Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

46 points by ElectricMind 4 years ago | 48 comments

Unless someone made money teaching philosophy about life, I think it is phony for rich people to tell others about "moderation, family, values and what not". I mean they become rich by putting everything on backseat and then when they hit millionaire or billionaire, they start preaching online, writing "lessons learned" and worst make more money by "selling" philosophy. I can't stand this anymore. Any one else feels this way too?

retrac 4 years ago |

I, mean, I get what you're talking about. But it's like complaining that most of the writings we have from antiquity were written by the landed aristocracy class. Aurelius's Meditations was, after all, also written by a decidedly rich guy -- the emperor of the known world. Certainly a bit biased there. But they were the only people with the time, and with the access to the resources and labour, to propagate their ideas in multiple copies. Not much has fundamentally changed on that one.

null_deref 4 years ago | |

> But they were the only people with the time, and with the access to the resources and labour, to propagate their ideas in multiple copies.

Marcus Aurelius didn't publish the book, the book contains thoughts he wrote to himself without any intent to make them public.

retrac 4 years ago | | |

Yes, fair. Still, his writings were published after his death by men who felt that what he had to say was important, and that it should be disseminated, and they had access to the means to do so. We only have two copies of full manuscripts with the work, I believe. Without the people who owned and duplicated those books in medieval Greece, who were almost exclusively the elites or hired by the elites, we wouldn't have it today.

When pressed for scrap paper, they chose to use something they considered to be B-grade, rather than Meditations. Though who knows if what they tossed was really inferior. Julius Caesar, Aristotle and Archimedes wrote several books which were not considered quite worth preserving. Lost say 1500 years ago because no one bothered to copy and further distribute them. The great editorial filter all of our history went through.

(There has been some recent fascinating work on recovering the writing from painted over and re-used and re-scraped papyrus and parchment. Some of Archimedes's works were rediscovered this way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_Palimpsest )

dmarchand90 4 years ago | | |

Further I think you could make the argument that the meditations works because it's not Markus Aurelius making things up on the spot. He was a careful student of philosophy and to me the charm of the book is it's the wisdom of the ancient world filtered by a man whose later life became dominated by practical affairs.

cratermoon 4 years ago | |

Is that because only the landed aristocracy has valuable philosophical insights, or because they were the only ones with access to means to preserve their thoughts?

seibelj 4 years ago |

Self made rich people lived life a certain way and made their money through a combination of hard work and luck. But you need to do a lot of work to be able to recognize and take advantage of luck when it presents itself, plus the risk taking mentality. There is a very big difference from a rich doctor or lawyer and a wealthy entrepreneur.

I don’t believe that all rich people “exploited” those that work for them. Private businesses have customers who (in a non-crony system) voluntarily chose to give them money. It is the most noble and honest way to earn a living.

So they have interesting stories to tell and things to say as they accomplished a rare thing a lot of people dream about. Makes sense to me.

tcbawo 4 years ago | |

Advice from billionaires is subject to survivorship bias. Luck and timing have a huge multiplier effect on one's personal wealth. So, personal wealth is not proportional to the quality of message. Most extremely wealthy people I have come to know are surrounded by "yes men" that thrive by stroking their ego. But, wealth does provide a degree of freedom that gives one time for reflection and introspection. Personally, I believe a diversity of perspectives is healthy, while hero-worship is not.

cratermoon 4 years ago | |

> "Self made" rich people lived life a certain way and made their money through luck

FTFY. Give me the name of a self-made rich person and I'll tell you how they either a) weren't as self-made as their hagiobiography says or b) were luckier than they admit.

seibelj 4 years ago | | |

I’m a self made rich person and I work 70 hours a week. I have worked 70 hour weeks my entire career.

kreetx 4 years ago | | |

Nobody is saying "they did everything themselves" literally. Obviously there is help around, especially so when the enterprise is big. Question is just whether their advice has any value.

mishftw 4 years ago |

I'm only mildly annoyed when 20 something kids with huge amounts of generational wealth feel like they've got deep insights. Look everyone has opinions and knowledge and I'm sure there is value to it. This behavior shouldn't surprise you... positions of power have always felt self importance and a desire to espouse their ideas either as a means to make their egos feel good or simply cast themselves in a positive light.

