site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2158 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 27, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I am very talented but I lack passion. I don't feel the urge to do or create anything. I don't want to express myself. I do absolutely nothing, and this has started to bother me.

Occasionally, I am motivated to make something, but it's because I see someone else's work and think I can easily do better. I always do.

Due to circumstances, I am going to be stuck in a limbo state for the next year, unable to pursue the only goal that I do have. During this time, what can I do to earn extra money online?

Game development seems like a good enough grift, right?

And, to be honest, what actually bothers me isn't that I don't do anything, but that I don't seem to have the natural urge that would lend itself to monetization.

I have a suspicion that ‘real world’ businesses are much easier to make money in than the internet. Consider that online you’re competing with every smart autist in the third world, some of them are undoubtedly smarter and more informed about the market than you, and many are much more driven for the reasons you outline anyway, plus at least some will have much more capital for ads etc. By contrast in a local business, the trades etc you only compete with a few guys of modest intelligence in your town or whatever.

A few smart guys in Cambodia can sell gacha slop to Americans, make YouTube videos with LLMs, market crypto scams etc. What they can’t do is work for a local car dealership or become a plumber in small town USA, the richest society on earth. That’s your advantage. (If you don’t live in the rich world, disregard the above.)

I have a suspicion that ‘real world’ businesses are much easier to make money in than the internet. Consider that online you’re competing with every smart autist in the third world, some of them are undoubtedly smarter and more informed about the market than you,

Doubt it. A 'real' business , as in a brick and mortar business, can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions to set up. Employees are time consuming and expensive, and you're always a lawsuit away from being shut down. Making money online is not easy, but it is cheaper. Once you find a good nice or method, the money rolls in easy. It does not even have a be a business--for example, take $50k and park it into 3x tech funds and make $500k as one guy on Reddit did[ 1] , and no competition from Cambodian guys either. Anyone can do this. A tangible biz can easily cost $500k to set up, and good luck increasing your $ by 10x in a few years.

  1. https://old.reddit.com/r/LETFs/comments/18qy7c8/my_net_worth_hit_530k_this_month_thanks_to_fngu/

Just because a sector has done well in the near past, it doesn’t mean it will keep doing so in the future as well. There is already a huge amount of future growth priced in the tech stocks. This is basically gambling with your money. Starting a business at least means you are putting your money on your own personal skills, network and competence as well as access to local information.

ust because a sector has done well in the near past, it doesn’t mean it will keep doing so in the future as well.

the goes same for regular biz. look at all the people who started contracting or landscaping businesses in 2005-2009 housing boom

for example, take $50k and park it into 3x tech funds and make $500k as one guy on Reddit did[ 1]

That's not exactly what happened there. Guy kept investing throughout: 8k/month in 2022 and 12k/ month in 2023 (and by implication, several thousand amonth before that as well). He did not just park 50k.

https://old.reddit.com/r/LETFs/comments/18qy7c8/my_net_worth_hit_530k_this_month_thanks_to_fngu/key8dzh

So if the guy started the 2022 with more than 113k (and we have no clue how much investment it took to get here, except that this is down from a high) He could have piled in 200k from 2019 to get to 113. For the next half a year, he kept losing money, WHILE piling in 8k/ month for half a year. But from 2022 to the end of 2023, he's contributed 240k plus his >113k starting point. So over 2 years he invested 353k+ to get to 537k. Still a FANTASTIC gain in 2 years, but not remotely parking 50k as you suggest.

It does not even have a be a business--for example, take $50k and park it into 3x tech funds and make $500k as one guy on Reddit did[ 1] , and no competition from Cambodian guys either. Anyone can do this.

That's just market-timing and sector-concentration with extra steps, aka gambling. On average, volatility decay crushes broadly-diversified triple-leveraged equity ETFs, much less sector-specific triple-leveraged equity ETFs, especially since leveraged equity ETFs typically reset daily.

they both have risks . market crash vs. not getting enough customers, lawsuits, or changing economic conditions

I know this is your thing but putting all your money into highly leveraged sector-specific funds isn’t always such a genius strategy.

You're only risking $50k. If the market crashes, maybe you lose 3/4 of it, but it can still recover. According to the stats , most small businesses fail within a decade. I would not say it's less risky --probably more risky because you are putting up more capital, with a 50% chance of a total loss (or even more if you continue to add money) within 5-10 years, going by the stats. Or in terms of risk, this is a highly skewed strategy in which the mean is boosted by a few outliers (like founding the next Starbucks) but the median is negative. Rental properties are probably better than $500k in business, imho, in terms of maximizing risk-adjusted returns and good median vs. mean returns.

This guy did not only risk 50k. He invested several thousand a month throughout. 8k/month in 2022 and 12k/month in 2023

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats