Screw you! I still want my $100 billion dollars!

Open it. If you die you aint gonna know what hit you. I fhtere's money then big whup.

but there's a relevant difference there. when you're born into old money you do nothing to actively circumvent the usual necessity to earn your pay -- it just kind of happens, and you don't buy a lottery ticket. plus when you're born into old money, you earn your inheritance in a sense by earning the trust of the testator -- otherwise he/she would disinherit you or leave nothing for you in the will.

i can't speak for anyone here but myself, but i can personally find nothing to say for that kind of instant gratification. maybe winning a bazillion dollars would induce a sort of temprary euphoria as you surround yourself with enormously expensive goods and use the power that invariably comes with that sort of sum to your own advantage, but there would always be a sort of guilt looming in the background, knowing that nothing of your own doing had caused such a fortuitous event. now maybe if you use the money to better the state of the world (financing medical research, setting up scholarship funds, etc.) THAT would be gratifying, but that would simply be another case of earning your reward, viz., the knowledge that your actions are helping others and the respect for yourself that ensues.

to bolster my point, let me introduce a quasi-famous similar case by the late philosopher robert nozick. his question was, if you could hook yourself up to a machine that would induce any sort of experience you wanted for the rest of your life, would you, even though you would be doing nothing but sitting there hooked up to a machine as in the matrix? i would say no, because happiness is something that has to be actively pursued -- no pill, machine, box, or lottery ticket could ever substitute for the bona fide activities of human existence.

Damn freakin morals

You just reiterated my point.
It is a means to an end, and only morons with nothing else to offer the world or themselves see money as an end unto itself. That's all I was saying. I would still have a life filled with challenges and avenues to pursue satisfaction and fulfillment, but figuring out how to pay for a new roof would not be one of those things, that's all.
Re: old money/trust funds, minding one's p's and q's and kissing ass until someone dies is not equal to building a fortune for one's self through one's own efforts, and presenting that as some kind of "challenge" is pretty ridiculous.


I think we probably agree more than we disagree on this stuff.

you guys had to go deep didn't you.

i'd open it, if the exposion of the bomb wouldent hurt or kill anyone but myself then i'd definately open it.

i i die then, what do i care, i'd be dead, if i live i'd give all the money to charity and kill myself.

this is gay.

agreed. my only point was that you earn inheritances more than winning lottery tickets. but neither is equal to the virtue of the self-made man.

the thing is, when most people buy lottery tickets, they have no intention of using the money to help mankind; they have every intention of using it to buy mansions on the river and vintage lamborghinis. that's perfectly ok, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that whether you earned it or won it; it's just that you can't substitute your blind hopes of extraordinarily good luck for your rationality and the self-realization that comes with seeking those riches through your own effort. if you're GIVEN the money there's nothing wrong with accepting it (unless it was accumulated at the involuntary expense of others or through otherwise immoral means), but to exclusively focus your efforts on winning the money, or to take a blind chance of incurring great harm in the hopes of gaining something that is purely luck-o'-the-draw, is patently irrational.

So you are saying this is awesome?

"let us cavort like the ancient greeks... you know the ones i mean"

Hahaha...bring on the chocolate frosting!