Giant Robot Lasers - Indeed, humans are remarkably attuned to relative...

Ivan Kirigin

I get excited and make things

now at Facebook

cofounder of Tipjoy

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Services I love:

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Dec
27th

Sat

Indeed, humans are remarkably attuned to relative position and status. As the economists David Hemenway and Sara Solnick demonstrated in a study at Harvard, many people would prefer to receive an annual salary of $50,000 when others are making $25,000 than to earn $100,000 a year when others are making $200,000.

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Why We’re Still Happy - NYT

I feel like the outcome of this study is very intuitive (almost obvious), and the subjects in the study reacting differently would be the real surprise to me.
(via thegongshow)

But it doesn’t make any sense. Forget for a moment that your peers would raise relative prices for you. No one who actually thinks about the situation should choose the smaller income. Why? Because you can pick your peers, and at these levels, it is easy to pick peers who have that much more money than you.

There are always people making 2X what you’re making. Just because you’re richer than the people around you doesn’t mean they aren’t there. You just might not notice.

So set your sights on what you want, and get the resources to achieve your goals.

For me, freedom to buy anything I want and to travel at will are low hanging fruit for doubling my income. Then comes another doubling, and lots of investment in companies and more work on riskier ventures like robotics. Then comes another doubling and even riskier ventures like micronations, space, etc.

The thing is that I’m wrong. Numerous example in economics show people to be irrational.