Are you ~not interested~ in money?

Getting the money, all he seemed to want to do with it is throw it in the air and go "whoo". And give a handful to a girl and go "here you are, go get some jewels"

You have to admit that that sounds fun.

I have this recurring dream where I find I have won a massive Euromil amount, and spend the rest of the dream making sure everyone remains on a mental 'even keel'.

My brother became an economist after a career on Wall St and in Investment Banking, and becoming so obsessed with wanting to have money and the power/respect/fuck-you that it could buy, that he went beyond being obsessed with money for its own sake, to wanting to know how it *worked*.

I think. I mean, maybe I'm doing my brother a massive disservice in representing him that way, but this has been the basis of a long-standing massive philosophical gulf between us.

Anyway I need to stop brining my family into it, but I think it's v obvious that I picked up my attitudes towards money off my family - as I think most people do. It's just that my family are, well, peculiar. So maybe that's why I end up with attitudes that are incomprehensible to others.

Ha, OK, people who are so "not interested" in money that they wilfully become sponges on the individuals around them is a valid point. That is definitely a kind of selfishness. Wanting to distance oneself from that kind of attitude is a definite caveat.

― Popcorn Supergay Receiver (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 19 April 2012 14:44 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't see this as "disinterest in money" as disinterest in work.

I have a dayjob in sales, so money should be important to me, but really as long as I can pay the rent and do some of the things I want, I'm quite happy on the whole. I get more interested in money when I'm broke. I'm more interested in job satisfaction and "profile" at the end of the day (you get neither in sales), and a lot of what I do outside the day-job (writing, promoting, festival organisation, and whatnot) do not provide fiscal rewards.

My own brother left university saying "all I care about is money", which I thought was an admirably honest thing for him to say.

Not interested in money (as in "money is not my primary motivation", in fact it's nowhere near it) but "I'd never want that much money" sounds lame to me

If we're really burrowing down, then all I'm interested in is being happy. Money is a tool which can facilitate some degree of happiness. That's all. (To me.)

But there are many paths to happiness. Not all of which involve ~money~.

::tosses lotus petals about and dances like a fucken hippie::

My particular paths involve bicycles and speakers and sausages from the posh butcher, though.

Anybody who works as a freelance journalist can safely say they're not excessively interested in money. Or if they are then they're going the wrong way about it.

Disappointed that poll options aren't song titles TBH

C.R.E.A.M.
Money Is Not Our God
To Hell With Poverty!

Etc

Not sure which would measurably improve my happiness more, though. £97 million in a trust fund, or Thom Yorke in my... y'know.

WAIT WHO AM I KIDDING.

(I should ban myself from mine own thread. I'll stop that now.)

x-post to Sick

Would the £97 million allow you to put Thom Yorke in your... y'know... though? Is the question.

Actually my mum, who plays the lottery religiously, says "i'd never want that much money" whenever anyone actually wins any large amount, errrrrr, playing the lottery

maybe not thom yorke - he wouldn't even play concerts in china or hong kong because he doesn't support the chinese regime

If you play the lottery, I suppose you should plan for winning a very large sum. Although I wouldn't spend too much time "planning".

China is not, as far as I know, a reasonable comparison for MB's... y'know.

Well, he took £4 million to play Coachella so I wonder if he'd take £97 million to play in ~my~ Coachella...?

depends on your... 's human rights records

Put your £97 million down, flip it, and reverse it.

I'd pick up a Flag Post if I made the joke I'm dying to make right now. So you are all spared it. And also spared rhyming "vagina" with "China."

Let's move on. Swiftly.

Oh, I think I already did on another thread...

OMG at ~my~ Coachella

Best vaginal euphemism, will use

not worrying about money is a luxury i can't afford

Put your £97 million down, flip it, and reverse it.
― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 19 April 2012 14:30 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ Elizabeth II Regina

I remember reading a story about diddy, diddy was dissatisfied, why, well it was because that despite all of diddy's wealth, on some mornings he would wake up and there would be crust on his lips, you know, the kind that sometimes forms, and no matter how much money he had he couldn't make that problem go away

has he not heard of creme de la mer?

diddy is like the gatsby of (...)

is that a .. coachella?

Alright, alright, enough with the coochella jokes.

Though perhaps we have established that although not everyone in interested in money, sex is a much more universal motivating factor, and sex jokes have a near universal interest. Sigh.

that's because money's no joke

Also, I took "I'm not that interested in money" to mean "money is not my primary motivation" and "money is not in itself inherently interesting" - lots of people seemed to interpret that statement in quite different ways.

this is how I took it to mean so I voted (a), but also because the majority of totally loaded people I know are fairly miserable/unhappy and it's abundantly clear to me that past a certain point money doesn't just NOT buy happiness, it actively contributes to your unhappiness.

i know some rather happy loaded people. maybe money is some multiplication function for happiness? or just irrelevant altogether?

Money is a magnification factor for damn near everything, both good and bad.

I continue to hold to the theory that once you get lifted out of poverty to the point where basic needs and creature comforts are no longer a concern (not having enough money to get these things met is a sure-fire cause of unhappiness) then there is a pretty much a disconnect between more money and happiness.

Happiness and unhappiness seem to be spread in the same proportions in the middle class and the super-rich. Which leads me to think it is something other than money itself which causes happiness.

Feeling like a broken record at this point, though.

^^ I agree entirely with Ms. Boom on this point.

Money does multiply power, but power doesn't make a person happy, only powerful. Power allows one to materially propagate one's values and ideas into the world, which covers both the power to do good and the power to spread misery and disfunction. The money is just the vehicle for these, not the determiner.

I think you're right, MB, but I don't think very many people in this day and age of income stagnation, under-employment, etc, can imagine being anywhere near the point where more money would begin to result in diminishing returns. It's a fantasy for most of us to even contemplate.

would still love a boat, though

Yes, Laurel, I do get that. That the huge disparities in income inequality and years of recession and austerity measures have pushed huge numbers of people under that line of "basic needs and creature comforts not getting met."

It's just (yeah, call me LOL hippie for this) I feel this kind of sadness at the idea, that people seem to respond by fantasising "I want unimaginable amounts of money/to join the super-rich" rather than fantasising about the hippie-socialist-paradise where money matters... less. I'm not going to tell other people what their fantasies should be, but it just seems to me "why do you want to jump in with that thing that is causing the exact problem you are suffering under?" but I'm hardly the first person to have noticed that one. The fantasies of the desperate, annoying over-privileged idealists since 1848.

But this is the argument that I've been having with my brother since I was 15 and he was 17.

I just get annoyed when people essentially accuse me of *lying* for having different priorities or ideals.

in the article about the spanx billionaire, she said that crazy wealth lets you be who you really are. so if you are really a happy person shackled by non-crazy-wealth, it's totally conceivable that crazy wealth can let you truly express your true happiness. maybe the real reason happiness drops off after a certain income level is that most people are truly in their heart of hearts just upper-middle-class.

No, that's bullshit. I'm sure that crazy wealth can let you express who you truly are. But if *who you truly are* is a mean, paranoid, grudge-holding asshole, then even crazy wealth isn't going to make you happy. Most people need circumstances and constraints to hold back ~who they truly are~ in order to be properly functioning members of a community or family or group of people.

Yes, that's cynical and not entirely serious, but still.

i'm just eating a box of prunes here and i'm thinking if i had a billion dollars my true nature would have me eating a burrito instead, SOCIETY BE DAMNED

(i ended up buying a meatball sandwich as befits my non-billionaire status)
i was thinking that the fast food analog of the thread question is if the small medium and supersize drinks were all the same price, which one do you get?

i'm only interested in money to pay my rent and student loans and feed myself.

I'd love to be rich, because I'd have a shit-ton of fun travelling with my friends and starting my own small record label and having an art gallery and stuff.

But since my predilection toward money is "I'd use it to have a ball," I'll never rich. Unless I hit the lottery.

I can see potential money traps, though - right now when I see real estate porn I think the $6mn places in NYC are generally pretty amazing, but once I hit the lotto would I suddenly need a $20mn place and would that feel inadequate compared to my neighbors in $40mn places?

^^^ reading my mind
xpost

well the trick is to buy your apartment and all the apartments around it, so you can't be jealous of your neighbors

Owning a minor league baseball team would be fun.

brewster's millions made it seem like a drag. typical hollywood un-romanticization?

actually i suppose it's doable. £25000 a year assuming i die at 80

if it's in your capacity to get ludicrous amounts of money, i'd think you'd have a social obligation to be interested in it so you can disperse it to those in need. i think bono's doing the right thing, basically.

but the man is mentally ill!

mentally ill... like a fox?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I wanna say I completely agree, but growing up in the US in modern times there is a psychological/emotional attachment I have to money that is deeply, subconsciously ingrained. Whenever I'm in a situation where I'm broke and depressed, the minute some money starts to come back my way I instantly feel better, and it's kind of scary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6uCyrnhG90

i figure i could be happy with a billion dollars

I'm interested in money up to a point. Anything over 2 million starts to become overkill but I wouldn't call this a caveat

so did I just vote "I completely agree" that I'm interested in money or "I completely agree" that I'm not interested in money?

who's bright idea was it to stick ~not~ in the thread title?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

caveats win in a landlside

otoh, money-loving disagreement wins in a landslide

Prince told me in a dream that money can be used to buy heaven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqgu3Z9N6t4

http://wfmu.org/365/2003/256.shtml