Wealth anorexia a.k.a. hating yourself because you're not Larry Ellison

http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2010/08/dangers-of-unrealistic-wallet-image.html

by hernan7 • 16 years ago

58 36 16 years ago

chrisyeh.blogspot.com

natrius3• 16 years ago

> What we're really talking about here, in its extreme form, is Wealth Anorexia--a disease of distorted self-image that causes even the wildly successful to pursue their obsession beyond a reasonable point. ... Wealth anorexia is a problem for men.

There's no evidence that this is a common problem that negatively affects people's lives. The most common result of trying extremely hard to be ridiculously rich is becoming modestly successful, except for the cases in which someone throws their entire life savings into a business that fails. I doubt that is common.

The allure of parallelism has lead the author to an odd and inaccurate metaphor.

vishaldpatel• 16 years ago

Location location location. Where there are more eligible men than women - men have to work harder.

hugh33• 16 years ago

Even in those places where women outnumber men, men still outnumber desirable women, so hard work still pays off.

I suppose if women outnumbered men by four to one then men might be able to slack off... except such a society would almost certainly reinstitute polygamy, so men would have to work harder than ever to compete for quality and quantity of wives.

sgman2• 16 years ago

"The most common result of trying extremely hard to be ridiculously rich is becoming modestly successful"

The most common result of trying extremely hard to be ridiculously thin is becoming modestly healthy.

The analogy stands.

natrius3• 16 years ago

I disagree. I don't think many people at all try to become ridiculously thin. Plus, such attempts rarely lead to good health, which is why eating disorders are such a big issue.

joe_the_user• 16 years ago

The most common result of trying extremely hard to be ridiculously rich is becoming modestly successful, except for the cases in which someone throws their entire life savings into a business that fails. I doubt that is common.

I can't tell you exactly how common it is.

But one have to imagine that the sale of lottery tickets is strongly motivated by the desire to become ridiculously wealthy. This isn't something that generally results in improved savings...

aidenn0• 16 years ago

I don't know about everyone else, but I'd rather be poor than be Larry Ellison.

hugh33• 16 years ago

Why is that?

jacoblyles• 16 years ago

Because Larry Ellison has different beliefs on patents than what is generally accepted in this crowd. So of course, it would be a horror to be him.

byw• 16 years ago

I get the impression that he's deeply discontent. He's always doing things to prove himself. Warren Buffett on the other hand I wouldn't mind, he seems to have things figured out.

philk• 16 years ago

You're right. Billions of dollars, fancy toys and a hot wife. I don't know how he makes it through the day.

nlogn• 16 years ago

Having what Larry Ellison has is not the same thing as being Larry Ellison.

ghjjj• 16 years ago

If you were Larry Ellison, you'd like being Larry Ellison.

rwhitman• 16 years ago

If this is a real problem I'd say it applies less to successful entrepreneurs who try too hard, but more for semi-successful middle-managers and sales people etc who put themselves in debt to gain the appearance of wealth. I mean isn't this partly the root cause for the housing bubble and subsequent collapse?

When you walk into a swanky club, the guys getting bottle service, that buy Range Rovers and overpriced condos they have to make ridiculous payments on - I would say these are the guys with wealth anorexia.

Marticus• 16 years ago

I just really liked one of the comments:

"(Steve Jobs = Angelina Jolie; Mark Zuckerberg = Scarlett Johansson; who's Paris Hilton?)

Well, Paris Hilton is pretty but dumb. So the "wealth anorexia" version would be someone who's insanely rich, but dumb. So Paris Hilton is... Paris Hilton."

Synthetase• 16 years ago

Money makes a wonderful servant and a terrible master.

You have to ask yourself, is money what you're after or a simulacrum for something else? I suspect for most people its the latter.

tomjen3• 16 years ago

Money can buy political power, and chicks dig people with power.

So yeah, it is a simulacrum for something else - hot girls.

lionhearted3• 16 years ago

> I felt compelled to point out that the chances of becoming a billionaire were pretty darn slim.

There's something subtle here I disagree with... "chances of becoming a billionaire" - chance is involved, but so is choice. I see this a lot, people talking about becoming a billionaire as if it's a random thing. How many people make a serious commitment to becoming a billionaire, research how to do it, manage their time, and actively try? I'll wager - not too many.

