When You Are Rich

Published on Nov 10, 2024, filed under misc. (Share this post, e.g. on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

When you are rich—

• —you are grateful.
• —you are generous.
• —you share your wealth.
• —you use your wealth to benefit everyone.
• —you take more responsibility, the more you own (“own”).
• —you don’t exploit people you’re responsible for and you don’t exploit people you’re not responsible for.
• —you don’t use your wealth against someone who isn’t as wealthy.
• —you happily pay your taxes.
• —you support taxes on wealth.
• —you lead by example.
• —you support the poor, the sick, the needy, the uneducated, the unfortunate, everyone whom you can help.
• —you invest in the public good, in education, in health, in infrastructure, in food security, in sustainability, with no vain or selfish expectation.
• —you work to make sure there’s better income and wealth distribution (and less income and wealth inequality).
• —you look for more ways to take responsibility and raise everyone’s quality of life.

In a world in which there are rich people (which implies the existence of poor people), that is a rich person: rich on the outside, rich on the inside.

Without riches on the inside, we need no one only with riches on the outside. They’re a liability for us all.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, but do be critical.)