[HN Gopher] Founding vs. Inheriting
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Founding vs. Inheriting
        
       Author : bdr
       Score  : 44 points
       Date   : 2021-05-09 04:38 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (1729.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (1729.com)
        
       | CyberRabbi wrote:
       | I want to live in a society where I can found an institution, get
       | rich, and then I can rest assured that my descendants will
       | inherit and benefit from the wealth I made. Otherwise what's the
       | point?
        
         | mustafa_pasi wrote:
         | I cannot believe this comment is grayed out. There is really
         | not point in accumulating wealth if you cannot pass it down.
         | And maybe consider that you might have been lucky in your life
         | and your children or your grandchild won't be. So don't think,
         | "I did it easily, so they can as well".
        
           | k__ wrote:
           | Don't know, but maybe accumulating wealth isn't what life
           | should be about?
        
             | djbebs wrote:
             | The good thing about being able to do it, is that you're
             | not obligated to do it.
             | 
             | I'd you dont want to pass on anything to your children,
             | you're welcome to spend it all however you see fit.
             | Allowing people to pass it on to whomever they like won't
             | change your ability to do that.
        
               | k__ wrote:
               | True, but I'm assuming that it doesn't work as long as
               | everyone does as they please.
               | 
               | You just have to look at all the stuff paid by mandatory
               | royalities like taxes or payments for public health care.
               | As long as rich people can opt-out it will never work
               | 100%.
        
             | mustafa_pasi wrote:
             | We are on HN, so I just assumed everyone on here was
             | interested and seeking out way to accumulate more wealth
             | than the average working professional. Of course not
             | everyone has to have that mindset. But if you do have that
             | mindset, then I find it hard to understand why you'd be
             | against inheritance.
        
               | klyrs wrote:
               | > We are on HN, so I just assumed everyone on here was
               | interested and seeking out way to accumulate more wealth
               | than the average working professional.
               | 
               | You may be surprised to learn that many hackers are
               | passionate about tech, and see the handling of money as a
               | dreadful necessity of life that brings as much joy as
               | wiping one's ass. The fact that tech can be lucrative has
               | attracted a bunch of folks to tech, who are only in it
               | for the money. HN does skew towards the latter, but it
               | certainly isn't everyone here
        
               | k__ wrote:
               | You could have the mindset that your wealth helps
               | everyone and not just those who happen to be your
               | offspring.
        
         | nicoburns wrote:
         | Why do you only care about your descendants, and not anyone
         | else. We could create a society where everyone in the next
         | generation benefits from the wealth that everyone in the
         | current generation creates. Is that not a much more worthy goal
         | to strive for?
        
           | anotha1 wrote:
           | Much. The parent comment reads like a mix of severely lacking
           | empathy and selfish grandiosity. This guy would probably also
           | agree he should have 500+ kids to spread his blessed seed to
           | the world.
        
           | listenallyall wrote:
           | Right, because confiscating wealth from those that earned it,
           | has worked so well across the civilizations and societies
           | that tried it.
        
             | anoncake wrote:
             | It has and it's called taxation. And taxing people who have
             | _not_ earned their wealth, using inheritance taxes, is even
             | better.
        
               | listenallyall wrote:
               | The United States taxes its citizens in many, many
               | ways... income tax, payroll tax, capital gains tax, sales
               | tax, gasoline tax, liquor tax, inheritance tax, many
               | more. If taxation "benefits" all future citizens, as
               | described by the OP above, then the U.S. would cheer on
               | its billionaires, they would be the heroes of all
               | children because they would be providing almost all of
               | the benefits! Funny that it doesn't work like that in
               | real life...
        
               | anoncake wrote:
               | No, billionaires didn't earn their wealth. And paying
               | your taxes is the bare minimum, it doesn't make you a
               | hero.
        
               | altusbrown wrote:
               | Do you think Amazon would just exist if Bezos didn't do
               | what he did?
               | 
               | Do you think groups of people spontaneously collect in
               | ways that produce more value than they cost to exist?
               | Even if there is no way to benefit from it individually
               | at scale?
               | 
               | If you do, I can understand where you are coming from -
               | it doesn't line up at all with my experience or extensive
               | datasets I have, but I'd understand it.
               | 
               | If that can't just happen, then how did he not earn it?
        
