Coming in for the mansion landing approach, even if I have to rent one more time
Conversation
Purely a cost thing. Seattle beats Chicago for me in all but 3 ways: cost of living, air quality, earthquake risk. And the latter 2 are just insurance costs in disguise.
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My ideas about the $ value of work have gone completely out of whack in the last few years. I have no idea what anyone is supposed to make anymore. Eg I have no reaction to this article saying most LA lifeguards make 200k+ a year with top guys making 500k+
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Wife: “Why can’t you be a lifeguard, didn’t you used to be a competitive swimmer in college”
Me (former embarrassment at “waterboy” on waterpolo team): “Did you see what the Rock did on Baywatch? I can’t do that”
But seriously no future for me in 200k-lifeguard geographies
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Weird labor dynamics of software eaten world make value of money illegible
Nurses on burnout pay
Cops get paid huge amounts to play dress up
Lifeguards get paid like baywatch stars
Doctors do data entry in EMS systems to work off student loans and pay for malpractice insurance
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Doesn’t help that financialized ownership (aka PE firms own hospitals based on elective surgery theses and end up cutting costs in pandemic year??!) distorts things even further
Plus investment income drives real estate
Funhouse mirror world
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The best argument to work a standard careerist job is literally that the bizarre fantasy numbers are designed to add up properly relative to them. The crazy kinda balances out somehow. This is really what “market” solutions are.
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A “job” is like html that validates because it is syntactically well-formed. The content need not make sense. Conversely consensus high-value work in non-jobs may not “render” at all.
The economy of a tight societal unit like a city need not make any kind of human sense
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People demanding that AIs should be “explainable” or even pass laws demanding it, crack me up. Have you tried “explaining” any major city? Let alone a national economy?
And the demanding people are also most like,y to pass more regulations making economies unexplainable.
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The best argument for being as rich as possible is that you can pretend the world makes sense, because you can just pay to not have to look at the nonsense parts. If you never have to walk by a homeless tent or take public transit, yeah… the spherical cow makes sense.
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Replying to
“if life was going to live in such a vast Universe, one thing it could not afford to have was a sense of perspective.” — Douglas Adams
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There’s no such thing as a “correct” perspective on the economics of lifestyles.
The rich think they have one because their money and comfort is proof.
The poor think they can find one because their pain and suffering points to “truth” somehow.
Both are utter bs.
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The key is to find the easiest and most fun distorted perspective that solves the life equation for you.
It doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to end in a mansion 😇.
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Replying to
This is why a frugal approach to life even post-wealth is one of the most important goals of my life.

