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photomikey
Dec 30, 2012
That is 50% of it. The other 50% is knowing economics 101. Selling something for more than it costs to produce. Knowing how people assign value. Scarcity. Luxury. Needs vs Wants. Of course that's helpful if you're in sales, but even if you're in a role where you never touch a product and never interact with a customer, being able to track your organization's direction by paying attention to the finances and more importantly being able to look at your job, determine where you add value to the company, and being able to prove that value to the people above you... It just seems like there is a huge lack of that in business.

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Shbobdb
Dec 16, 2010

by Reene

photomikey posted:

That is 50% of it. The other 50% is knowing economics 101. Selling something for more than it costs to produce. Knowing how people assign value. Scarcity. Luxury. Needs vs Wants. Of course that's helpful if you're in sales, but even if you're in a role where you never touch a product and never interact with a customer, being able to track your organization's direction by paying attention to the finances and more importantly being able to look at your job, determine where you add value to the company, and being able to prove that value to the people above you... It just seems like there is a huge lack of that in business.

That seems like a naive view of business. There is a lot of bloat with business, but isn't that the way capitalism is supposed to work? "The Market" seems to dictate that there are at least six non-productive bureaucrats for every real producing member of the company.

I'm OK with that. So is broader American capitalism. Essential members, "killers" can really do well: sales, coding, building -- whatever. And while they are sometimes invited, there is absolutely a broader Brahman managerial class. Class is real and if you look at the stats social mobility doesn't really exist (especially in the USA).

Arguing class-conformist narratives like "nursing" (LOL) won't make you rich. They will keep you comfortable on the poverty treadmill.

photomikey
Dec 30, 2012

Shbobdb posted:

There is a lot of bloat with business, but isn't that the way capitalism is supposed to work? "The Market" seems to dictate that there are at least six non-productive bureaucrats for every real producing member of the company.
Perhaps. I'm suggesting that with a basic knowledge of economics and a smattering of the "win friends and influence people" strategy the poster ahead of me mentioned, you can be the one person bringing the value and not one of the six pepople dragging the ship down.

If you're the one person, you can eventually write your own ticket.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

photomikey posted:

Perhaps. I'm suggesting that with a basic knowledge of economics and a smattering of the "win friends and influence people" strategy the poster ahead of me mentioned, you can be the one person bringing the value and not one of the six pepople dragging the ship down.

If you're the one person, you can eventually write your own ticket.

No you can't. The fact is that if you've got the right hand shake and the right smile the people dragging the company down are always going to do better.

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Um, I think that's going a bit far.

Companies and really anything else on this world are full of people. People interact with each other. If you're poo poo at interacting with people, then you are poo poo at part of your job. I don't care if you're the spergiest coder to code a method, coders that can communicate where they are and what they need done without devolving into wheezing circlejerks will ALWAYS do better than the sperg in the corner that wrote 20% of the project on his own.

Nothing big in this world is done with individuals. Build a bridge, go the moon, compete in business, whatever.. once you start doing really cool poo poo you have to work with people in teams. Your ability to do this is as important as your individual technical skills.

This is what a lot of people, particularly on this forum, have a hard time with.

Veyrall
Apr 23, 2010

The greatest poet this
side of the cyberpocalypse

Josef bugman posted:

No you can't. The fact is that if you've got the right hand shake and the right smile the people dragging the company down are always going to do better.
I used to believe this until one of the "schmoozers" at my company got a bad case of head-on collision and I found out just how much he was doing behind the scenes and all the little slack he was picking up here and there. In this particular example, I worked with one guy who basically only got coffee and talked to department heads, and it turned out he was the guy who made certain that everyone had the necessary equipment for their job and losing him for a few weeks nearly brought the store to a screeching halt.

It has never been my experience that there are non-essential personnel outside of vanity projects. There are people who are bad at their jobs, no doubt, but I've worked with several large companies and a few small heartbreakers and the best way to tell the difference was whether or not there were "professional sitters" around. If there was even a single sitter, the project/company was a 2-3 year flash-in-the-pan.

signalnoise
Mar 7, 2008

i was told my old av was distracting
The reliance on bankruptcy is like step one on socializing losses and privatizing gains

weak wrists big dick
Dec 18, 2012

good job. you are getting legitametly upset because I won't confrom to your secret internet cliques gross social standards. Sorry I don't like anime. Sorry I don't like being gross on the internet. Sorry that you are getting caremad.


your stupid shit internet argument is also only half true once I get probated, so checkmate anyways but nice try.