               | CRConrad wrote:
               | > Do you think Amazon would just exist if Bezos didn't do
               | what he did?
               | 
               | Something else very similar would probably exist. And in
               | that universe, people would probably go "Do you think
               | DeNile would just exist if Ben Jeffries didn't do what he
               | did?".
        
               | altusbrown wrote:
               | Based on your comment, I'm assuming you would expect them
               | to be led by someone doing the same things - which just
               | highlights the role doesn't?
        
               | anoncake wrote:
               | I'm not saying Bezos didn't earn anything. But not
               | billions.
        
               | altusbrown wrote:
               | Taxation is not confiscation, unless the taxation is
               | punitively high. I'd argue it would likely need to be
               | 100% to meet the common usage of it.
               | 
               | The more you tax, the closer you get to banning or
               | stopping activity. If a government sets a tax rate of
               | 100% at say a certain threshold, it would be a poor
               | planner that would be earning anything in that category
               | no?
        
               | anoncake wrote:
               | That's an artificial distinction. There is no sharp line
               | between "punitive taxes" and just taxes.
        
           | CyberRabbi wrote:
           | I care about other people but I care about my family more. I
           | couldn't tell you why, I just do, it's my instinct. I don't
           | believe in utopias nor do I commit myself to what other
           | people consider "worthy" goals, this is not a popularity
           | contest for me, it's about survival.
        
             | anotha1 wrote:
             | Like cancer, individual (cell) reproduction without
             | consideration for the group (organism).
             | 
             | We all know how cancer ends...
             | 
             | Hopefully, you'll soon recognize the value (and even
             | beauty) of senescence (Steve Jobs did) and not commit our
             | future generations to a slow painful death.
             | 
             | If not, your kids might also appreciate an opportunity to
             | prove themselves, and just not ride your coattails. Even if
             | not, after you're gone no one will praise them without an
             | asterisk.
             | 
             | But hey, who doesn't still envy the life of a trust fund
             | kid. Smoking weed and buying Supreme(r) crap your whole
             | life doesn't seem that bad?
        
               | CyberRabbi wrote:
               | My descendants will never need to be preoccupied with
               | proving themselves to anyone, especially people who might
               | otherwise compare them to cancer cells. Praise from
               | others serves no useful or necessary function when they
               | prosper regardless.
        
               | altusbrown wrote:
               | Pretty impressive projection and pompousness you have
               | there.
               | 
               | Fundamentally, society is a mutual agreement of
               | individuals. Those individuals have needs.
               | 
               | If someone feels a need to provide for their children -
               | which could include perhaps being able to afford a good
               | education without putting themselves in debt - and
               | they're willing to work and save for it (which is
               | fundamentally where most inheritances come from at some
               | level) rather than blow it on cocaine or give it away to
               | strangers, why not?
        
         | js8 wrote:
         | That's called feudalism.
        
           | CyberRabbi wrote:
           | Feudalism involves using force to take and hoard finite
           | resources such as land from others without recompense. I'm
           | describing a society where everyone is free to create wealth
           | from their labor and is also free to have their descendants
           | inherit and benefit from the wealth they created from their
           | labor.
        
             | anoncake wrote:
             | Serfs were often descended from freemen who had to sell
             | their freedom. The lords did hoard land, but they did not
             | necessarily take it by force. Usually they inherited it, or
             | they bought it.
        
             | js8 wrote:
             | > create wealth from their labor
             | 
             | I am not sure what you mean by lasting wealth created by
             | labor. Can you give some example? You mean "intellectual
             | property"? You want society broadly based on that?
        
               | usrusr wrote:
               | Can you give an example for a case where someone has
               | created significant wealth from their labor that isn't
               | based on a laughably broad definition of the term
               | "labor"?
        
               | unishark wrote:
               | IP rules restrict others' production or ownership. Wealth
               | is owning of the products themselves. You don't become
               | less wealthy in that sense if another person makes a copy
               | of something you own.
        
               | js8 wrote:
               | Not all of them, copyright doesn't. In any case, aside
               | from something like a Minecraft world, I don't really see
               | how you can "create wealth" without taking from someone
               | else first. Can you provide a positive example?
        
