I'm guessing the phrase originated with people who have money?
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2024
150 points (90.8% liked)
Showerthoughts
30377 readers
647 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- If you feel strongly that you want politics back, please volunteer as a mod.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I think it's more like, people who have transitioned from having no money, where money would solve a lot of problems, to having money, where those problems have been replaced with other problems, and they are shocked to discover that having money doesn't eliminate all problems. Even if they have fewer problems than they did when they had no money, their current problems are more frustrating because they expected to have fewer problems with more money.
I feel like there's got to be a point on the curve where the money to problems ratio is just right lol.
The hard part is that point moves. I have very few problems. And insurance covers some things (supposedly). But if my spouse died and I suddenly had to throw child care into the mix, and changing my schedule to be the one that takes them to/from school... I could easily wind up where new problems form. I thought I had enough money, but I only had enough money for the specific circumstances
Yeah, there's definitely a z-axis on that graph which represents time. Good point.
There was a study about that around 15 years ago and the number was $78,000. Money does make you happy and solve problems to an extent, or rather it eliminates miserable situations created by poverty. Beyond that though, it's up to you to find happiness. This was 15 years ago, so that number is probably double now.
Some people stressed about paying rent. Some people stressed about paying mortgage. Some people stressed about paying loan on their investment. Some people stressed about being assassinated on the street.
It’s more of a gratitude and cash flow issue. You can stopped at any point, but most people just want more.
At least in the context of the song, I'm pretty sure the "mo' problems" part comes from the fact that having "mo' money" makes you a bigger target for people who would want to cut themselves in on your money and/or your sources of money.
They have more problems because they're problematic people, and problematic people with lots of financial resources create tons of problems. Money solves most problems for responsible people. Not all problems obviously, but most.
Also, biggie had to work for his money, deal with the corporate record industry, and lived in a high-crime neighborhood. If you don't have to work, and you can afford to outsource your problems to others, then you can have a lot of money without problems.
"no money no problems"
More like
"No capitalism, no problems"
Because that's the logical fallacy of Denying the Antecedent . If "it's raining" then "the sidewalk is wet". Knowing that it's raining tells us something about the sidewalk, it's not dry, it's wet. And knowing the sidewalk is dry tells us something, it can't be raining (because if it was, the sidewalk would be wet).
But knowing "it is not raining" doesn't tell us about the sidewalk (it could be dry, it could be wet, maybe it rained earlier, maybe a dog peed on it). And similarly knowing the sidewalk is wet doesn't tell us anything about the rain.
So even if "mo money causes mo problems" all that tells us is that someone with mo money will not be problem free. People with no money might also have mo problems, the syllogism doesn't tell us about that.
The use of the word "more" in "more money more problems" indicates that both money and problems are continuous variables. Thus, the statement should be modeled with predicate logic, but with analysis. As phrased, the sentence implies a positive derivative between the two variables. If assumed to be valid over the complete range of possible values, "less money, less problems" indeed follows.
If assumed to be valid over the complete range of possible values,
Which is where this logic fails. The saying is usually constricted to the range of "a lot of money" to "way too fucking much money", with money less than "a lot of money" not included. Therefore the derivative can be positive, negative, zero, or anything really. Also to be pedantic technically the derivative doesn't need to exist for a positive Δmoney to yield a positive Δproblems.
You forgot one thing. If it's raining, it might be pouring. But it might not be pouring. If it IS pouring however, the old man IS snoring.
So rain doesn't equal old man snoring, but pouring rain does.
Y intercept is non-zero.
Problems Vs money looks more like y = (x - 5)^2 + 2
On behalf of the mathematically challenged:
Ideally, you would aim to have roughly 5 units of money, because at that point, you’ll have the least amount problems possible. If you have more ore less, there will be more problems. Interestingly, if you have negative money (i.e. debt) you can have lots of problems, but so do those who have a lot of money. Also, the amount of problems you have increases quite rapidly as you deviate away from the sweet spot.
So what you really need in life is 5 monies. Got it.