]
Also, if you do not read daily, start. It won't necessarily earn you a Lamborghini and a douchey youtube ad, but reading is always good.

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless

Veyrall posted:

I used to believe this until one of the "schmoozers" at my company got a bad case of head-on collision and I found out just how much he was doing behind the scenes and all the little slack he was picking up here and there. In this particular example, I worked with one guy who basically only got coffee and talked to department heads, and it turned out he was the guy who made certain that everyone had the necessary equipment for their job and losing him for a few weeks nearly brought the store to a screeching halt.

It has never been my experience that there are non-essential personnel outside of vanity projects. There are people who are bad at their jobs, no doubt, but I've worked with several large companies and a few small heartbreakers and the best way to tell the difference was whether or not there were "professional sitters" around. If there was even a single sitter, the project/company was a 2-3 year flash-in-the-pan.

Nah. I can tell you from personal experience that Hewlett Packard and IBM have plenty of 'sitters'. I once had a team lead that would happily state in meetings that she didn't know anything about the technology we were all about. She tried to set me up with her niece. This is while I was the Active Directory Lead for Hewlett Packard directly responsible for a 10k seat network and routinely consulting on other networks of similar size on behalf of HP.

There are shitlords everywhere, just don't be one.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Shbobdb posted:

LOL at a bunch of people talking about things like "nursing" or "$250K" as "wealthy".

I feel like there's two tiers of "wealthy." One is "can live on capital gains alone/without working" and the other is "will be financially secure under almost any circumstances unless you do something incredibly, incredibly stupid." I think that both of these have meaning, because they represent different interests the person might have politically and otherwise.

Veyrall
Apr 23, 2010

The greatest poet this
side of the cyberpocalypse

Tony Montana posted:

Nah. I can tell you from personal experience that Hewlett Packard and IBM have plenty of 'sitters'. I once had a team lead that would happily state in meetings that she didn't know anything about the technology we were all about. She tried to set me up with her niece. This is while I was the Active Directory Lead for Hewlett Packard directly responsible for a 10k seat network and routinely consulting on other networks of similar size on behalf of HP.

There are shitlords everywhere, just don't be one.
Fair enough. I've been lucky then.

Ytlaya posted:

I feel like there's two tiers of "wealthy." One is "can live on capital gains alone/without working" and the other is "will be financially secure under almost any circumstances unless you do something incredibly, incredibly stupid." I think that both of these have meaning, because they represent different interests the person might have politically and otherwise.
I personally prefer the "rich enough to be able to completely ignore the rest of humanity" approach.

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Yeah, you can do that on salary. I mean, you still have to go to work but I don't have to cram onto the train anymore, I can drive each day and pay for parking without thinking about it. If I don't want to eat lunch with a throng of people, you can just step into a restaurant and have a quiet plate of pasta, again without really having to think about it.

My friends are having a get-together after Christmas and I'd like to stay with a particular couple, but if they don't have the room then I'll just grab a hotel.

That's what financial control or stability or whatever, means to me. Just live life the way you want to do what you want without having to check a budgeting spreadsheet or hold a meeting about it.

Buy a house where you want, drive the car where you want and if anyone gets in your way or is just annoying, go around them.

Actually there is something to be said right there, in that some people have been brought up in this way to the extent they never developed (or lost) basic skills in communication and compromise. I am all for living the way I want but don't separate yourself from humanity so much that you aren't really a part of it anymore. This is how some stunningly stupid decisions have been made in the past.

It's not that you shouldn't think you're doing better than the guy pumping your gas or whatever, you probably are.. but it's when you stop thinking of that guy as another person is when you've gotta check yourself

DangerZoneDelux
Jul 26, 2006

This is how my friend's father did it:

Cuban refugee
Work any job you can through your childhood.
Get into a mechanical engineering program at a Cali public university
Graduate and since you are Catholic have a big family way too young.
Shuffle the family around the country with your oil and gas job.
Always say yes to a new position and just keep moving forward.
Move from company to company eventually landing a CEO position of a smaller oil and gas company.
Be asked to sit on other boards and watch the money pile in.
Also helps to have social skills in an engineering position. That's guaranteed to promote you.

