[laughing_man]

I might've done it in my 20s. But now that I'm much later in life the time is far more precious than the money.

And I don't think it's a good idea to hand family members never-work money. Their own achievements become meaningless.

[MidnightRider39]

Idk I would rather spend 10 years in jail later in life than in my twenties.

Otherwise I agree with you it’s not a trade off that is worth it at any point in life

[adriand]

I was about to comment that there was no amount of money I would take in return for spending time in prison but then I realized that of course that’s not true. It would be fun to create a survey that would show a visualization of where people tend to fall on the time/money axis for this.

[ryandrake]

It logically should track closely to the person's age and life expectancy and "legit job" earning potential. I would spend my years 20-29 in jail for $400M, wealth that I'd enjoy for the rest of my life, without hesitation. Heck, I'd have been willing to spend my twenties in prison for $40M. That's still life-changing never-have-to-work-again money. 30-39? I'd probably do it for $400M. 40-49? Hmm, now that's getting kind of tough. Maybe I'd do it for $1B. 50-59? I don't think I could physically do it, and given the number of years I had left, I probably wouldn't even be able to enjoy whatever sum we are talking about.

[adriand]

> I would spend my years 20-29 in jail for $400M

This is kind of why I want to make this survey now because there’s no way I’d spend a decade of my life in prison for any amount of money. I would do six months for $3M. I’d maybe do 12 for $10M. But beyond that…I don’t know, even a year seems like too long to be behind bars.

[sunrunner]

Would a guarantee of a different kind of prison environment change your mind? For example, prison conditions in the Netherlands versus the US? If you were allowed 6+ hours of positive, structured activities a day? Less than if you weren't in prison of course, but as we're talking about 'How much is it worth to you...'

[adriand]

Sure - I think it would decrease the amount of money I’d insist on, and/or increase the amount of time I’d tolerate, but only by a factor of 1.5 or so. Conversely, if I had to stay on an American supermax facility, the calculus would swing way in the other direction.

[laughing_man]

I could have had a whole lot of fun in my thirties and forties with that kind of money. At this point it would just mean iron clad financial security and not much more. Even if I could afford Gabe Newell size yacht I wouldn't buy one.

[simondotau]

And meanwhile you can spend that time in jail working on fitness, instead of being addicted to social media and scrolling tik-tok.

[MidnightRider39]

You can already do that now? It’s actually much harder to “better” yourself when in jail than outside. The conditions range from pretty bad to horrible. Of course if you go to jail in like Sweden it might not be so bad. But everywhere else hell naw

People in this thread seem to think that jail is something like vacation.

[simondotau]

You’re missing the context of the discussion. Obviously jail is worse for everything. I’m not arguing that jail has any inherent upsides.

But if it’s part of a long term gambit, there are ways to make jail time slightly less than a complete write-off.

[K0balt]

Idk, in my hometown, jail is seen by some as being preferable to winter village life. A few people commit petty crimes for the purpose of a 6 month lockup until spring (or at least this was the case 3 decades ago).

Could be that Alaska has (had) particularly great jails?

[spicyusername]

    Their own achievements become meaningless.

I'm sure most people wouldn't mind.

[laughing_man]

Of course not. But I used to know a group of guys who were born fabulously wealthy. None of them were happy. For them to get a job it would be essentially working for free relative to the wealth they have.

I'm sure there are people out there who would find meaning in creating art of some type, or turning their fortune into an even bigger fortune, but I suspect those people are rare.

[lotsofpulp]

The people I know who do not have to work to ensure healthcare for their kids seem happier than the ones who do have to work. Being able to go on vacations for extended durations or at convenient times is also heavily utilized.

[thunky]

> None of them were happy

That's because they're human, not because they're filthy rich and have all the privileges in the world.

If it were that simple they could give all their money away and get a job at Walmart to find perfect happiness.

[lazide]

I’d argue it’s more an attribute of being a driven, difficult to satisfy, competitive, human.

Which correlates strongly with ‘success’ in any system where there is a clear metric for success, which is certainly true for our current economic system eh? If there was a system they wanted to compete in where the metric was ‘happiness’ measured by some concrete metric, I bet those same people would be as aggressively ‘happy’ with however it was measured too - and just as actually miserable.

That those people are rarely (if ever) happy is a side effect of those attributes, and a core part of what makes them the way they are.

After all, if they were able to be happy with anything less…. They’d have stopped already? And hence have less/a lower ‘score’ on that particular metric? And probably actually be happier.

Notably, I know plenty of people who are very happy with nothing - dirt poor - and plenty of people who are also miserable with nothing too.

The difference is, it’s a lot less competitive being dirt poor eh?

[chrisweekly]

"Their own achievements become meaningless."

You're saying that making money is the sole criteria for "meaningful achievement"?

[laughing_man]

No, but imagine if every time you did something there was a thought in the back of your mind that said "I could have paid someone else to do this without materially affecting my wealth."

[permo-w]

But having that thought is not a given. I value my own work significantly more than work I paid for, even if it is of the same quality.

[chrisweekly]

Huh? How does that even relate to the ability to find meaning in things unrelated to money?

[laughing_man]

I watch a lot of sailing channels on YouTube. The most interesting part is when you get a couple buying an old sailboat and refitting it on a tight budget. It always takes longer and costs more than they anticipated, but watching the struggle is really interesting. And when they finally set sail for Hawaii or whatever they have a huge sense of accomplishment.

But imagine if they were fabulously wealthy. Sure, they could set themselves a budget, but even for them that would feel... contrived. The whole thing would feel like LARPing as someone without so much money. So that sense of accomplishment is going to be out of reach, even assuming they didn't just buy a brand new boat.

[chrisweekly]

It seems to me you're "projecting", and still taking it as a given that the presence of wealth eliminates the possibility of meaningful achievement.

[laughing_man]

It doesn't seem like that to me. I have too much experience with people who don't have financial constraints.