How can an investor return from the dark side?

[OrganicACV]

Hi, I've been reading the above thread and was fascinated by it. It seems like it struck a nerve in this forum.

I wonder if it would be wrong for investors / passive income types to keep the profits from that life. They didn't do any real hard work for it. Taking a risk with your money is not hard work, it's just gambling and then being paid for sitting on your ass.

Especially wrong to use those profits to benefit their creative pursuits. The money they gained from investments and savings, rather than real hard work, could be considered dirty money for these purposes. Perhaps, if an investor / passive income type wanted to really follow their life purpose, they should give it all up and start again? Start again, trying to only make money from their creative pursuits and providing real value to the world. What do you guys think?

@Leo Gura seems to advise that daytraders, investors and passive income types should avoid the 'devils honey' of quick easy money. Instead, they should confront the emotional labour of creating true value with their LP. This leaves me wondering: if a daytrader / investor wanted to return from the dark side of making easy, profitable investments, what should they do?

 

[aurum]

@OrganicACV

The problem with saying “people shouldn’t invest” or “people shouldn’t be daytraders” is that they are systemic inevitabilities.

Any financially literate person understands that investing is where you make real money. And to not do so in a world where money = your survival would be foolish. 

Also, the structure of money itself incentivizes investing. Notice that money never decays in value, it can only grow as you get more of it, assuming you have made wise investments. But this is not an inherent feature to money, it’s only one we happen to be using.

Of course investing is also bad for society as a whole because it massively polarizes wealth and creates downward spirals for those who don’t already have access to money.

Money is also loaned into existence by banks, which means it is “invested” in a sense from minute one. A loan is basically just an investment.

Day trading is also massively incentivized. When there’s essentially no more real economic growth to be had, people make money by moving into more abstract places like the financial sector. 

So yes, day trading and investing are problematic. For anyone reading this, I’d absolutely stay away from day trading and I’d be much more conscious of your investing habits.

But at the same time, we need to acknowledge the collective reality. Just saying people should not get involved in day trading doesn’t fully explain what is happening.

[OrganicACV]

37 minutes ago, aurum said:

to not do so in a world where money = your survival would be foolish. 

Wouldn't it be more foolish to increase your survival advantage in this way? This means that you get something for nothing. You get paid for sitting on your butt, while most others in society have to slave away. Some people in society will then have to serve you in order to earn your money, while you provide no value to them.  

Wouldn't a wiser fool would renounce investments, pensions, etc, because they don't want to get something for nothing?

[OrganicACV]

My fundamental question is this: is it possible to balance your contribution to society with investment and savings strategies? Or should you try to live 100% off of the rewards from your contribution to society?

By contributions to society, I mean your life purpose, whatever that may be.

Investment and savings strategies seem to be the opposite of giving back to society. They are pretty much just taking from society.

Can the two be integrated?

[aurum]

4 hours ago, OrganicACV said:

Wouldn't it be more foolish to increase your survival advantage in this way? This means that you get something for nothing. You get paid for sitting on your butt, while most others in society have to slave away. Some people in society will then have to serve you in order to earn your money, while you provide no value to them.  

Wouldn't a wiser fool would renounce investments, pensions, etc, because they don't want to get something for nothing?

Of course, but I’m not talking about what the ideal society would be or what the most wise decision would be.

I’m illuminating what the current incentive structures are for most people.

You are in a zero-sum game. Refuse to invest and people who do invest will crush you. That’s competition. That’s our current system.

And then the winners will use that money they make to ensure they continue crushing you.

So you can say “I’m going to be wise and not invest!”, but how long will that last when you’re stuck in wage slavery? Or when you can’t afford things for your family? Or when people start to look down on you like you’re a failure because you’re poor?

Money doesn’t just give people material goods. There’s also an emotional payoff to having money. You’re a success now. You have respect. If you’re a guy, women will see you as a better provider. 

Asking people to forgo all of that is unlikely to ever happen. Which is why I believe part of the work that needs to be done is to solve for these perverse incentive structures.

