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Comment by bena | Hacker News Reader

On 5. I'd take the higher $ regardless of what other people make. Even if I had the choice of taking a job where I'd make half what the lowest paid person makes in a company where employees are paid $120k on up or where I'd make the average in a company where they make from $40k - $60k. I'd take the $60k knowing I'd be the lowest paid in the company. I don't tie my self worth to how well I do in comparison to other people. I compare what I have now to what I can get tomorrow.

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Think this way: Most things in the world are priced by how much somebody is willing to pay for them. So, if you are living someplace with a average salary of $70k and taking in $60K you might be able to buy less than a guy earning $55K where average income is $50K.

That's definitely true (I live in NYC...) but misses the point of the observation. The point is that the same material stuff will make you happier in a context where other people have less.

People want to get ahead so what matters is the % relative to your surroundings. The amount doesn't matter as much as purchasing power. Money is illusory anyway -- just a social contract we agree to as a mechanism of exchange. People want expansion in various ways whether it is more money, more status, more goods, more sex, or even more religiousness. You can't stop that.

As to effectiveness -- that is dependent on your personal goals. Some people are very effective at chilling out and not doing much. Others are very effective at building business, or playing a sport, or programming, or whatever. Dependent on what you want emulate the ones succeeding in that and you will be "effective"

a) I was replying to the parent comment and not the story with comment

b) Some people get more enjoyment being more rich than their immediate community than just being rich. This is true for everything else apart from money. Some people want to have more knowledge than others etc...

> So, if you are living someplace with a average salary of $70k and taking in $60K you might be able to buy less than a guy earning $55K where average income is $50K.

On the other hand, you might have more in the place with higher average income. Remember that buying isn't the only way that you can get things.

Compare NYC with North Dakota. Things cost more in NYC than in ND, which is bad if you're buying, but there is a lot more free stuff in NYC than ND.

Plus, there's more opportunity to move up in NYC than in ND. In some cases, that opportunity is worth something.

I'm actually from ND and live in NYC. I just wanted to point out that ND and NYC are such opposite extremes that this particular thought experiment doesn't work very well. Other qualitative factors are more important than financial considerations.

There are some things that you will nearly always pay the "world price" for, e.g. plane tickets. So tho' in a major metropolitan area food and rent may be proportionally more, those things are proportionally less. It all depends on what kind of thing you're into.

> It all depends on what kind of thing you're into.

Yup. Great museums are cheaper in NYC than ND but owning a horse is much cheaper in ND.

Plane tickets between two specific locations are world price, but you also have to take where you live into account.

For example, going to Singapore from Reno costs more than going from SF or San Jose.

Excellent point. To make it slightly more concrete, I make vastly more now in Las Vegas than I did in North Carolina. Yet, in some ways I am worse off in a material way. I make more, but I pay much more for a smaller house, much more for electricity, and slightly more for food than I did in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Overall, I have less discretionary budget than before.

Of course, this is counterbalanced by having more opportunities in terms of career, education, culture, and entertainment.

> I'd take the higher $ regardless of what other people make.

Yes. I'll go a step further - I try to be the least educated, least skilled, most poorly compensated person in a room as often as possible. Holding to this habit means you keep looking for better and better rooms full of people as you improve. Serve in Heaven instead of Rule in Hell...

"I compare what I have now to what I can get tomorrow."

This is an interesting point. Everyone has their preference point. Some people (like startup founders) can live on ramen income of < $20k/year if there's hope that they'll one day strike it rich. Other more conservative people prefer their steady salary of $80-100k at Corporation XYZ since it offers them a sense of stability. In addition to the class risk/reward paradigm illustrated here, I think this also illustrates how some people place higher value on change (read positive growth) and in turn, discount the value of stability.

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