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Money isn't everything, according to Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson's "increasingly despondent" tweets:
Shortly after the sale of Minecraft's parent company, Mojang's co-founder Markus Persson had reportedly left the studio in order to pursue other projects. Naturally, before immediately moving on to another enterprise, the man more affectionately known in the gaming community as "Notch" has taken several beats to reap the benefits of his success, outbidding Beyoncé and Jay-Z on a $70 million home, and hosting lavish parties in his newly acquired mansion. However, he's also been afforded plenty of time to reflect on how far he's come, and not surprisingly, it's quite lonely at the top.
Recently, Notch took to his Twitter account to air his grievances with the current situation in which he finds himself. Although Persson's net worth currently rests at $1.33 billion as of writing, the famous game designer has confessed that such prosperity has essentially cursed him in the grand scheme of things, as he's "never felt more isolated". Apparently what John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote all those years ago is true, and it's that money can't buy love. Taking that into consideration, Notch's Tweets grow increasingly despondent, as seen below.
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The problem with getting everything is you run out of reasons to keep trying, and human interaction becomes impossible due to imbalance.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015
Hanging out in ibiza with a bunch of friends and partying with famous people, able to do whatever I want, and I've never felt more isolated.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015
In sweden, I will sit around and wait for my friends with jobs and families to have time to do shit, watching my reflection in the monitor.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015
When we sold the company, the biggest effort went into making sure the employees got taken care of, and they all hate me now.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015
Found a great girl, but she's afraid of me and my life style and went with a normal person instead.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015
I would Musk and try to save the world, but that just exposes me to the same type of assholes that made me sell minecraft again.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MadTinfoilHatter on Monday August 31 2015, @01:51PM
Do SOMETHING useful!
You make that sound easy. The problem is that we're mortal beings living on a planet that won't last forever in a universe that is dying of entrophy. What exactly would be a useful course of action? No matter what you do, be it genocide, altruism, a brilliant carreer or wallowing in self pity, eventually it will all amount to absolutely nothing. This isn't just sophistry. This guy's crisis is clearly existential in nature. I bring this up because I went through a similar crisis myself, and the "just get on with life"-type-advice is just utterly unhelpful in such a situation, and indeed reveals a shortsightedness and lack of understanding of the deeper questions of life.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2015, @02:21PM
If you didn't live in a 70 million dollar house, then you didn't go through a similar crisis.
Sorry but McCartney later remarked the song should have said "CAN buy me love" because he got incredible advantages throughout life by having money and fame.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MadTinfoilHatter on Monday August 31 2015, @02:47PM
If you didn't live in a 70 million dollar house, then you didn't go through a similar crisis.
Oh, trust me on this one: you can have an existential crisis without gaining either fame, wealth or power. Having these things may certainly speed up the process, since actually having them will help you realize that they're don't actually possess the value that people who haven't tasted these things typically ascribe to them. The realization that triggers the crisis can certainly be had without actually experiencing these things first hand, though so they're by no means necessary.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2015, @02:32PM
The problem is that we're mortal beings living on a planet that won't last forever in a universe that is dying of entrophy
If that's true that's not a problem at all, that would be great. It would only be a problem if you are an immortal being trapped in a dying universe. If you thought being mortal in this universe was a problem, then you're actually the one who is short sighted and lacks understanding. So if you're mortal, be thankful. If you're immortal, good luck, you better go figure stuff out before it's too late.
So for the mortals how important are those deeper questions of life really? Billions and billions of animals have just got on with it. If they didn't they wouldn't have been evolutionarily fit.
Most of those deep questions are good masturbation just like most other stuff we're doing. Enjoy them if you wish but they really are not that important (at least to mere mortals).
To me the real issue is not the questions etc, the real issue seems to be he's not finding joy in stuff anymore. The eat, drink, be merry with friends stuff is not working for him. Maybe it's a sign of the beginnings of depression. Or that incident with the girl was a big downer for him (and if it's just the usual, then he'll recover normally after some time, he just has to keep going on till he recovers).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday August 31 2015, @03:38PM
Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. I liked how he handled the situation :)
Douglas Adams wasn't just about the entertainment.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 31 2015, @02:55PM
Sophistry? Sounds more like nihilism to me. Not that there's a lot of difference.