4 hours ago, OrganicACV said:

My fundamental question is this: is it possible to balance your contribution to society with investment and savings strategies? Or should you try to live 100% off of the rewards from your contribution to society?

No I don’t believe 100% is realistic unless you are ready to live a radically different lifestyle. Not under the current system. People have done it, Pancho Ramos is an example. But even then you are still not “free” of the system, it’s impossible to really separate yourself.

You are welcomed to try, but watch out for getting caught in wage slavery.

Edited February 20 by aurum

[datamonster]

It's funny how Leo likes to bitch about how other people make money "passively" while he's selling pricey online courses and raking in 2.5k every month on Patreon that he might "use in the future".

[OrganicACV]

@datamonster Obviously you can earn money from providing value. This is not really "passive", is it? Considering the immense work involved with creating valuable content that people want to pay for.

What is really "passive", i.e. no work involved, is earning money by providing little to no value by making investments and a pension and savings accounts, etc. Relying on compound interest, lending policies and economic growth that you had nothing to do with.

Raking in money from patreon requires you work your ass off to provide immense value.

Raking in money from stocks and compound interest savings accounts requires you to sit on your ass and twiddle your thumbs.

Edited February 21 by OrganicACV

[datamonster]

3 minutes ago, OrganicACV said:

This is not really "passive", is it? Considering the immense work involved with creating valuable content that people want to pay for.

You can't make money from stocks without having earned money to invest first. Just like Leo you first have to "work your ass off" and provide value to earn money you can then invest, unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. So, what's the difference?

7 minutes ago, OrganicACV said:

Raking in money from patreon requires you work your ass off to provide immense value.

He charges a ridiculous 250 bucks for a course and 35 for a simple booklist. Look at what other people putting as much work into their courses on the same topics charge. They're half the price. And look at how scammy it's marketed, "Normally I charge 2,640$! But I'll give this course to you not for 499$! Not 399$! Today only for 249$!", like one of those TV ads in which they're trying to sell you a new vacuum cleaner...

Just imagine if only 1% of his one million subscribers bought the course. He would've already made 2.5 million dollars just from that. That's more than most of us will make in our entire lifetimes. So, does he really need another 2.5k every month from you that he isn't even using to advance actualized.org?

The fact that he bitches so much about other people who are genuinely trying to educate themselves about how the world works (yes stock markets are a part of it) and invest their hard-earned money wisely, while asks people to give him money he doesn't even need, is just a meme, really...

[Joel3102]

6 minutes ago, datamonster said:

The fact that he bitches so much about other people who are genuinely trying to educate themselves about how the world works (yes stock markets are a part of it) and invest their hard-earned money wisely, while asks people to give him money he doesn't even need, is just a meme, really...

Looking down regular middle class people for looking to save and invest wisely certainly isn't wise. The world needs more financially literate people, most young people I see are terrible with money (saving and investing) because they're stuck in consumerism and materialism. You have to be so fucking rich to eventually retire off wealth if you don't invest any of it and hold it all as cash

[Leo Gura]

19 hours ago, OrganicACV said:

what should they do?

Invest that money into your LP.

[Heart of Space]

3 hours ago, datamonster said:

You can't make money from stocks without having earned money to invest first. Just like Leo you first have to "work your ass off" and provide value to earn money you can then invest, unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. So, what's the difference?

He charges a ridiculous 250 bucks for a course and 35 for a simple booklist. Look at what other people putting as much work into their courses on the same topics charge. They're half the price. And look at how scammy it's marketed, "Normally I charge 2,640$! But I'll give this course to you not for 499$! Not 399$! Today only for 249$!", like one of those TV ads in which they're trying to sell you a new vacuum cleaner...

Just imagine if only 1% of his one million subscribers bought the course. He would've already made 2.5 million dollars just from that. That's more than most of us will make in our entire lifetimes. So, does he really need another 2.5k every month from you that he isn't even using to advance actualized.org?

