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Knowledge or wealth

Knowledge or wealth


  • Total voters
    27
I made exactly that choice several years ago. I chose knowledge. I gave up my lucrative corporate career to get back into academics, making about 1/10th what I was making. I would give up even more than that. Money, in a very real sense, complicates and confuses people like nothing else. A certain amount is necessary for basic survival plus a little more. But most people will do things they know to be wrong and invent all sorts of justifications for doing so, to get more money than they need. It's a very strange thing.

I did the same giving up a near six-figure income working for the other guy to go back into business for myself earning a fraction of what I was earning before, and I was a whole lot happier. BUT. . . .I will still earning enough to cover all the basic necessities--food, clothing, shelter, transportation, maintenance, etc. plus a few nice wants. Had we returned to a life where you had to juggle payments for necessities, do without, worry about whether you would cover the rent or mortgage coming up, etc. it would not have been as happy an experience.

Nobody need despise the rich or the poor, but given a choice between the two, rich is almost always better.
 
I was not born in that type of circumstance. However at one time, right after I got out of high school, I worked as a musician. As a result of that I actually lived in the projects with this chick for a couple of months. The very first night I was there, a guy smashed all of the windows out of the place that was directly in front of the one where I was staying because his girlfriend would not let him in the house. So yeah, I know what it is like. Despite all that, people there experience both mundane happiness and distress. Regardless of whether one is rich or poor, he will have that experience. A person who is wise understands that this is merely the illusory activity of the material energy and knowing that the self is transcendental to such activity, is not disturbed by such changes.
Oh a few months. Thats like saying because you went without food for a day then you somehow know what it feels like to be a starving Ethiopian or because you have a hangnail that you know what it is like being shot or that because you rode a bicycle then you know what it is like riding a motorcycle.
 
This is something you feel is of value to most people, correct? These things are not 'conveniences?'

For most people, not all of course.

I do not understand the question.
 
I do not understand the question.

It was more on how people value some of the more common life events. Apologies for being confusing.
 
Rather be poor and smart so I can take advantage of all these rich dumbasses lack of understanding and make more money real quick.
 
AlbqOwl said:
I did the same giving up a near six-figure income working for the other guy to go back into business for myself earning a fraction of what I was earning before, and I was a whole lot happier. BUT. . . .I will still earning enough to cover all the basic necessities--food, clothing, shelter, transportation, maintenance, etc. plus a few nice wants. Had we returned to a life where you had to juggle payments for necessities, do without, worry about whether you would cover the rent or mortgage coming up, etc. it would not have been as happy an experience.

Well, in the early days after my decision, I hadn't yet completed my master's degree, and due to an unfortunate series of accidents, I lost my savings. So I was in the position of practically every other unemployed graduate student for a few years. Indeed it was not pleasant. But I survived, obviously...

AlbdOwl said:
Nobody need despise the rich or the poor, but given a choice between the two, rich is almost always better.

Until a few months ago, I would have agreed. I'm not so sure any more. As I said in my post, money seems to be responsible for a lot of confusion. As I said in my post, of course a certain amount of money is necessary. But I think most of the evidence suggests that wealth tends to make a person rather an ass...
 
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Well, in the early days after my decision, I hadn't yet completed my master's degree, and due to an unfortunate series of accidents, I lost my savings. So I was in the position of practically every other unemployed graduate student for a few years. Indeed it was not pleasant. But I survived, obviously...

Until a few months ago, I would have agreed. I'm not so sure any more. As I said in my post, money seems to be responsible for a lot of confusion.

Money that we have is rarely a problem. The problem is our attitude about or love for material things to the exclusion of more important things just as some are mentally uncurious or lazy and have no interest in learning.

But having too little money is not fun for anybody. Having enough, even too much, is still better than not being able to meet one's needs.
 
Then Davis is a sycophant. Bush 'understands people'? I'd be surprised if he understands how to wipe his ass without redecorating. Tell me this was an idle jest.


Depends how big your daddy is. Prince William went to Edinburgh, despite his failure to attain the requisite grades for eligibility.


You find this to be impressive, because?


Of course they can. A paltry feat of memory hardly equates with inordinate cognition. He might treat us to a verbatim recital of Shakespeare's entire works. It means nothing.

so Bush took the Military IQ test because of his father

I hate to say it but your credibility has been relegated to the dust heap forever with that line.
and Davis was a DEMOCRAT White House Counsel. Why would he toady up to a GOP president

another relegation
 
so Bush took the Military IQ test because of his father

I hate to say it but your credibility has been relegated to the dust heap forever with that line.
and Davis was a DEMOCRAT White House Counsel. Why would he toady up to a GOP president

another relegation
The same guy Bush appointed to the 5-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board? Hardly the picture of mutual acrimony, is it?

This is the same guy who probably used his 'extraordinary intellect' to dodge the Draft, right? Of course daddy had nothing to do with that, either. No, sir. No way, no how. Any relegation here goes to the suggestion that being a child of privilege means nothing in a system essentially characterised by elitism. A great many young American men must have possessed intelligence far beyond what the chimp-faced imbecile was capable of, yet, enjoying no such safety net, were condemned to encounter punji traps.
 
The same guy Bush appointed to the 5-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board? Hardly the picture of mutual acrimony, is it?

This is the same guy who probably used his 'extraordinary intellect' to dodge the Draft, right? Of course daddy had nothing to do with that, either. No, sir. No way, no how. Any relegation here goes to the suggestion that being a child of privilege means nothing in a system essentially characterised by elitism. A great many young American men must have possessed intelligence far beyond what the chimp-faced imbecile was capable of, yet, enjoying no such safety net, were condemned to encounter punji traps.

BDS is strong here

"chimp faced imbecile"

LOL

Dismissed as beyond idiotic
 
BDS is strong here

"chimp faced imbecile"

LOL

Dismissed as beyond idiotic
Despite the near-certain truth of it. Fair enough.

In the face of such cogency, I have no defence. Bush is the Renaissance Man of our times, verily.
 
I am happy to hear that. I hope you never make the big mistake of choosing otherwise.

I have a PhD in Physics, if I wanted to be rich, I majored in the wrong subject.
 
Despite the near-certain truth of it. Fair enough.

In the face of such cogency, I have no defence. Bush is the Renaissance Man of our times, verily.

I would bet my last dollar Bush is much smarter than just about everyone who claims he is stupid.
 
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