               | unishark wrote:
               | What is included in "taking from someone"? Am I allowed
               | to purchase or gather cheap resources and make much more
               | valuable products after applying skilled labor?
        
               | js8 wrote:
               | Yes. But I am not sure how you transfer the fruits of
               | this labor to your descendants, so they would benefit
               | from it. Every property needs maintenance, and "being
               | rich" (as OP said), or even middle-class, means to have
               | enough property that you need to hire somebody (at least
               | ocassionally) to maintain it.
               | 
               | Also OP talked about building an institution, which
               | presumably means that there are other people involved.
               | Unless he meant something like building a worker
               | cooperative, I feel like in the arrangement he envisioned
               | for his descendants, it will be other people working for
               | them, providing them with their labor. I don't see that
               | much different from feudal arrangements.
        
               | vladvasiliu wrote:
               | I can think of a bunch of examples not based directly on
               | intellectual property (I assume you mean "royalties" and
               | similar, such as from songs / books / etc).
               | 
               | If I found a prosperous business, say Walmart, and my
               | kinds inherit it, this looks to me pretty much based on
               | labor and not on taxing the use of some "intellectual
               | property". Same for an industrial enterprise, like an
               | automaker that is privately owned.
               | 
               | Of course, the kids would have to find a way to continue
               | managing it well in order to reap the benefits, it
               | wouldn't exactly be "forever free money with no work",
               | though they could get close to that for themselves by
               | selling the company.
               | 
               | I guess some could question whether being a CEO of such a
               | company is actually "labor", especially when considering
               | the kids (when the "building" phase is over) but I'd say
               | that's a whole different debate.
        
               | js8 wrote:
               | Honestly, I don't see, conceptually, a big distinction
               | between building a corporation (like Walmart) and a
               | nation. In both cases, there is a person which organizes
               | other people and makes sure that collectively, they fight
               | with other neighboring organization over resources, for
               | mutual benefit within the group, and win. And then, like
               | in feudalism, the descendants of the organizer himself
               | inherit the organization, and the right to control it,
               | and tell people what to do.
               | 
               | Yes, technically the leader's job is still qualified
               | labor (although in case of being just a shareholder,
               | there is no labor involved, if you are CEO or in a board,
               | you are actually paid extra aside from the dividends).
               | 
               | But that's not the main point, the main point is, just
               | like in feudalism, the founder of the institution has the
               | indefinite, and hereditary, power to make decisions
               | concerning the institution, in other words, he owns it.
               | The other people involved in building it (and their
               | descendants) do not have such powers. And that is deeply
               | problematic, which is why today we reject feudalism in
               | favor of e.g. democracy. For similar reasons, I believe,
               | we should reject hereditary ownership of corporations in
               | favor of, say, worker coops.
        
               | vladvasiliu wrote:
               | Well, to me, there is one very, very big difference
               | between a company and feudalism, which makes this analogy
               | break down.
               | 
               | As a worker, I have the choice of becoming a serf to the
               | owner of company A, or I may set up my own company B and
               | compete with A.
               | 
               | Or anything else in between, like starting as a serf and
               | then quitting and deciding that I'm going to do my thing.
               | Or even decide that I've amassed enough money as a serf
               | and don't need to work anymore (see the early retirement
               | folks).
               | 
               | All this is not possible with feudalism, if only because
               | joining another master would have me move to a possible
               | distant land and cut me from my family.
               | 
               | Of course, I realize that depending at least on
               | circumstance, some people may not actually have that much
               | of a choice. But then, the question becomes, how much
               | does the owner of the company owe to the workers? Why
               | would they strive to improve the company if they can't
               | reap the benefits? Only from the goodness of their heart?
               | Not sure how well that works out in practice.
               | 
               | The issue, in the end, is of who's entitled to the fruit
               | of one person's labor. It's not clear to me that the
               | workers should have a bigger share than the owner. Of
               | course, this devolves back to the classic "the owner
               | can't build the company without the workers / the workers
               | can't build the company without the owner" which doesn't
               | have a clear-cut answer.
               | 
               | > For similar reasons, I believe, we should reject
               | hereditary ownership of corporations in favor of, say,
               | worker coops.
               | 
               | Genuine question: why don't we see more coops? I know in
               | France there are some, mostly around agriculture. But
               | they seem more an exception than a rule.
               | 
               | Would you argue this is a situation where the local
               | optimum (the hereditary corporation) is better than the
               | global optimum (the coop)? Which would explain why
               | people, given the choice, will set up a corporation
               | instead of a coop, like a tragedy of commons of sorts?
        
