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I have to say, eagerness to bend at the first sign of pressure is exactly the opposite of what I'd look for when hiring a law firm.
@mattblaze I can not get over how very few of the people with Fuck You money and power are willing to take risks.
… I had that much written as I was in line at my fave restaurant in Barcelona, ended up eating w/a young female lawyer from SF (& her mom) who was also upset at so many law firms (not hers, as yet!!) caving. She plans to quit if hers caves.
@obrien_kat @mattblaze
Funny thing about 'Fuck you' money... I've done some polling on this. For people in the 1%, FYM always seems to be ~10% more than their current net worth
And for people with top .001% wealth, more money deprives them of freedom. Think about the billionaire who hesitates to attend his nephew's bar mitzvah because he lives in a tax free jurisdiction and is only permitted to spend 180 days in NYC
Money is supposed to buy optionality, yet people use it to entrap themselves
@kims @obrien_kat @mattblaze Some of it I think is just simple, unadulterated greed though. They'll spend a lot on things that make them look or feel good, but outside that they'll fight tooth and nail to refuse to give up a single but of money even if they're not using it. It becomes such an obsession for them that they'd literally rather give up their future than lose less than 1% of their short term profit margins.
@kims @mattblaze I totally agree with you! Even if I have not done the empirical studies. But so many friends I went to school with have the “golden handcuffs” … I have definitely made decisions at times in order to be able to make payments on my student loans or medical loans (Inhad a concussion that led to a stroke), but when I could, I took a huge pay cut to move to Spain. And I will happily say fuck you if needed on a job that compromises morals or values.
@kims @obrien_kat I've seen evidence of this, and yet I just don't get it. I'd think that one of the nice things about having more money that you could ever spend would be never having to kowtow to powerful jerks. And yet the wealthier they are, the harder they elbow their way to the front of the supplication line.
I have a comfortable savings. It's not anywhere near what these people have, but it feels like more than enough to be able to afford my self-respect.
@mattblaze @kims @obrien_kat My theory: the insatiable urge to acquire obscene amounts of wealth isn’t really about wealth. As with Charles Foster Kane, these people are driven by a desperate need to fill a bottomless emotional/psychological hole within themselves.
@20002ist @kims @obrien_kat I'm reminded of the (perhaps apocryphal) conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller in which Heller says of their ostentatiously wealthy host, "yeah, but I have something he never will: enough".
@mattblaze @20002ist @kims @obrien_kat “He who dies with the most toys, wins”.
@SteveBellovin @mattblaze @20002ist @kims @obrien_kat He who dies with the most toys is still dead.
@nomad @mattblaze @20002ist @kims @obrien_kat Some of them don't seem to believe that they’ll die: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/peter-thiel-wants-to-inject-himself-with-young-peoples-blood?srsltid=AfmBOooG7anMeF5BrlAkDh7gJM3yDCJEH5Fxe2xA5wtLKujGIXZUaJJP
@SteveBellovin And they try to tell me vampires are not real...
@SteveBellovin @nomad @mattblaze @20002ist @obrien_kat
I set up a tumblr page 14 years ago with only two things on it. It has remained untouched ever since
One is the Heller story. I used to have the copy I clipped from The New Yorker hanging on my fridge
And then there's Duke Ellington:
"There were a few hustlers, who depended upon finding suckers for survival. And there were some who were too wise to hustle, who only wanted to have enough money to be able to afford to be a sucker."
@kims @SteveBellovin @nomad @mattblaze @20002ist wow, spot-on. And great sources for the quotes!