Shbobdb
Dec 16, 2010

by Reene
Despite some disagreement, a constant here seems to be "don't be a loser creepy goon"

One of the best things you can do to ensure bank or at worst fail upwards is have a very good SQ/EQ.

Being the captain of your high school X team is not a promise of future wealth, but all people of great wealth were the leaders of prominent social activity from a young age.

WampaLord
Jan 14, 2010

Tony Montana posted:

It's not that you shouldn't think you're doing better than the guy pumping your gas or whatever, you probably are

Jesus loving Christ man, have you no sense of decency/shame any more or are you determined to become a caricature of a "wealthy" person?

Proud Christian Mom
Dec 20, 2006
READING COMPREHENSION IS HARD
two simple ways to get rich

1. inherit

2. find a bunch of dumb people to work very hard for you

BarbarianElephant
Feb 12, 2015
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Shbobdb posted:

Despite some disagreement, a constant here seems to be "don't be a loser creepy goon"

One of the best things you can do to ensure bank or at worst fail upwards is have a very good SQ/EQ.

Being the captain of your high school X team is not a promise of future wealth, but all people of great wealth were the leaders of prominent social activity from a young age.

You don't have to be excellent at social stuff to make money, but you do have to *actually do stuff* - not just sit in your bedroom dreaming of how you would be a success if only the feminazis didn't bring you down. So, yes, being a creepy goon guarantees failure, but being the life and soul of the party is not necessary. There's a lot of (rich) awkward oddballs in the tech industry, particularly.

D.Ork Bimboolean
Aug 26, 2016

Proud Christian Mom posted:

two simple ways to get rich
...
2. find a bunch of dumb people to work very hard for you


Actually, its about finding very creative/intelligent/capable people to work very hard for you. Just see how big research/tech/entertainment organizations work, i.g. Apple, Pixar, Disney, Facebook, and so on.

Basically the Thomas Edison method of leveraging your talent and consolidating the vast majority of the credit and profit.

D.Ork Bimboolean fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Dec 15, 2016

photomikey
Dec 30, 2012

Shbobdb posted:

LOL at a bunch of people talking about things like "nursing" or "$250K" as "wealthy".
OP asked how he could go from nothing to wealthy. The obvious solution here would be to be born as Bill Gates' child or the prince of a small Mediterranean country, but the more pragmatic advice is to find a career that has a high ceiling and work hard at it. The subtext of the OP seemed to me to be more "I struggle to pay for my ramen, how can I make that go away", and IMHO nursing or 250k are pretty good solutions

Proud Christian Mom posted:

2. find a bunch of dumb people to work very hard for you
They only have to work moderately hard. I don't have wealth but the money I do have comes from the people who work for me. None of them will invent the internet or roll out a better mousetrap, but by their showing up every day, that's how I make my living and conversely, my being here provides their stability (like during the holiday season when there is no money coming in and I just write endless checks).

Imaduck
Apr 16, 2007

the magnetorotational instability turns me on

Shbobdb posted:

Being the captain of your high school X team is not a promise of future wealth, but all people of great wealth were the leaders of prominent social activity from a young age.
[citation needed]

Shbobdb
Dec 16, 2010

by Reene

BarbarianElephant posted:

You don't have to be excellent at social stuff to make money, but you do have to *actually do stuff* - not just sit in your bedroom dreaming of how you would be a success if only the feminazis didn't bring you down. So, yes, being a creepy goon guarantees failure, but being the life and soul of the party is not necessary. There's a lot of (rich) awkward oddballs in the tech industry, particularly.

I know plenty of people in tech and I can assure you that people with a solid EQ do better than those without. There are absolutely "shut in geniuses who make bank" but if you want to hit the $250K, much less the real rich, being sociable is a better bet than "individual genius".

BarbarianElephant
Feb 12, 2015
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Shbobdb posted:

I know plenty of people in tech and I can assure you that people with a solid EQ do better than those without. There are absolutely "shut in geniuses who make bank" but if you want to hit the $250K, much less the real rich, being sociable is a better bet than "individual genius".

More skills are always better. "Shut in genius" and "social butterfly" are not the only two options.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

BarbarianElephant posted:

More skills are always better. "Shut in genius" and "social butterfly" are not the only two options.

