What that always leaves out, however, is that no/little money can very much cause a lot of unhappiness.

> The saying "money can't buy happiness" is in fact true no matter how much people want to rationalize the opposite.

I'm willing to test this theory out, send me some money.

People conflate the ideas of happiness, and comfort. Money buys access to increasing levels of comfort, but comfort becomes normalized very quickly. Once you've become accustomed to a certain level of comfort, the luxury of it wears off and it becomes a new norm. You also have an expectation to, at a minimum, maintain wealth so that you don't lose access to your current level of comfort.

When people with 1X see people with 10X or 100X and go hey! Why aren't you doing more? That gives me hope. When these people succeed, they are exactly the type of people who will give back and derive happiness from it. The right person who acquires wealth can do a lot of good in the world.

A recent example: https://vinay.sh/i-am-rich-and-have-no-idea-what-to-do-with-...

"money can't buy happiness" is a poor mans cope. It's a comforting lie for proletariat, the opium for the goycattle.

If you can't buy happiness either one of these is true:

1. You don't have enough money to buy it. Buying happiness isn't cheap.

2. You have skill issues.

Most people simply don't have enough money to test the hypothesis that "money can't buy happiness", for them earning money involves a lot of struggle and selling their time, and all sorts of opportunity costs.

Thus for working class people having more money is intrinsically linked to selling more of their time or "working harder" (having two jobs, overtime).

Therefore it seems unintuitive to them that having more money will bring hapiness. After all they have to work so hard for it and sell a piece of themselves for it.

And then there, of course, people with skill issues.

The more money I have, the happier I become. Money has brought nothing, but pure joy in my life, it has made me smile more!