Maybe he should go to Tibet, and take up residence in one of their famous monasteries.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 31 2015, @08:07PM
I expect nihilism, ennui, and boredom will eventually be a big issue for all of humanity-- if we survive the huge challenges, many self-made, that we're currently facing. Right now, thanks to those challenges, it's pretty exciting to be alive. What are these challenges? Perhaps Greed is the root problem. Seems everyone wants more, more, and we seem unable to exercise much restraint. Lot of people seem perfectly willing to damn the environment, full speed ahead with suburban sprawl, power guzzling conveniences, and making more babies. Keeping up with the Joneses, coveting thy neighbor's goods is a favorite game. The Earth can look after itself, and only pansies and wimps worry otherwise.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 31 2015, @10:02PM
Perhaps Greed is the root problem.
I think it's ignorance.
Lot of people seem perfectly willing to damn the environment, full speed ahead with suburban sprawl, power guzzling conveniences, and making more babies.
You ought to pay attention to who is making more babies. It isn't the people with the power guzzling conveniences or the suburban sprawl.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 01 2015, @10:13AM
Making more babies seems to correlate with patriarchal society, in both rich and poor nations. The Duggars are an example of this. Others are the Quiverfull movement, and the Mormons and Islamic groups who practice polygamy. Afghanistan and Rwanda show where that thinking leads. Can there be too many children? Of course! What happens then? Life becomes cheap. In Afghanistan, women average 8 children each. Half the children don't make it to adulthood, dying of malnutrition, disease, or accidents, or caught in the crossfire of wars. That still leaves too many, and the young adults then face the problem of there being no place for them. Not enough land, not enough jobs. They have only a choice of evils: fight, or starve. The fighting never ends. It continues until the population has been beat back down to a sustainable level, which can be never so long as attitudes do not change. Many Afghans accept that's just the way life is, don't see that it doesn't have to be that way.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday August 31 2015, @08:56PM
Seconded.
This guy sounds like he needs to work on detachment from the material world and do some meditation on the nature of impermanence. Badly. Even better, since he seems to support Doctors without Borders, an alternative might be to do some volunteering for Engineers without Borders (donating optional). The hope is actually getting on the ground and helping out communities that don't even have basic sanitation would go a long way towards bringing this guy some perspective.
(15 bathrooms in that mansion to 8 bedrooms—WTF? Is that normal for mansions?)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilPapa on Monday August 31 2015, @03:10PM
That's easy. A useful course of action is STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF. Be decent to other people, find out what they're interested in, what they need and how you can help.
It doesn't matter that after the universe dies of entropy it will amount to nothing. It will amount to something now. And it will keep you from being miserable.
It all starts with not making yourself the center of your universe. And don't just write a check, but actually go do something for someone. I don't care if it's just walking over to a neighbor and say hello. Just make sure you listen to what they have to say.
There are a million things that you can do right now, today, to make yourself less lonely and less unhappy. Even if at first you have to pretend to care about other people, eventually you'll get the hang of it and you will actually care, unless you are a true sociopath, in which case I am unqualified to help you.
This really is not "just get on with it" advice, and I hope you understand that. It's a very specific prescription for happiness.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2015, @09:19PM
This is foolishness... "do for others"... bah!
What he needs to do is do for himself.
He needs to leave egalitarian Sweden where people look at him with suspicion for being rich, and also not bother with the US where people only like him for his money and would otherwise consider him a 'fedora-wearing neck-beard'. And look for something new. He needs to search for happiness if he wants it and doesn't have it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by inertnet on Monday August 31 2015, @08:18PM
The problem is that we're mortal beings living on a planet that won't last forever in a universe that is dying of entrophy.
Well, yes but maybe there's a way out. I've recently developed a new (?) theory why we haven't contacted any aliens yet. Many theories come to the conclusion that our galaxy should have been colonized by now, but we can't find any evidence of that. So I thought, what if sufficiently advanced races eventually all either die off, or develop the 'magic' that enables them to escape from this universe to one that is more stable? For them there's no more point in exploring this universe, all efforts would be spent in order to leave this place for good. With this theory it's perfectly understandable why we can't find anyone out there.
On the subject, most people are struggling most of their lives, thinking unlimited money would solve all of their problems. So it's hard to empathize with rich people that are unhappy. I hope to be able to know how it feels to be rich someday, only without becoming a public figure. I'll let y'all know how that turns out.