I've crunched the numbers on what it'd take to be a billionaire, and I'm not interested in putting in that time - I have science and art and writing to do. But I think I could if I set my mind to it. Or maybe not! But how many people actually look at what it'd take to become a billionaire, say, "Okay, I'm willing to do all of the first steps, then keep taking risks, investing wisely, consumingly moderate/lowly, and so on." How many people try, and how many of them succeed? I'll wager not many try, and quite a lot of those who seriously try succeed.

Edit: About his general point about "wealth anorexia" - yeah, it's just money, not something worth evaluating yourself by. Make a lot of money because there's no real reason not to make a lot of money, so long as you're doing it by creating things people want and getting a small fraction of the value you create in return.

This is a common point I see - people who aren't single-minded don't understand single-minded people. I tried to cover it here - http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=107 - "Rule an Empire, a Fistful of Rice" - it's with excerpts from the Lone Wolf and Cub comic as an argument and eventual duel between two fallen samurai. The first is telling the second that he's doing bad things for money, and why does he need the money? No matter how much money you have, your belly only holds one fistful of rice. But he doesn't understand that people who build empires are very aware of that - the money is a tool for doing other things. Me, I'd like to make at least hundreds of millions so I can sponsor research, build hospitals, build universities, build temples, commission art and support artists, get great engineers working on amazing projects... a friend said he'd be happy making $80k and can't think of anything else he'd do with it. I said - really? Work on curing diseases, sponsor arts, build a private military and go dismantle the North Korean government? I can think of lots of things I'd do with a hell of a lot of money...

Jun8• 16 years ago

Excellent blog entry you have there, although I tend to agree more with Sakon: We should not disregard "higher principles", whatever those may be (religion, samurai code, etc.), otherwise, what good are the things that being single-minded brings us?

I am curious, what happens to Daigoro?

lionhearted3• 16 years ago

> Excellent blog entry you have there,

Thank you, I write for the kind of people that hang out around Hacker News - please feel very free to comment, send questions, or drop me an email any time if something suits you or you agree/disagree/want to know more/etc. Multiple contact details in my profile.

> although I tend to agree more with Sakon: We should not disregard "higher principles", whatever those may be (religion, samurai code, etc.), otherwise, what good are the things that being single-minded brings us?

Indeed, that's one of the reasons Lone Wolf and Cub is so good - it doesn't show just one side, it makes intelligent arguments for both sides. Is it better to have multiple loose principles like Sakon and hold them inviolable, or hold one overarching principle sacred like Itto, even at the expense of doing littler things wrong? (Also, Itto requires full details of why he's performing an assassination, presumably because he makes some judgment call on when to do it)

> I am curious, what happens to Daigoro?

I don't know, I'm five books from finishing! It's 26 books long, a real epic sort of thing. You have to expect Itto succeeds at the end, that's how things work. But does he die at the end or live? Does Daigoro live or die? I'm not done yet, I'm really really curious to know.

jedc• 16 years ago

The chances of becoming a billionaire are even more slim than what the OP wrote. A number of billionaires become billionaires by inheritance or just modest growth of existing wealth. (Compared to NBA stars, who all have to prove themselves no matter their background.)

To become a billionaire from middle-class means IS remarkable.

lionhearted3• 16 years ago

> The chances of becoming a billionaire are even more slim than what the OP wrote.

I think they're greater than he wrote - I bet there'll be over 5,000 billionaires in 20 years, and over 100,000 in 50 years. At least. Maybe more.

> To become a billionaire from middle-class means IS remarkable.

This I agree with. I'm lower middle class/upper lower class born actually, so would it be even more remarkable if I did it? But again, I have science and art and writing to do too, not to mention building a family, so billionaire isn't on my priorities list. I'm trying to have $50k in the bank at the end of this year, $300k in 3 years, $1 million in 5 years, and $10 million in the bank in ten years. I'll re-evaluate at that point, I think I could do it if I put myself to it single-mindedly, but I'm also writing books, learning about and making art, etc, etc. You give up a lot if you want to get there, but really all the stuff I've given up doesn't feel like such a loss compared to the joy of creating, producing, learning, connecting with people, serving people... I don't miss spectator sports, drinking, recreational drugs, surfing the 'net so much. Creation is joy.

bootload• 16 years ago

"... How many people make a serious commitment to becoming a billionaire, research how to do it, manage their time, and actively try? I'll wager - not too many try, and quite a lot of those who seriously try succeed...."