The good thing with the Internet is that there is so much out there...

astura 4 years ago | |

This is every article that's like "How I became a millionaire by 25" or "How a new graduate paid off $100,000 in student loans in two years."

The last one I read was literally (not exaggerating) "Grandma gave me a condo as a graduation gift (!) and instead of living in it like a chump I turned it into an income stream by renting it out while mom and dad covered all my living expenses. Aren't I smart?" (Ok, the last sentence was an exaggeration)

Implied but unstated is "you can do it too, just make better decisions."

lowmagnet 4 years ago | |

That's because people with generational wealth are more able to explore their options. It's almost like having money makes you capable of living up to potential or something.

*eta: some of them still turn out rotten.

MrDresden 4 years ago | | |

Most of the biggest mind and perspective altering events I have experienced have had nothing to do with money or free time.

Going through such events as partner's cancer treatment, triumphs such as full remission, and the death of a loved one have had more impact on my values and perspective of time then would ever happen with bank accounts bursting at the seams.

Growing older, with continued exposure over time to new ideas and perspectives from people from all walks of life from over the world has also had a big effect.

These experiences are not bought with money.

hdjjhhvvhga 4 years ago |

I understand what you feel, but I don't share that feeling. These people are free citizens, they can write what they want. The crucial question is: why should I read it? In general, I read things that will increase my knowledge in the areas I'm interested in. If I'm interested in moral things, I don't have to believe in whatever someone wrote, but I can try and test any system in practice myself.

In this way, for example, I learned that 99% of the time it makes little sense to get confrontational but it's better (for both sides) to try to resolve things peacefully. I tried both approaches repeatedly and that's why I know this. But if I wrote it down, why would anyone believe me? How would it change things if I made a lot of money or not? It makes no sense.

Everybody needs to put these things to test and see for themselves how they feel when they do good things, when they do bad things, what works in the long run and so on. Reading others reflections might be inspiring at times but rarely corresponds to specific real-life situations we need to deal with.

sawyerbilt 4 years ago |

I will rather believe in what rich people are saying than people who are teaching philosophy for money

orwin 4 years ago | |

I'd rather listen to someone who actually read and study books, even if he is paid for it.

I mean, if you are unable to explain something as entry-level as Descartes' "cogito", its limits and what that entails, why it engender dualism, i'd rather not listening to you talking about consiousness. You don't have to read Chalmels (you should, but you don't HAVE to)(Btw i'm more of an illusionist myself, i don't suscribe to Chalmels thesis), but not knowing the classics is disqualifying.

lowmagnet 4 years ago | |

People don't teach philosophy for money, they teach it because someone has to.

dinkleberg 4 years ago | | |

That is a big assumption. Many teachers teach because someone has to, but there are also always those who do it for the money.

imranhou 4 years ago |

I have got a question for you instead... What do you call someone who criticizes/mistreats an entire class of people, because there are some bad apples?

Disclaimer: I do not belong to the class being referred to.

mishftw 4 years ago | |

This comment adds little value... perhaps I should follow suit and ask what you call someone who posts such a comment

imranhou 4 years ago | | |

Someone who is trying to bring attention to a biased question. Just replace the word Rich with any other class of people here and reread the question and I hope you'll understand.

lowmagnet 4 years ago | |

Weird metaphors, since the entire phrase is "One bad apple spoils the bunch." Bad apples affect good ones with ethylene, just like bad apples amongst humans corrupt people through their interactions with them.

cratermoon 4 years ago | |

What do you call someone who looks at a bushel of bad apples and thinks they're fine, except for the handful that are truly rotten, calling those few the bad ones?

xx511134bz 4 years ago |

I'm tired of seeing Bill Gates lecture us plebs. Saw a meme: "Joe Rogan, who's not a doctor, said such and such about corona" (a negative take) juxtaposed with "10 Things Bill Gates wants you to know about new corona variants"

marto1 4 years ago |

This won't stop. Rich people telling others how to live their lives has been going on for a loong time and there are many incentives for them to continue. Including tax loopholes..and you know how they feel about that.

mishftw 4 years ago | |

It's more so power... which can come in many forms.

throwaway210222 4 years ago | |

> Rich people telling others how to live their lives has been going on for a loong time

Sigh,

The Taliban aren't rich but they specialise in telling people how to live their lives.