               | js8 wrote:
               | I think your objection to that analogy doesn't affect
               | much the main moral argument against it. Yes, maybe it's
               | less brutal, and you have more freedom, but it is still,
               | IMHO, fundamentally unfair, i.e. that of all the people
               | who collectively built something, some of them get the
               | hereditary right to control the institution (the owners),
               | while some of them do not get the right (the workers).
               | 
               | Who gets the fruits of labor (and how much) is IMHO
               | always a matter of debate in any society. I do not
               | believe there is an objective justification (contrary to
               | some free market advocates). In any case, if you own
               | shares of a company, your labor input can be zero and you
               | still get fruits; I don't know how that is fair (unless
               | this entitlement is divided among all members of the
               | society, like for example all citizens of Norway share
               | the oil profits).
               | 
               | > Genuine question: why don't we see more coops?
               | 
               | IMHO, two reasons. One is lack of legal framework. You
               | have to keep in mind that legal frameworks for modern
               | corporation evolved over at least 300 years, and in the
               | beginning, there wasn't even things like limited
               | liability.
               | 
               | Second, in practice coops face threat of investment
               | strike, because investors simply do not want that system
               | and they are more connected than workers are. Sometimes
               | both of these are a factor, for example many coops faced
               | problems getting bank loans, etc.
               | 
               | It's like asking in 15th century, if democracy is so
               | great, why don't we see more of it? Humans are creatures
               | of habit, and often there are existing power structures
               | that have to be resisted first.
        
               | chii wrote:
               | if that child inheriting a business is not actually very
               | good at managing, they should not try, but instead hire a
               | good manager.
               | 
               | There's nothing wrong with living off the profits of the
               | business, and do no labour at all.
        
               | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
               | It's not a different debate at all. Because these
               | arguments are really about living off the value of other
               | people's labour.
               | 
               |  _Sometimes_ managerial /organisational ability is
               | productive and creative, but in reality it's often
               | piratical and exploitative.
               | 
               | It's much easier to get rich by limiting worker freedom
               | and opportunity and herding workers towards a precarious
               | existence than it is by creating genuine opportunities
               | for enhanced collective wealth.
               | 
               | Do you want wealth to be a narcissistic signifier of
               | being _better than other people_ - and therefore wholly
               | deserving of extra special treatment - or do you want to
               | be an organiser and inventor who creates systems which
               | give everyone (not just a small in-group) a helping hand
               | up and makes the culture more creative, inventive, and
               | interesting?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | Your position seems bizarre _to me_.
         | 
         | I want to live in a society where I can do what I like (which
         | in my case involves founding institutions that help propagate
         | things important to me like free software, and als making
         | plenty of money).
         | 
         | My descendants? Some upbringing and a good education and then
         | they are on their own. What would be the point of giving them
         | some money or a company? Some sentimental knickknacks: fine.
         | 
         | I consider inheritance anti-democratic and not part of the kind
         | of society I would like.
        
           | altusbrown wrote:
           | That attitude does tend to align more with mine, with some
           | important distinctions. It would also be interesting to
           | compare long term societal/general impact and survival with
           | that attitude.
           | 
           | My reasoning is that being exposed to the influence of power
           | and wealth when someone is young is a bit like having them
           | snort cocaine - unlikely to produce a long term successful
           | human).
           | 
           | Is not taking wealth when it is available and not giving it
           | to your progeny a long term survival/genetic benefit or not?
           | 
           | Wouldn't really change anything, but I guess curiosity in the
           | face of a unclear benefit is pretty much the definition of us
           | here. :)
        
           | CyberRabbi wrote:
           | > I consider inheritance anti-democratic
           | 
           | I consider restricting the ability for people to provide
           | inheritance to their children by force of state anti-
           | democratic.
        