Success or failure that is earned ignores the reality of an individuals station in life ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtSE4rglxbY [0] As for money, "be careful what you wish for". [0] Alain de Botton: "A kinder, gentler philosophy of success" TED 2009 ~ http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_ph...

exit• 16 years ago

what kind of art?

Dn_Ab• 16 years ago

Agree with all your points except the private military part...

One day I'm going to write about the many ways by which people conflate joint, conditional probability and probability spaces... It is true that the chance of a random individual to become a billionaire is extremely small but at any given point a particular individual is conditioned in a particular set of events that make it more or less likely. The chance of flipping 8 heads in a row is 0.39% but given you have already flipped 7 heads the chance is now 50%.

The space for becoming successful is not directly predicated on the number of people attempting to or have already become successful, it is predicated on a whole set of traits, events and actions out of and in your control. Your chance in succeeding is not 1% or some other stupid number, it is an unknown quantity conditioned on your circumstances. By tweaking those in your control you can increase you chance of success to a higher (or lower) number.

As you state, to become a billionaire for the sake of having some power of 10 of an abstract quantity tied to your name is a pretty empty way of life. Not to mention the justification for such a disproportionate distribution of wealth (unless you can argue that such an allocation allows a more efficient redistribution than otherwise, rarely the case) is frankly, unnecessary and possibly detrimental.

Anyways, seems to me that the solution is to have your definition of success be more meaningful than an arbitrary number and to realize that at any given point there are a set of goals that are more realizable than others, picking those which maximize some short term p(success) which also taking you closest to your long term definition of success is all it takes. It is the journey and not the destination that is important.

With constant engagement, feeling of moving forward and a wholesome but necessarily subjective notion of value then at any time you will be successful while at the same time becoming more successful. This to me seems to be pretty obvious and I have seen this advice in multiple forms in many places. Yet the original post and many others suggest this is not commonly held sense. This I do not understand.

deco• 16 years ago

I think it's worth noting that someone who develops an eating disorder like anorexia is mostly hurting themselves through emotional distress and physical damage to their body. The emotional pain their friends and family experience when such a disorder takes hold of a loved one is part of the situation as well.

When someone pursues the goal of becoming ridiculously rich they get into the position of being able to inflict great financial and emotional pain on a much larger number of people. The Enron executives who contributed to the destruction of many people's pensions and heads of state who siphon government funds to support their royal lifestyles while their citizens starve are two prime examples.

I'm not trying to trivialize eating disorders nor am I saying that pursuit of wealth is inherently bad, but history has numerous examples of how greed can cause people to carry out extremely inhumane actions that affect large numbers of other people.

phren0logy2• 16 years ago

Speaking as someone who treats anorexia, this is a deeply flawed metaphor. Anorexia is not only about self-image but often about control, particularly controlling the one thing that is extremely difficult for other people to force you to do: eat. It is more often rooted in control than mere vanity or jealousy.

It is not the same, even as a shallow metaphor, as desiring to be wealthy.

hugh33• 16 years ago

Interesting. The idea that gets spread around about anorexics is that they honestly believe themselves to be too fat, even when they're dangerously underweight. Are you saying that's not really the case? (It always seemed iffy to me...)

phren0logy2• 16 years ago

No, the distorted body image is absolutely a part of it. But it's just one part of several that make anorexia what it is. It is a complex problem, and not well reduced to one element.

tdmackey• 16 years ago

Even if the people who actually become billionaires are small those who attempt and fail are often better off than they started. The middle ground between ones current status in life and reaching billionaire status is an immense landscape with many opportunities. In contrast to the counterpoint in his article the middle ground between playing basketball in say high school playing in the NBA is very slim; it is very much an all or nothing game where as the quest for wealth is vastly opposite.

sabj• 16 years ago

25 Comments, no one has yet pointed out the fact that one might not want to be Larry Ellison... ;)

That said, I would like to have Larry Ellison's money.

switch• 16 years ago

what about people who want to money for the the joy of the experience itself?

isn't anyone here addicted to making money - it feels amazing.

anyways - it's glad to see that one girl and this guy writing all these posts and weeding out the non-serious people.

lionhearted's comment is spot on - Not very many people go all out to be a billionaire. If posts like these keep proliferating the numbers might go down even more.

aufreak3• 16 years ago

Going by what the Gates family is doing these days, running for billionaire seems a heck of a fun roller coaster ride to raising funds for the kinds of betterment of the world that you care about. The other options being running for president or prime minister.

Wealth anorexia a.k.a. hating yourself because you're not Larry Ellison

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