At gunpoint.

lowmagnet 4 years ago | | |

They capture the means of production through force, does that not make them rich, relatively?

dinkleberg 4 years ago |

Why do you read what they write? Life is too short to worry about what strangers online are telling you to do, whether they are rich or not (unless you are wanting the advice).

Bostonian 4 years ago |

I'm not -- I have found Paul Graham's essays and Ray Dalio's book "Principles" to be quite interesting. No one is forced to read them.

PaulHoule 4 years ago | |

I liked the stuff Dalio wrote before he wrote ‘Principles’ which I find insufferable. Some of Graham’s essays are good but the others put the lie to the idea that he’s a ‘good essayist’.

hmate9 4 years ago | |

I have no idea why this is getting downvoted. I second it.

isalmon 4 years ago |

>> I mean they become rich by putting everything on backseat

That's a pretty big assumption

cratermoon 4 years ago | |

It's true, to a first approximation. Rich people look at money as a goal in itself. They collect it, hoard it, curate it, maintain it. Think of a library, or the biggest MTG card collection you know of. Now imagine that same mindset applied to money. Not money-doing-things, just money, sitting there, "on the books", but otherwise just a collection of amounts.

Now picture the worst episode of "Hoarders", and imagine all that weird obsessiveness and attachment to the thing.

That's rich people.

beardyw 4 years ago |

It's just survivorship bias but often sadly believed by the survivor. Like old folks who explain how they achieved great age though their own endevours while the dead cry out from their graves "I did that too!"

dfdz 4 years ago |

What does the word "teaching" mean in the context of this post?

Writing blog posts?

If you want to learn about moral/life philosophy, then there are some great free courses on Coursera

https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being

https://www.coursera.org/learn/moralities

https://www.coursera.org/learn/moral-politics

If someone else wants to read Paul Graham's blog I do not see the issue...

cratermoon 4 years ago | |

Attention. PG gets attention, which is itself a valuable and scarce (individually) commodity. Why does he get to have his thoughts out there, taking up attention and other resources, and another doesn't?

"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." ― Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

lorey 4 years ago |

I think this is how philosophy has been for the last 2000 years...

PaulHoule 4 years ago |

Some of these people might never have been as good as people think.

I wonder if in Blue Origin we are seeing the real Jeff Bezos, and that Amazon post-2003 or so has succeeded in spite of, not because of Jeff Bezos. That is, AMZN was in the right place at the right time, got good systems in place at the beginning, and that AWS might have been the only strategic pivot that mattered. (E.g. Prime Video makes headlines because the media is the #1 favorite topic of the media, not because it changes anything)

narmiouh 4 years ago | |

Do you believe Amazon would have succeeded as it has with Elon Musk at its helm? Everyone has different qualities and strengths... Amazon's success(in consumer goods) is merely a reflection of our society as to how it wants to live and what its priorities are and Jeff Bezos has found a way to capitalize it.

PaulHoule 4 years ago | | |

Elon musk’s greatest weakness that I see is that his behavior (e.g. his bullshit tweets about Bitcoin) drives women up the wall which would not be healthy for a consumer-oriented retailer. (He’s the opposite of, say, Benjamin Disreali.)

Musk’s strength, when it comes to SpaceX, is that he takes it absolutely seriously. (Bezos took AMZN seriously, but Blue Origin's main business seems to be suing the government.)

The alternate scenario I see is that Bezos died in 2005 or 2010, they did a CEO search was successful, and the firm did OK without him. Or perhaps AMZN had such a great flywheel that it would have taken legendarily stupendous incompetence to stop it. (E.g. opening lots of brick and mortar stores)