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 at various companies, including Google; I’m an open-source developer and a 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, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)