The difference that I see immediately is that all of your anxieties are focused on yourself, while this article is specifically about providing medical care to Mr. Page's son.
My own anxieties have largely to do with my children, and while some can probably be bought away (is my kid getting an OK education at this public school?), there isn't an amount of money to instantly solve "my kid is sick".
I agree on the whole with the sentiment that the situations of the super rich are not comparable to ours, but there are some things that money won't solve, and likely some problems that you and I cannot conceive of that money creates.
> I’m sure Larry has many of the same daily frustrations and anxieties that you and I do.
This is the comment I was responding to. Sick children are not a daily frustration and, even then, Page can pay for the best health care available anywhere in the world for his child, many others have to decide between keeping their house to medical treatment.
The amount of bootlicking on HN can be staggering. Class solidarity seems awful far off when so many temporarily embarrassed billionaires are awaiting their time to shine.
“The human condition” is called that because it describes the set of innate features (or bugs) of human existence. There’s nothing more bootlicking than believing money will let you escape it.
You’ve focused in on some subset of what makes life interesting for humans, without understanding that as money dwindles a very new and quite real set of problems materialize for people.
Have you ever been poor? I have. I’ve also made fairly exorbitant amounts of money in a year later in my career. Money does not fix problems, but it absolutely removes a great deal of inconvenience, trouble, and stress from life.
The working poor who are otherwise trapped in a web of debt and crushing hours with low pay are much closer to the average worker - tech or otherwise - making several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, than that worker is to someone like Page.
But folks often don’t realize this. The fickle trappings of the “middle-class” create a false rug of comfort that can be readily yanked out from underneath someone given an injury or illness.
This is not a worry billionaires have. Nor most millionaires. But many Americans do have it.
Money doesn’t break you out of the human condition, but it absolutely changes life radically.
Which is fine, I’m happy to let the rich do what they will. As soon as we no longer have citizens bankrupted by medical or educational debt, or have their retirements wiped out by an injury or illness. Once citizens can rest easier, then they can have their absurd displays of wealth. Until then, they are begging awfully hard for violent revolution.
Yes, I have been poor and am now decidedly not. Guess what: Death still approaches. Money still appears finite and insufficient. Nagging sense of incompleteness remains. Relationships of all kinds are challenging in all kinds of ways.
And this is all coming from someone who is deeply satisfied with life and essentially always has been! That’s the trouble with the human condition.
Is this a defense of allowing uncapped accumulation of wealth? No. Is it a defense of the ultrarich being able to do whatever they want? No. It’s the simple observation that while money buys solutions to many conditions, “the human condition” is not one of them.
My own anxieties have largely to do with my children, and while some can probably be bought away (is my kid getting an OK education at this public school?), there isn't an amount of money to instantly solve "my kid is sick".
I agree on the whole with the sentiment that the situations of the super rich are not comparable to ours, but there are some things that money won't solve, and likely some problems that you and I cannot conceive of that money creates.