Yes, this represents that age where we had the optimal balance of being fully financed by parents yet getting a small allowance we didn't have to spend on anything. I.e. no problems. Anything else = more problems
5 money, 2 problems.
more oxygen = more problems / no oxygen = no problems
More money, more problems is referring to an excess of money. As in having too much causes problems, which is on the other end of the spectrum from having too little money.
When you have an excessive amount of money it draws attention and malicious behavior. Getting wealthy suddenly often means family coming out of the woodwork to try and get some of it, sales people will want to sell things, etc.
It is a saying that leaves out the important part, just like "money is the root of all evil" leaves out the "love of money" aka greed part.
So the real saying should be "love of money is the root of all evil" and "an excess of money leads to more problems". They went with more money because it flows better.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Cuz it doesn't, more money -> more solutions. At least that's how I use it.
Because the predicate is false to begin with.
More like "more claims denied = more problems (for the CEO)"
money means more complex problems and a larger possible drop until you reach escape velocity where its almost impossible to fail unless someone shoots you in the head in new york.
More money, more problems is just a lie.
The only problem you can have with money that wouldn't be replaced or superceded by other problems is having bills. If you don't have money, it's very easy to not have bills. But then you'd also not have a home or probably anything else, which is a bigger problem than having bills.
No money = suprisingly enough, straight to jail.
Because you only get mo problems after you get mo than you need.
Not sure what it is with inflation, but a while ago the number was like 75k?
Money = happiness until you reach whatever threshold that's at today, and after that mo money doesn't get you mo happiness, just mo problems.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Diogenes would beg to differ.
There's a minimum
I speculate the original intent of that expression was “more money; DIFFERENT problems.”
Because there is a sweet spot somewhere.
It’s all in the wording. Everybody has problems (even those with no money). The saying is merely suggesting that having more money doesn’t fix all of your problems, but adds to them.
If you want fewer problems, live below your means (easier said than done these days).
Rich people tend to buy rich people things (e.g., Mercedes Benz, million $$$ houses, Gucci-level clothing, etc), so they also have rich people bills. They are buying things that are at or above their means.
There’s a saying that I live by: an elephant for a nickel is only a good deal if you need an elephant and have a nickel. It helps remind me to not impulse buy stuff that I don’t need, merely because I can afford it and it’s novel.
There’s a saying that I live by: an elephant for a nickel is only a good deal if you need an elephant and have a nickel.
This is amazing.
Poor people have mainly one problem: affording basic needs. As you get more you have lots more problems (in quantity, not severity). How much takeout is too much? What home improvement to prioritize? Estate planning? Who to hire to do taxes? House cleaner? Security (to protect the money)? Do you know a good travel agent? Insurance, upkeep on assets, investments. Am I charitable enough? Why am I still depressed? Should I see a therapist? Do I need a personal trainer?
Choosing how to spend money, is itself a problem. The only way to avoid the extra problems is to keep living like you’re poor, but without worries. Only buy what you need and know you can afford it.
I would argue that the relationship isn’t at all linear. Just take a look at the dunning-kruger curve or the hype cycle curve to get an idea how wildly these things can fluctuate.
You have it. You could also say that the graph is linear, but with different zero values ("problems" has a bottom of N > 0), but if we're judging from IRL, it's more like a parabola.
I like to think of it this way.
As your debt grows, your problems increase very gradually, maybe even asymptotically. As your wealth grows, your problems increase roughly linearly, but the slope is steeper than with debt. In between the two, there’s the sweet spot with the least amount of problems.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Too much money = problems, too little money = problems
"Believe it or not, straight to jail."
Nobody said problems(money) is a monotonic function (or that it crosses the origin point).
C c c apitalizm
People with no money have one big problem, people with money have many small problems.
Different scales. Money is a simple -infiniti to +infiniti. Problems is a parabola that starts starts at +infiniti, approaches zero (without ever getting to zero) before returning to +infiniti when graphed against Money.
The people that coined this phrase clearly lived on the cusp of that return upward on this graph so their observation is limited to that subset.
view more: next ›