To add to this, assuming you aren't completely socially repellant, consider asking someone more politically gifted than you for advice when you're confronted with a delicate situation you don't know how to handle. In fact, even if you're great, ask for advice -- at worst, you don't have to take it, but it could give you a perspective on the situation you hadn't considered before. Part of being a well-rounded human being is admitting to yourself when other people are better than you at certain things, and asking for help from them.

Shooting Blanks
Jun 6, 2007

Real bullets mess up how cool this thing looks.

-Blade



Shbobdb posted:

I know plenty of people in tech and I can assure you that people with a solid EQ do better than those without. There are absolutely "shut in geniuses who make bank" but if you want to hit the $250K, much less the real rich, being sociable is a better bet than "individual genius".

This is absolutely true. My main piece of advice wasn't about starting a business vs. working a job - each one can make you very wealthy, or put you on a path to waiting for food stamps each month. It's not about education, or picking a skill and pursuing it. There is no surefire path to success in the world - there are neurosurgeons living paycheck to paycheck, and millionaire stock traders that never finished college.

Network. Network your rear end off. Always be meeting people, talking to them, asking questions. Having a large social network will open up opportunities for you, give you business partners if you decide to open a bar (or build an apartment complex or develop the next great app), give you people to bounce your ideas off of, and ask for advice from when life kicks you in the guts. The best part about this is that networking works like compounding interest - the larger your network, the more people you will eventually meet through it (and the more people will meet each other via you).

This requires you to be motivated, well read and interesting, and generally positive. Be the kind of person people want to be around. As an aside, ask anyone who's gotten an MBA - one of the most valuable things they take away is the social experience and the long term network. MBAs from Harvard, Wharton, and Yale get world class educations, but it also gives them a nearly unparalleled peer network. No matter what field you wind up in, no matter what educational path you choose, having a larger social network will almost certainly improve your odds of success in life.

Caveat: You will meet people that cannot directly help you be successful. This is not a license to shun them or be an rear end in a top hat just because you don't think they're worth your time.

Veyrall
Apr 23, 2010

The greatest poet this
side of the cyberpocalypse

Shooting Blanks posted:

Caveat: You will meet people that cannot directly help you be successful. This is not a license to shun them or be an rear end in a top hat just because you don't think they're worth your time.
Mind if I expound on this a bit?

I come from a very poor state. There are people here who are burn-outs, psychopaths, and general tragedies. These people can, and will, drag you into their negative spirals. Don't spend time and resources on them, but don't shut them all out either. Some of them do clean up and can become very useful, or just really cool. Things like hanging out on an off day or driving them down the road a little ways are cheap, safe ways to interact positively without giving them access to your much more valuable resources. Time and money are precious, so be wary of where you spend either.

Learning how to politely say No is a very good skill, and some people never develop it and spend their whole lives being jerked around.

TLG James
Jun 5, 2000

Questing ain't easy

Cockmaster posted:

I would recommend skipping the part where you go around bragging about how much cooler you are than anyone even slightly less frugal than you. Especially if it means dismissing dog ownership as a frivolous luxury (never mind that interacting with animals has been scientifically proven to be good for one's physical and mental well-being) while you have a kid.

For the most part, people are living paycheck to paycheck. Most people can't afford dogs, let alone kids. It's not even like you need a loving dog to play with one. You can literally go to any shelter and ask to walk their dogs/play with them once a week if you so desire.

Not that MMM has to do with wealth. It's about freedom.

TLG James fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Dec 19, 2016

Avshalom
Feb 14, 2012

by Lowtax
can you hear me major tom? can you hear me major tom? can you hear me major tom? can you HEEEEERE am i floating in a tin can

BarbarianElephant
Feb 12, 2015
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

PT6A posted:

To add to this, assuming you aren't completely socially repellant, consider asking someone more politically gifted than you for advice when you're confronted with a delicate situation you don't know how to handle. In fact, even if you're great, ask for advice -- at worst, you don't have to take it, but it could give you a perspective on the situation you hadn't considered before. Part of being a well-rounded human being is admitting to yourself when other people are better than you at certain things, and asking for help from them.

Very good advice!

Shbobdb
Dec 16, 2010

by Reene

PT6A posted:

To add to this, assuming you aren't completely socially repellant, consider asking someone more politically gifted than you for advice when you're confronted with a delicate situation you don't know how to handle. In fact, even if you're great, ask for advice -- at worst, you don't have to take it, but it could give you a perspective on the situation you hadn't considered before. Part of being a well-rounded human being is admitting to yourself when other people are better than you at certain things, and asking for help from them.