The fact that he bitches so much about other people who are genuinely trying to educate themselves about how the world works (yes stock markets are a part of it) and invest their hard-earned money wisely, while asks people to give him money he doesn't even need, is just a meme, really...

Day trading is toxic and promotes extraordinary levels of unconsciousness.  It's literally gambling and mostly institutions scalping and robbing those who are less market savvy.  Why is it shocking that Leo would be against it?  

Personally, I see some legitimacy in making long term investments as you are providing capital on the market as a service and perhaps supporting a private entity that you believe in.  But short term trading as well as things like options, derivatives, and margin are absolute satan.  Not to mention there are a ton of ways to trade money you don't have through leveraging yourself, or trading loan money.  Which is extremely common by the way.  I think you have to acknowledge the massive amount of degeneracy in trading. 

Edited February 21 by Heart of Space

[Girzo]

3 hours ago, datamonster said:

He charges a ridiculous 250 bucks for a course and 35 for a simple booklist.

And $0 for a library of extremely interesting philosophy videos on YouTube. What a strawman. People buy the booklist and donate on Patreon to say thank you for all that work.

The basic problem with trading is that it's meant for wealth preservation, not generation. Becoming a creator is a more robust strategy than learning about stock market, even when looking only from a selfish, survival-focused point of view.

[datamonster]

47 minutes ago, Girzo said:

Becoming a creator is a more robust strategy than learning about stock market, even when looking only from a selfish, survival-focused point of view.

I agree 100%, but why not both, be a creator and instead of giving your hard-earned cash to some bank who will use it for their own gambling and have it be eaten up by inflation, invest it wisely?

You can't escape the issue of investing. Even cash is an investment, as I explained in the thread. So, you might as well do it skillfully.

The problem I have is that Leo considers any form of investing, even long-term, passive investing and pension plans as "leeching". Instead he wants you go all-in on LP. How convenient he just so happens to sell an expensive LP course... This seems extremely biased and self-serving to me.

Even worse, it's actually robbing people of their potential because they're led to think financial literacy is evil and "leeching" and they never start investing, so if they're not gonna print money with their LPs, this mentality will forever keep them stuck in money problems.

[Parththakkar12]

@datamonster The trick is that you don't have to be an entrepreneur in your LP. You can also be an investor in your LP! You can be a conscious investor too.

[OrganicACV]

@datamonster By advocating 'financial literacy' in this way, are you not advocating learning how to make money through parasitic behavior? And then ruthlessly benefiting from the unfair power dynamics that the spoils of this parasitism afford you?

I am financially literate. I have benefited from financial literacy. But, as we are aware of this dynamic, I propose that we choose not to, even if it hurts our survival. Otherwise, who are we?

Edited February 21 by OrganicACV

[OrganicACV]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Invest that money into your LP.

 

[OrganicACV]

@datamonster I see that you are concerned that people will go broke if they follow this advice.

I am concerned that investments and savings fundamentally fuck people over, and give us more value than we actually provide.

Edited February 21 by OrganicACV

[datamonster]

7 hours ago, OrganicACV said:

By advocating 'financial literacy' in this way, are you not advocating learning how to make money through parasitic behavior?

By holding all your wealth in cash in your bank account you're contributing more to parasitic behavior and a fundamentally flawed system than by using it to buy assets. And it's poor wealth management for yourself also.

But most people don't even know or realize this because it takes financial literacy to know this in the first place.

What I'm advocating is not being a fool with your hard-earned money. Investing strategically, long-term to preserve it's value and maybe gain a return that will allow you to retire with dignity at some point, doesn't make you a day trader.

[snowyowl]

@datamonster +1. How are we supposed to save for our retirement, and avoid being a burden on others without saving a portion of our income, and investing it for the long term? Most countries only have a limited government provision, and cash savings hardly ever keep up with inflation. But you do need to be financially literate to invest on that scale without taking on too much risk. 

The problem isn't really with individual investors who are basically making rational decisions within the context of the system we've got. Instead we should be voting and campaigning to change the system itself (free market capitalism) and make it more empowering for poorer people, "levelling up" as we say here.