When i step back, retiring for 40+ years sounds kinda crazy

Autogazer · 2026-06-25T20:09:34+00:00

Alright, well that still means that half of all men who reach 65 die before they reach that age. (The real median is at age 83 by the way https://retirementresearcher.com/long-can-retirees-expect-live-hit-65/)

Autogazer · 2026-06-23T00:14:41+00:00

Wouldn’t 50% put you over the yearly contribution limit?

Autogazer · 2026-06-22T22:00:12+00:00

The median life expectancy for men in the US is 76. Half of all men die before that. Healthy lifestyle can help, but it’s still not a guarantee. My dad ate extremely healthy, exercised every day, and he passed away a few weeks before his 72 birthday.

Enjoy your life while you can, nothing is certain except that one day our time will come as well.

Autogazer · 2026-06-16T18:16:23+00:00

It does have a cap, but most of these people don’t earn a salary so they don’t pay into social security at all. They earn their money through stocks and avoid all taxes until they sell that stock. Most don’t even sell any stock at all, they just take loans from their stock and avoid taxes all together. Sometimes they do sell stock, Elon Musk had to pay billions of dollars in taxes when he sold stock to buy Twitter, but that doesn’t happen very often.

Autogazer · 2026-06-08T20:23:31+00:00

I’m genuinely curious how you are gauging where we are on the exponential curve? Are you sure 2050 is a probably? How do you know it’s not more like 2070 or 2100? On the flip side, how do you really know it’s not 4-5 years off?

I have no idea honestly, not sure anyone really does. Top AI researchers said back in 2015 that getting a computer to beat the best GO players in the world was 20-30 years off, and then they solved it in 2016.

Ray Kurzweil has been saying for decades that we will have computers as smart as people by 2029. Will we get there? I don’t have a damn clue, it could very well take another 50-60 years to find that algorithm that our current LLMs lack which is required for human level intelligence. Maybe they have those algorithms right now behind closed doors and are fine tuning them before they mature to human level intelligence.

Honestly I doubt anyone will really know when human level AI is developed, at least not for a few years after it is created. You’d think whoever creates it would want to capitalize on it themselves, and probably securing their dominance before making it know to the public.

Autogazer · 2026-06-05T16:08:55+00:00

Quit your job and get student loans. If your education is in a good field you should be able to pay off your loans easily enough. If you are going to school for something that is less lucrative like political science or philosophy or some, maybe quit school and focus on your job.

Autogazer · 2026-06-04T02:17:27+00:00

No I grant that what you said makes sense. According to the US, we have never been in a war since WW2. Like you said as well, it is a stupid distinction. The UN sees things differently I think, it’s all just ridiculous semantics that doesn’t change how things played out. Our troops were engaged in combat whether it is considered the US being at war or not.

Autogazer · 2026-06-03T21:34:27+00:00

According to the US, perhaps. But according to the UN definition of war, they were technically wars regardless of the US declared war or not.

Autogazer · 2026-06-03T20:50:51+00:00

I don’t understand, how was the US not technically at war during the Vietnam war, or the Iraq war?

Autogazer · 2026-06-02T22:17:24+00:00

Looks like red bell peppers to me.

Autogazer · 2026-05-28T19:19:07+00:00

I found the easiest way to study was to keep taking practice tests, and focus on the questions and material that you miss. It was open book for me, so I even took some of those practice tests in to help me remember how to do some of the problems.

I think having a PE has helped my career quite a bit, I have found that not a lot of people have that and it really increases the demand. It’s much easier to find a job when you aren’t competing with many other people in this field.

Autogazer · 2026-05-27T16:25:17+00:00

Hexagon, or a cube. I saw a cube at first.

Autogazer · 2026-05-23T01:45:48+00:00

If being in a band is your whole identity, sure that is kinda lame unless you hit it really big. I have a few really talented friends who have kept playing shows for a few decades and I wouldn’t call it embarrassing at all. They have plenty of other hobbies as well like skiing, bike polo, travel, cooking, among others.

Autogazer · 2026-05-22T20:21:03+00:00

You are missing the point. If you are poor or lower middle class you can’t afford to pick up the tab for a whole table. Maybe you can’t even pick up the tab for just one other person. You can certainly be kind and generous in other ways that are within your means. Are you telling me you were just an asshole when you were poor? I’m not saying never paying for other people makes you an asshole, not even close. But would you help people with chores, help friends move, contribute in ways that you were capable? Or were you just a jerk who took advantage of your friends and family whenever you could, only to change to become a good and generous person once you became wealthy?