             | gumby wrote:
             | Are you objecting to something someone suggested?
             | 
             | Without the force of state or a private army it's pretty
             | difficult for anyone to leave anything to someone after
             | they kick the bucket.
        
               | CyberRabbi wrote:
               | Protecting someone's property is not the same as taking
               | away someone's right to their property. When the state
               | does the former, it is a liberal state, when it does the
               | latter it is a tyrannical state.
               | 
               | If you aren't suggesting the state take away my ability
               | to provide inheritance to my descendants, then what is
               | the function of calling inheritance anti-democratic? Are
               | you suggesting that a true democracy does not allow
               | individuals to leave inheritance to their descendants?
        
         | JohnJamesRambo wrote:
         | I've been reading The Millionaire Next Door and surprisingly
         | few descendants stay rich. By fourth generation the wealth is
         | completely destroyed. Likely because each generation didn't
         | have to work as hard and value the money. Of course there are
         | exceptions, but this was what their data said.
         | 
         | Also I think only 20% of millionaires in USA inherited it,
         | which really surprised me.
        
           | giantg2 wrote:
           | "Also I think only 20% of millionaires in USA inherited it,
           | which really surprised me."
           | 
           | $1M isn't as much as it used to be. You pretty much need that
           | much or more to retire, so it makes sense that there is a
           | large percentage making it.
        
           | numbers_guy wrote:
           | That's just because the wealth is dilluted amongst the
           | descendants. The growth of the business is not strong enough
           | to compensate. And statistically speaking even if all grand-
           | grandkids worked as hard as the founder, a lot of them will
           | fail.
        
             | tartoran wrote:
             | That is a part of the equation, but it's undoubtedly true
             | that descendats of wealth are weaker wealth makers since
             | they have it on a plate. Some of them greatly benefit from
             | the wealth inherited from their descendants but the
             | majority of them squander it away, there are too many
             | temptations out there..
        
             | altusbrown wrote:
             | There is an element to that, but it is not only that.
             | 
             | Most (but not all) sizable wealth builders I've met or done
             | research on have been people with a combination of:
             | 
             | - ability to cut through bullshit but play the game (so can
             | generate bullshit when necessary, but aren't fooled or
             | impeded by it) - work hard (yes - bill gates, bezos, etc.
             | all worked their asses off during many important periods).
             | - know the right things to work on (so avoid expending
             | their effort on digging ditches when they can spend the
             | effort negotiating better deals) - get in the right place
             | at the right time (combination of luck, pragmatism, paying
             | attention to wider trends). You can influence this, but
             | never really control it. - ability to work with wildly
             | different people effectively (often nicely, often not
             | nicely depending on the group) to get what they needed done
             | - ability to raise capital, and put it to use. (significant
             | environmental, education, networking effects here) - don't
             | give away the farm/give away too much of their own
             | ownership or assets. - knows how to effectively address a
             | market and deliver a useful product, or find and direct
             | people who do.
             | 
             | This is not a common set of qualities. If you spent all the
             | money in the world on training, you'd be lucky if 1 in 10
             | people could pick those qualities up. With Genetics and
             | personality traits (ignoring the nurture element), even if
             | they cloned themselves I doubt you'd get better than 50/50
             | odds.
             | 
             | If being a wealth builder is the result of a large
             | confluence of events coming together just right, say:
             | 
             | - right genetics & right influences in early childhood to
             | produce the right world view and personality - right set of
             | circumstances early on to connect useful people for
             | capital, or circumstances later to connect them to capital
             | - right skillset with understanding and being effective
             | with others of widely different backgrounds - right
             | exposure to the right potential market, and the right luck
             | with with many things (all of which have elements of
             | personally influenceable factors and external non-
             | influencable factors)
             | 
             | It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that what works in
             | the first generation doesn't usually last very long. The
             | circumstances are different, everything is different by the
             | time generation #2 or #3 happen.
             | 
             | With the right training, education, and circumstances you
             | can improve the odds. But maybe a generation or two?
             | 
             | There is a saying I've run across a bunch - first
             | generation builds it, second generation spends it, third
             | generation blows it.
             | 
             | In large part because the environment each generation is in
             | has fundamentally different pressures and environments 'by
             | default', and a lot of our personality and approach to
             | things is set in early childhood.
             | 
             | It's also why you see societies with more stable traditions
             | of wealth/nobility/etc focus so much on traditional ways of
             | doing things, acting, etc. is to attempt to keep
             | reinforcing what was necessary for prior success even when
             | it's not obvious for the new generation. Because they do
             | provide necessary coping skills and the like.
             | 
             | Even still, a great many of them lose it all
             | (statistically).
        
