drives most of our lives. It makes us spend most of our days in drudgery doing work we have no particular interest or satisfaction in. Sometimes we even have to live in places we don't like in order to work at those jobs we don't like. I don't know many people who would continue to do their present job if they didn't need the money. With money, we'd all get to sleep in.

[BC_chick]

I'd travel extensively to every continent (but keep my base in the Lower Mainland).

I'd have a cabin in Whistler where I could ski all winter and ride my bike all summer

I'd have cottage on the beach on the Sunshine Coast to get away from it all.

I'd volunteer for a few differet causes, political and environmental.

I'd get *at least* one PhD. in something really useless.

Edited December 31, 2012 by BC_chick

[WIP]

Ultimately, money is the power of freedom to do whatever the hell you want -- and to not do what you don't want. The need for money drives most of our lives. It makes us spend most of our days in drudgery doing work we have no particular interest or satisfaction in. Sometimes we even have to live in places we don't like in order to work at those jobs we don't like. I don't know many people who would continue to do their present job if they didn't need the money. With money, we'd all get to sleep in.

Yes, money is power, and that's why I included part of the inequality problem in my post; because measures like the ones I cited from self-reporting surveys of personal happiness and wellbeing, show that people are less satisfied today than they were 50 years ago, because they determine what they should have by what people just above them on the social pecking order have. And that puts freedom further out of reach for most people!

[bush_cheney2004]

.... And that puts freedom further out of reach for most people!

Yes, especially for collectivists who want a piece of the wealth generated by others. They deserve exactly what they get....less.

[Guest Manny]

Living the easy life is not for me. At least not now, things change as you age but I do not want to do things that I only want to do. Believe it or not, sometimes I want to do things that I don't want to do.

I figure if I won a huge ton of money like the insane amounts they offer in lotteries, I'd be dead in two years.

Why do people need so much money? It can never be spent reasonably, within a lifetime. Like why not have many, many smaller but still substantial prizes, to help increase wealth for larger numbers of people.

[August1991]

More than 100 years ago, an economist named Thorstein Veblen, coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" to describe a form of materialism that has far more to do with demonstrating one's place in society than it does with meeting a physical or other need.

Let's set aside this idea of "conspicuous consumption", or signaling.

In one analysis, in 1986, when median family income was only $29,458, survey researchers found that on average Americans felt they really needed far, far more - $50,000 - if they hoped to fulfill their dreams. Eight years later, in 1994, what people felt they needed had more than doubled - to $102,000 (while actual median family income had risen to only $38,782 ).

What is a "family"?

Individuals in this 21st century are "richer", they have more choices, and many choose to live alone. "Families" have smaller incomes.

-----

Money is not a measure of wealth. An individual's freedom to choose is the true measure. You are rich if you can choose freely.

Edited January 1, 2013 by August1991

[eyeball]

What would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?

I'd snap me up a bunch of politicians and buckets full of generals.

I'd corner the market on them.

[August1991]

I'd snap me up a bunch of politicians and buckets full of generals.

I'd corner the market on them.

To be "rich" eyeball, in your view of the world, you would restrict the choice of others.

IMHO, individuals in this world are richer only when they have more choices.

Living the easy life is not for me. At least not now, things change as you age but I do not want to do things that I only want to do. Believe it or not, sometimes I want to do things that I don't want to do.

Well said, Manny.

You want to be free to choose.

Edited January 1, 2013 by August1991

[betsy]

Money is not a measure of wealth.

True.

Edited January 1, 2013 by betsy

[betsy]

An individual's freedom to choose is the true measure. You are rich if you can choose freely.

For some, the very idea that you don't equate wealth with happiness or fulfillment, is in itself the very essence of "freedom."

When one is removed from the "trappings" of material wealth.....and can still manage to find contentment in whatever circumstances one finds himself in....that is freedom.

Edited January 1, 2013 by betsy

[WIP]

Let's set aside this idea of "conspicuous consumption", or signaling.

Why?

What is a "family"?

Individuals in this 21st century are "richer", they have more choices, and many choose to live alone. "Families" have smaller incomes.

The decline in real incomes is forcing some of those trends in the other direction; such as young people leaving home at a later age, and sharing accommodations because they often can't afford to rent their own apartments.

Also, numbers such as the ones I pulled up, would seem to indicate that incomes had risen substantially in the 80's, while in fact, most of the gains in household income were due to women having no choice other than to provide a second income. I know from my own example, that going from two income to one income household means doing some radical downsizing....starting with moving out of suburbia and back to the city....which all in all was a good thing; but I never would have expected years ago that if I was earning close to $75,000 a year, living on one income alone would not be enough to afford what is considered the typical middle class lifestyle.

So, a more detailed breakdown of those numbers would reveal that the situation was even worse for the middle class. We have pretty much stagnated for the last 30 years, and have been trying to keep up with the professional class by moving from one income to two income marriages, and taking on a lot more debt than generations past. The pressure to try to keep up, goes on largely at an unconscious level, based on little more than how your neighbours' houses look and what kind of vehicles they have in their driveway. There were a lot of things I thought we needed while in suburbia, that were not really important after leaving it behind.

Money is not a measure of wealth. An individual's freedom to choose is the true measure. You are rich if you can choose freely.

Who chooses freely in the first place? When it comes to the concept of Free Will, I'm not sure if I even accept the compatiblist version, let alone any theory that we have a mind that acts independently of brain function. The whole marketing industry of advertising is based on grabbing the potential consumer at a gut, emotional level below conscious awareness, and putting an obsession in their heads. People can only deal with the pressures of conformity if they begin to understand how they are being manipulated in the first place!

[eyeball]

To be "rich" eyeball, in your view of the world, you would restrict the choice of others.

IMHO, individuals in this world are richer only when they have more choices.

Exactly, and in my humble experience, you'll always be poorer when you cannot deter others from having the power to limit them.

IMHO, money hasn't mattered as much as we've been led to believe for quite some time now.

[Bonam]

So, a more detailed breakdown of those numbers would reveal that the situation was even worse for the middle class. We have pretty much stagnated for the last 30 years, and have been trying to keep up with the professional class by moving from one income to two income marriages,

Hmm? The professional class is the middle class.

The pressure to try to keep up, goes on largely at an unconscious level, based on little more than how your neighbours' houses look and what kind of vehicles they have in their driveway. There were a lot of things I thought we needed while in suburbia, that were not really important after leaving it behind.

So you're easily influenced by trying to keep up with the neighbors. Big deal. That's not some statement about society but about yourself only.