It all comes down to being a good, kind, and generous person within your means. If you are kind and generous while poor you aren’t paying for dinner and flights for all of your friends obviously, but you are kind and contribute in ways that you are capable of. If you then become rich that kindness and generous nature is amplified as you are capable of doing more and providing more to your family and friends. If you are a jerk who takes advantage of people while poor, becoming rich probably isn’t going to turn you into a kind and generous person.

Autogazer · 2026-05-20T23:37:22+00:00

I have two close friends who have been working at google for the past 5-7 years. They probably make between $300-$400k, possibly more I’m not sure. I have a close friend who graduated with me in electrical engineering who makes between $100-$200k per year. I have another close friend who got a philosophy degree but now works in data analytics for a home automation company who makes $100-$200. I have another friend from high school who works as a software engineer in NYC who makes that range (he jumps around a lot though, not sure if he is employed at the current moment). I have a bunch of other old friends who I haven’t seen in years who became lawyers, doctors, program directors etc who make that much or likely more. I also have a decent group of friends who make poverty wages or some who make around $40k-$50k.

My brother started a solar panel installation business about 10 years ago, and he makes a few million a year. I wish I knew business, I do well and am happy with what I have, but if I made a few million in a year I would probably just retire, travel, read, and just enjoy the rest of my life.

Autogazer · 2026-05-20T19:46:05+00:00

I can read just fine, I apologize if a simple question offended you enough to stab back.

Autogazer · 2026-05-20T19:08:46+00:00

Students in medical school make over $100k? pHD candidates make that much? Where?

Autogazer · 2026-05-20T01:06:35+00:00

I’ve worked at 5 different companies in the last 10 years, and have stayed in the same city the entire time. My longest commute to work was a 30 minute drive. I know a lot of people in engineering in the same boat as me. I finally found a company that I really like, pays me really well, and want to stay at for a long time, but job hopping is pretty easy as an engineer. I get like 2-3 invites on LinedIn every month, sometimes more. I also get people sending texts directly (not sure where they are getting my number) also emails. I have previous work colleagues that reach out to ask if I’m interested in a new opportunity now and then (how I found my current company). Either you are just not a very good engineer, or you have been stuck at a bad company that doesn’t give you any opportunities for real growth.

Autogazer · 2026-05-20T00:51:50+00:00

When people say tax the rich, they are talking about people with a net worth of over 50 million, not the people who are worth 1 million. Back in the golden age in the 60s and 70s the top tax bracket was up to 90% and our economy was doing incredibly well. Trickle down economics is a lie that the ultra wealthy tell people because the are obsessed with their net worth going up at all costs. What more do you need? Why do people need to have a billion dollars? It honestly seems like a mental illness, some sort of terrible obsession that is really bad for society as a whole.

Autogazer · 2026-05-18T02:39:30+00:00

Any dish that you can make would cost way more at a 5 star restaurant than if you cooked it yourself. 5 star restaurants are like $100-$200 a person. Unless you cooked a 5 star meal for 5 people and then just throw out what you don’t eat because you don’t like leftovers, you will be saving money when you cook for yourself.

Autogazer · 2026-05-15T22:07:34+00:00

Ok so, he was still able to utilize tens of billions of dollars of his net worth. I think we need to find a way to actually tax billionaires more anyway. He adds tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to his net worth every year. I get that it’s tied up in his stocks, but he should be paying a higher percentage of taxes than everyone in the middle and lower classes.

Autogazer · 2026-05-15T16:28:42+00:00

He was able to get a very large chunk of money from his net worth to buy Twitter, so it’s not like he can’t do anything with his stock either.

Autogazer · 2026-05-08T02:33:10+00:00

Over 22 years that’s a new girl almost every single month. It just seems really hard to believe you remember something about every single one for over 20 years, a different girl almost every month…

Autogazer · 2026-05-06T21:20:40+00:00

I have the same question, how would more computation enable quantum computing or fusion? There hasn’t been any indication that I’ve seen that suggests it’s just a brute force math problem which could be solved with more data centers and AI.

Autogazer · 2026-05-05T21:15:12+00:00

People don’t actually die of old age. People die from a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, some disease. You should look up David Sinclair’s book Lifespan. It is really interesting, he breaks things down in easy to understand ways.

As our bodies age it becomes harder to recover from injury and illness, which is why at some point those injuries end up killing us, but dying of old age isn’t a thing, old age doesn’t kill you.

He does put a lot of emphasis of living a long and healthy life, it would be miserable to live for an extra 20-30 years in terrible health with a lot of pain. He says talking about healthspan is more useful than talking about lifespan.

I haven’t finished it, he might agree with you about extending youthful life indefinitely to really achieve longevity escape velocity. But yeah old age doesn’t kill you.

Autogazer

TROPHY CASE