You don’t need to work like crazy if you do skilled work and spend your money wisely. When I was a software engineer I took months off between jobs. I worked less than 40 hours when freelancing. However, most of my colleagues used their income to buy trappings like a mortgage, clothes, eating out, video games, drugs, new gadgets and toys, cars, their own apartment, etc.
Most people choose to spend their money increasing their standard of living instead of buying time at a low standard of living.
As Picasso said, “I’d like to live as a poor man with a rich man’s money.”
You're responding to an aggregate statistic with an anecdote. I too did not graduate high school, but now have an advanced degree and a high paying job. Claiming that that invalidates the notion of privilege is silly.
Still, he literally said "do skilled work and spend your money wisely", the former implying that he focused on developing his skills, and the latter implying that he didn't live beyond his means. Hard to characterize either as some sort of undue "privilege".
While I kind of get what you're saying, mortgage/rent, clothes, cars, and food are necessities. :)
This sounds a bit like the Mr. Money Mustache philosophy -- live very cheaply, save like crazy, retire early -- which is all great advice, but elides the level of fortune involved, e.g., getting and keeping a high-paying job straight out of college, having no college debt, quickly marrying someone else who also has a high-paying job and is down with both combining incomes and practicing Extreme Thriftiness with you. IIRC, he made the rather bold claim that he could both live and retire on $25K a year -- which is something a lot of people would, well, prefer not to do. With all respect to Picasso, I'd at least prefer to live as a middle class man with a rich man's money.
There are expensive and inexpensive ways of approaching accommodation, clothing, food and transportation. The fact that so many things which used to be considered luxuries are now thought of as essentials (and that were once considered sensible but are now considered extreme thriftiness) goes to show that people actually want the frills of a lifestyle where they work hard and can as a result afford luxuries in every area of their lives.
> People actually want the frills of a lifestyle where they work hard and can as a result afford luxuries in every area of their lives.
Well, yes, sure, and sure, there are different levels of "luxury," e.g., there's getting a BMW 5 series, and there's getting a Honda Insight but springing for the Touring model -- and that's not counting the choice between used and new (what if the person with the BMW 5 series bought it used for about the same as someone else paid for a new Honda Civic). But, particularly at the income levels the average HN reader seems to have based on comments, "build up savings" vs. "afford small luxuries" is often a false dichotomy, which is what I was getting at.
Our desire to have awesome stuff and amazing experiences expands to fit the space available. People compete for social status, and they don't want to miss out on whatever's new and exciting. There's an unlimited amount of resources that we could spend on medical research (curing every medical condition, including shortness, cognitive impairments and ageing, plus enhancements/transhumanism), climate engineering/geoengineering/megastructures, space exploration/tourism/real estate and other areas of scientific research, and most of this is going to happen as a result of private-sector employees exercising their consumer purchasing power. We're curious and productive creatures; I don't think a large proportion of us are ever going to just stop and make do with whatever the state of the art was at the time.
Amazes me that American Presidential candidates are in their 70s and people and parties just go with it. I was shocked reading the news that Wilbur Ross was hospitalised - he has a major work role and is 82 years old. Age of retirement in Australia for that age group is 65. I understand some people just don't know how to stop or what else to do with their time, but I feel like pinning too much hope on retirement is misguided. Far better surely to be doing more living while in your prime. More likely to be physically able to enjoy it, for one thing.
From that perspective, everything is a lottery. Sorry, you worked your ass off doing good things for your fellow humans, here's a tree branch falling on your head.
The standard of living has improved massively. I agree wholeheartedly that there are issues (e.g. people are giving more free time, but they don't know what to do with it and engage in unhealthy habits to kill the free time they've been given), but generally, it's not even close.
There is nothing stopping you from working 10 hours a week and living like a person in the 1920’s. Local doctor who will put a $1 poultice on your skin cancer, no AC, no car, 10 to a house.
I'll say it again because apparently no one's listening.
We're working more and getting paid less for that work. This isn't because of the standard of living. Standard of living can still increase while pay tracks productivity, and it does in other developed countries.
This is the most frustrating HN discussion I've seen in a while. People are coming here to peddle this "quality of life" argument with zero evidence. You're not even stopping for a second to consider that the US isn't the only country in the world.
If you compare the American GDP to other countries, the average individual is getting very little bang for their buck as far as quality of life goes.