This is fantastic advice and something I still struggle with occasionally. It's hard to swallow your pride like that and it is also absolutely loving vital to success in life.

I'm less proud than my parents who are less proud than their parents . . . it's a process.

Pyramid Scheme
May 21, 2007

Who you partner up with/marry is important. Not in the sense of marrying into wealth (although that's a shortcut to becoming wealthy), but having a partner/spouse whose skills, attitude and outlook work well to further your mutual wealth.

In my case, I was very lucky to come from a middle class family, got a great education, lucky enough to choose a double degree (law + accounting) that opened a lot of doors. So, I lucked into a great foundation to build from.

What helped me greatly to take that foundation and then build wealth that exceeds my parents' was, in large part, my wife's skills and attitude. Key factors:

1. Education + intelligence + earning ability + professional drive + versatile employability. She is a smart lady with three degrees, was able to start life as a lawyer and then become a banker. This meant not only was she bringing in substantial income, but she was also very able to open doors for herself and advance her career in a parallel professional and geographic directions to my career. In particular, we were both able to get jobs that pay well and are interesting at the same time in across three different countries. We were very lucky that this meant we have always been fairly aligned in terms of where we wanted to chase opportunities, with no cases of one person wanting to change countries that offered no prospects to the other. As our careers are similar, we can also discuss work, relate to each other and learn from each other's experience in ways that improve our income generation.

2. Not materialistic. My wife and I both have fairly spartan tastes, other than buying lots of books. That means we're both well aligned when it comes to avoiding unnecessary spending on materialistic urges eg no constant need to spend money chasing bigger/better consumer goods. That saves a lot of financial wastage. It also means that neither of us pin our happiness on spending money and the amount of 0's behind the $. Money goes to building wealth. We've never bought a TV, but we do have 6 properties with no mortgages, all self-funded.

3. Keeping materialistic friends at a distance. Neither my wife nor I have close friends who are materialistic, which means we don't feel as much peer pressure to spend, don't get invited out to social events that are directly or indirectly focused on spending etc. We'll go out with friends to great restaurants, but the "greatness" of the evening is validated by how good the food actually is (which is often not tied to the price) and the quality of the company/conversation. I've met people who can only validate how good something is by how much it cost, which is a ticket to exhausting your wallet on consumerism.

4. Great cook. My family was not highly skilled at cooking and it was always a chore. My wife loves cooking and is a great cook. She taught me how to cook, how to enjoy cooking and that you can easily cook something that equals or exceeds what you'd get in a restaurant. This saves a tonne of money and also makes us happier.

5. No children. My wife has no interest in children or having them. While I was predisposed to having kids, I've come around to her way of thinking. It also means that we don't face the huge financial drain of paying for kids or the temporary loss of my wife's income generation.

Those are a few of the factors. Some are great compliments making up for my shortcomings (eg 4), while others are similarities that reinforce and strengthen behaviour that improves income generation and wealth (eg 1, 2 and 3).

photomikey
Dec 30, 2012

Pyramid Scheme posted:

In my case, I was very lucky to come from a middle class family, got a great education, lucky enough to choose a double degree (law + accounting) that opened a lot of doors. So, I lucked into a great foundation to build from.
Being born middle class and in the USA is certainly luck. Education, less so. Choosing a double degree, in fact, a double degree that is a double whammy, there's not a lot of luck there.

That said, the rest of your post was dead-on. Without my wife, my business wouldn't be half of where it is, and in fact without my input my wife's career and connections would be half of what they are. Point-by-point, you nailed things we also do, including befriending people who don't flaunt money (and then we aren't goaded into flashy stuff), we cook at home a lot (because we enjoy it, and it's 50 or 75% cheaper than eating out), and keeping the kid count to 1.

DeadlyMuffin
Jul 3, 2007


It's been interesting to watch the careers of my friends since we all left school.

I went into engineering and have done pretty well, but if I had it to do again, I would've considered finance/banking/accounting type jobs. As far as I can tell the sheer amount of money in play in those professions makes for extremely high compensation at the higher end.

That seems to be true for high end lawyers too, but an astounding number of people who go into that type of law seem to burn out in a couple years.