           | djbebs wrote:
           | Less than 20%. Around 90% of millionaires in the US are
           | selfmade
        
           | trompetenaccoun wrote:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Schickedanz
           | 
           | Heiress of a multi-billion dollar online retail business in
           | Germany. She was the 13th richest woman in the world at one
           | point. Gave her entire wealth to a private bank to manage.
           | The bank got involved in shady real estate deals and long
           | story short she's lost practically everything.
        
             | listenallyall wrote:
             | Anecdote. First generation, not 4th. External fraud, not
             | laziness/entitlement/wastefulness.
             | 
             | Irrelevant.
        
               | trompetenaccoun wrote:
               | Someone who doesn't understand finance and doesn't know
               | how to invest is bound to lose the money sooner or later.
               | There is always fraud, there's always wastefulness. How
               | many generations it takes is irrelevant, that number four
               | is just a meme that gets repeated because someone wrote
               | this in an investment book once, and people think it
               | sounds about right. It's not based on science.
               | 
               | It's an extreme example. But you don't have to just look
               | at billionaires, it's easy to observe this all around you
               | with families that are worth much less. And it would be
               | very concerning if it were any other way.
        
               | Viliam1234 wrote:
               | > Someone who doesn't understand finance and doesn't know
               | how to invest is bound to lose the money sooner or later.
               | There is always fraud, there's always wastefulness.
               | 
               | I agree; if you don't spend a lot of time researching how
               | money works, you will almost certainly get scammed. There
               | are so many perfectly legal ways how to deprive a person
               | of their money in a way that seems like investing. And
               | the people who want to take your money will approach you,
               | helpfully provide advice when you ask, get recommended by
               | your friends (whom they also scammed, in a way that is
               | not immediately obvious). Even the serious institutions
               | provide some product that are designed to be bad.
               | 
               | I didn't inherit anything, but since I got my first
               | salary, I tried to save and invest some of the money. Two
               | decades later, I see (with the knowledge I have now, but
               | didn't have back then) that almost everything I did was
               | pretty much guaranteed to make the money gradually
               | disappear. So if I inherited money, but not a very good
               | knowledge how to handle it, it would probably be all gone
               | by now.
               | 
               | The only good investments I made was real estate and
               | bitcoins. Ironically, two things that many smart people
               | on internet are strongly opposed to. If I knew in my 20s
               | what I know now, maybe there were better options
               | available. But all the other options I knew about were
               | scams.
        
               | CRConrad wrote:
               | Heiress = Second generation, not first.
        
               | listenallyall wrote:
               | Noted. First generation _of descendants_ , I should have
               | specified, especially since the OP doesn't.
               | 
               | Of course, being HN, we start counting at zero by default
               | anyway.
        
           | libertine wrote:
           | I think that's a bit of a myth, at least in a global scale.
           | 
           | In Europe there's a lot of old money, or sources of income
           | that only later generations can rip the benefits of their
           | ancestors.
           | 
           | The most common example in my country is people that sustain
           | a lot of their wealth with cork. The thing with cork is that
           | it takes decades to build up, and a large area.
           | 
           | Basically people are living from their great+ grand parents
           | buying small patches of land over many years, that had the
           | trees already planted (or that just grew in the meanwhile).
           | 
           | And I'm pretty sure this reality is probably also common
           | across the Mediterranean region.
        
             | djbebs wrote:
             | Portugal? Corticeira Amorim is the exception, not the rule.
        
           | TacticalCoder wrote:
           | > By fourth generation the wealth is completely destroyed.
           | 
           | It doesn't change the fact that free people, living in a free
           | country, should be free to give their wealth to whomever they
           | please, including their children.
        
