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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1677 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 18, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Fuck You

You get up 2.5m dollars any asshole in the world knows what to do. You get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system 3-5% to pay your taxes, and that's your base, get me? That puts you for the rest of your life at the level of "Fuck you". Someone wants you to do something? "Fuck You." Boss pisses you off? "Fuuuuck You." I have a car, and a house, and a family, and it's all paid for "Fuuuuuuuck You."

I remember seeing this clip go viral years and years ago. It's inspiring and terrifying in equal measure, and supposedly the movie it's from isn't even that good.

I am tantalizing close to reaching this goal. Got the house, got the paid off cars, got the family, and the last several years my investments have appreciated more than my yearly income. One year it lapped it. I still contribute to my investments, though my contributions are dwarfed by appreciation to such a degree it makes me question the utility of it. I originally wrote a post about what lessons I'd thought I'd learned to get here, but it felt like I was jacking myself off to much. Lets leave it at a combination of luck, thrift, relatively high income, and commitment to a plan.

Best of luck to you all, and here's hoping I didn't speak too soon.

Not to be the Debbie downer, but how much have you hedged against exogenous black-swan type risks?

Being able to say fuck you to any given job or walk away from any situation where they treat you unfairly is truly powerful.

But its always the thing you didn't expect coming in from the angle you weren't guarding that gets you.

Divorce, or credible accusation of criminal conduct, or randomly getting on the bad side of some psychotic, violent asshole are hard to ward off just with "fuck you" money.

I'm in an intermediate stage, I'm aggressively paying down (unsecured) debts, and I've got some money saved up to throw towards a big play the second I see one.

Good luck.

Better to get divorced, charged, or threatened when you've got a million in the bank, a paid off house, and an umbrella liability policy than when you don't have any of the above. For some things, there's preparation. For others there's not much more you can do than have a good attitude and a steady hand.

Trying to mitigate every possible risk just ends with becoming Brian Johnson and probably dying at 82 anyway.

No argument from me, really.

I am just paranoid enough to think that making yourself 'untouchable' on an economic and social level could have the unintended effect of making you a target for malicious actors who want your wealth.

I did used to believe in 'security through obscurity' (i.e. just blend in and make yourself 'beneath notice') but that can be compromised at any time given how freely information flows, you can't rely on or maintain that indefinitely.

So situating yourself in a location where it is hard for attackers to even reach you is... probably wise.

And yeah, if you take risk mitigation to an extreme, then you might decide to not even have a wife and kids since they can be a tool to blackmail you or a weakness in your security scheme.

Obviously that is not an ideal way to live.

Total risk mitigation is just miserable. Every time you drive somewhere, you are accepting a small probability of dying horribly in a car crash. Yet very few people are content to become hermits who work from home and get everything delivered. At some point, you simply have to accept the tradeoffs of a life worth living.

From Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, chapter 20:

Professor Quirrell was silent for a moment, then smiled. "Tell me, Mr. Potter, can you guess what thought went through my mind when I finished assembling the thirty-seven items on the list of things I would never do as a Dark Lord? Put yourself in my shoes - imagine yourself in my place - and guess."

Harry imagined himself looking over a list of thirty-seven things not to do once he became a Dark Lord.

"You decided that if you had to follow the whole list all the time, there wouldn't be much point in becoming a Dark Lord in the first place," Harry said.

"Precisely," said Professor Quirrell.

Total risk mitigation is just miserable. Every time you drive somewhere, you are accepting a small probability of dying horribly in a car crash.

Well, if you drive around in a a modern large Pickup truck, you're probably going to survive almost any accident short of getting pancaked by a freight train. I argue that you also shouldn't dismiss the risk of a debilitating injury that you have to live with, as well.

Me, I mitigated that risk by making sure that every part of my daily commute falls within a 5 mile radius of my house, and almost entirely in the same direction, and almost entirely off of main artery roads.

Minimizing road time is pretty much the best practice, as I see it. You can't control what other people on the road do. Also my dad had me take a defensive driving course almost as soon as I got my license, which has saved my bacon a few times.

I think many people underestimate the magnitude of certain risks they absorb, and overestimate how much it costs to mitigate most of said risk. Not counting people for whom the risk is the point. I've seen like six different videos in the past month of people blowing their hands to smithereens by holding lighted fireworks, for instance.

Speaking of that, Famed risk-seeker Felix Baumgartner just died at age 56 while doing something characteristically risky. Ken Block, despite his skills handling vehicles, died in a snowmobile accident at 55.

Felix apparently had a wife but no children. Ken had a wife and three daughters. Now sure which one seems 'worse' to me. Block at least has a genetic legacy.

Although sometimes its the mundane that gets you. Robbie Knievel died of Cancer, his dad died of Diabetes and some lung disease.

I can certainly say that I'm glad I don't have whatever genetic quirk gives makes for that level of adrenaline junkie.

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