You can do well but you don't get rich doing hardware engineering, even at the high end: I've never met someone who got rich as a mechanical engineer, and I've worked with some incredibly talented ones.

Edit: and marrying someone who does the same is huge. Living expenses are much cheaper per person for two people, and your income is roughly double

DeadlyMuffin fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Dec 25, 2016

Cockmaster
Feb 24, 2002

TLG James posted:

For the most part, people are living paycheck to paycheck. Most people can't afford dogs, let alone kids. It's not even like you need a loving dog to play with one. You can literally go to any shelter and ask to walk their dogs/play with them once a week if you so desire.

Not that MMM has to do with wealth. It's about freedom.

My criticism of MMM is that he's always making it sound like his way is THE correct way to live - if what you like to do with your life costs more than what he likes to do with his life, even if you're living entirely within your means, you're just another idiot consumer whore.

Never mind that no matter how frugal you may be, having a kid (as he does) is far more expensive than owning a dog, or for that matter any of the leisure activities he keeps trash-talking on his blog.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Shooting Blanks posted:

MBAs from Harvard, Wharton, and Yale get world class educations, but it also gives them a nearly unparalleled peer network.

This is really true. I went to a high ranked undergraduate business school (NYU Stern) and despite not being exceptionally social I have at least 5 or 6 people with great careers that would probably be willing to help me out and/or give me a recommendation if I wanted to enter their fields (which I don't because I'd probably be bad at it and don't find finance very interesting; I'm fine just being a low-paid programmer in a low stress university job for now).

LogisticEarth
Mar 28, 2004

Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle".

Cockmaster posted:

Never mind that no matter how frugal you may be, having a kid (as he does) is far more expensive than owning a dog, or for that matter any of the leisure activities he keeps trash-talking on his blog.

To be fair though, having and raising children is an end goal in life that is way, way more important for most people than dog ownership or hobbies. It's not really comparable.

AreWeDrunkYet
Jul 8, 2006

LogisticEarth posted:

To be fair though, having and raising children is an end goal in life that is way, way more important for most people than dog ownership or hobbies. It's not really comparable.

Just a question of priorities.

Pyramid Scheme
May 21, 2007

LogisticEarth posted:

To be fair though, having and raising children is an end goal in life that is way, way more important for most people than dog ownership or hobbies. It's not really comparable.

Not perpetuating your genes is a form of nirvana. Embrace total oblivion.

LogisticEarth
Mar 28, 2004

Someone once told me, "Time is a flat circle".

AreWeDrunkYet posted:

Just a question of priorities.

Not really, unless you put the goal of "owning a dog" on the same level of complexity and life importance as something like home ownership, early retirement, long term career goals, etc. Dog ownership and starting a family are apples and oranges. A more appropriate comparison would be, like, opening a dog rescue operation or something.

I have a cat, and I love him, but it really is a money sink. I'm probably spending close to $20k on it over its lifetime. I love cats but never planned on getting one until I had a home and was working on starting a family. But then I met my wife and she already had the cat, so, bingo that happened sooner than my plan. And it probably delayed us getting our down payment ready by a year or more.


Pyramid Scheme posted:

Not perpetuating your genes is a form of nirvana. Embrace total oblivion.

I prefer a more absurdist outlook. Creating offspring and perpetuating life in the face of the inevitable heat death of the universe is an incredibly satisfying Sisyphean undertaking.

AreWeDrunkYet
Jul 8, 2006

LogisticEarth posted:

Not really, unless you put the goal of "owning a dog" on the same level of complexity and life importance as something like home ownership, early retirement, long term career goals, etc. Dog ownership and starting a family are apples and oranges. A more appropriate comparison would be, like, opening a dog rescue operation or something.

Just different definitions of important that's causing us to talk past each other, I think. Sure, deciding to rear children is going to be more impactful on your life and should get more thought and planning than buying an animal. But whether having a kid or a pet in your household is more important to you personally is entirely a matter of priorities. And some people may find other things more important than either one, and choose to do neither.

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BarbarianElephant
Feb 12, 2015
The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.
Some people are not happy unless they have a pet. But many people seem to get a pet on a whim and don't really think about whether they want a pet or are just buying it as a lifestyle accessory. Pets also have their costs loaded into the end of the pet's life. When buying a kitten for $50 you don't think about how in 15 years time you will be under pressure to spend $5000 on kitty chemo or watch your beloved companion die.

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