             | CRConrad wrote:
             | > ...free people, living in a free country, should be free
             | to give their wealth to whomever they please, including
             | their children.
             | 
             | Sure. And those children should be as free as anyone else
             | to pay the appropriate tax rate on that category of income.
             | (Given that it's a sudden unearned windfall, a pretty high
             | rate seems quite equitable.)
        
             | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
             | Not if there are social, political, and ecological costs to
             | other people.
             | 
             | What makes you think that "free" should only ever benefit
             | you, and everyone else's "free" is irrelevant?
        
               | bdcravens wrote:
               | Very few things don't have a social, political, or
               | ecological cost to others. How that money was earned to
               | being with, purchasing choices, etc.
        
               | djbebs wrote:
               | Taking away that money also has such costs.
        
         | cblconfederate wrote:
         | If everyone wants that however, it seems like an unsustainable
         | game to play.
         | 
         | > Otherwise what's the point?
         | 
         | The answer to that question defines a society. For most of
         | recent history that was true with the exception of communist
         | countries and many other interludes.
        
         | quietbritishjim wrote:
         | Out of interest, because this has a substantial effect on the
         | meaning of your comment:
         | 
         | Do you literally mean all your descendents? E.g. in 200 years
         | there will be 100ish people still substantially benefitting
         | from your wealth? That's how your post reads and is probably
         | how most people would interpret it but I suspect it may not be
         | what you meant.
         | 
         | Or do you just mean your wealth just benefits your _immediate_
         | descendants? (What you 've written would be a very odd way to
         | say that because most people would describe those people as "my
         | children".) Obviously there would still be an indirect effect
         | all the way down e.g. your grandchildren would probably get a
         | better education which would let them earn more for themselves,
         | etc., but that would fade out eventually through the
         | generations.
        
           | zeckalpha wrote:
           | If it is well managed and a safe withdrawal rate is
           | maintained, it very well could go to all descendants.
        
             | altusbrown wrote:
             | Good luck though when the person who learned how to be an
             | assassin/shark and was able to build and maintain the
             | wealth has handed it off to their kids (or grandkids) who
             | probably never had much contact with them (what with all
             | the assassin/sharkiness), and are now trying to judge well
             | managed and safe from what they were exposed to as
             | children. Which was probably massive wealth, and people who
             | aren't always scamming you (because the filtering happened
             | off screen).
             | 
             | Especially since you either have to pick someone (or a
             | small group) from the set to judge, or have to deal with an
             | ever increasing and ever more distant from the original
             | wealthbuilding set of decision makers.
             | 
             | Definitely possible to do, but very, very, very unlikely
             | and rare (based on clear examples around us).
        
           | CyberRabbi wrote:
           | I haven't fully considered what the best way is to ensure my
           | dynasty but I imagine that my first born male son should
           | inherit the lion's share of the wealth. So no, in practice it
           | probably wouldn't be all my descendants, just my direct male
           | line.
        
             | CRConrad wrote:
             | Wow. All hail Misogynicus Maximus.
        
         | rrivers wrote:
         | Dynastic wealth transfer is extremely inequitable. While
         | everyone defines their own meaning, to frame the human
         | condition as the process of generating excess capital is a
         | diminishment of life and experience.
        
           | CyberRabbi wrote:
           | > to frame the human condition as the process of generating
           | excess capital is a diminishment of life and experience.
           | 
           | Yes I completely agree. Accumulating wealth should not be the
           | end goal of the human experience. It's just the means by
           | which we ensure the continued health and prosperity of our
           | families and loved ones.
        
       | mjfl wrote:
       | As someone who grew up in middle class new england without any
       | sort of inheritance, now living in southern california where
       | there is seemingly an ethnic caste system in place, I think this
       | article is a little circlejerky. People move to california for
       | the weather.
        
       | injidup wrote:
       | Stopped reading when ... Bitcoin
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | cblconfederate wrote:
         | why did you comment then?
        
           | CRConrad wrote:
           | Perhaps as a heads-up to those of us who now know not to
           | bother clicking through.
           | 
           | Thank you, GP!
        
         | culturestate wrote:
         | 1729 is Balaji's crypto newsletter, so you were bound to get
         | there eventually.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-05-09 23:02 UTC)