Hi Raay,
In your responses to others, there seem to be a couple of contradictory concepts of "what is badass" mixed about.
1. On the one hand, you seem to propose that while "badass" and "economically productive" aren't exactly the same thing, there's strong enough overlap to say that someone doing well-compensated labor is probably badass.
2. On the other hand, you have little respect for living off investment income. So while wages are badass, the return to capital is not.
3. This would make for a mostly coherent Marxist theory of badassity (labor and only labor is badass), except that in the area of charity, you claim Randean sympathies, which probably puts Marxist underpinnings out of the question.
So maybe it would help if you would clarify: what is your underlying theory of badassity?
Cyrano, I'm glad that you asked because it seems to be really the core issue. From my POV, both Marxism and Randian objectivism are a fairy tales, exaggerations, models far from reality. However, as all parables do, they contain nuggets of wisdom concerning human behavior and are worth studying.
For me, a
badass is someone with the remarkable
ability to:
1. Produce significant (above average) output or solve difficult tasks...
2. ...while utilizing below average resources
3. ...and all the same keeping cool and relaxed despite what would be considered as "adversity" by non-badasses.
Given this definition - all three aspects must be true to qualify as badass - it's easy to create a matrix of cautionary counterexamples:
1. Underachieves + overconsumes + complains = a sad loser in debt
2. Overachieves + overconsumes + complains = a stressed and frustrated capable individual, but victim of the system (MMM's target audience?)
3. Underachieves + underconsumes + complains = a poor person trying to make ends meet
4. Underachieves + underconsumes + doesn't complain = a frugal early retiree?
5. Underachieves + overconsumes + doesn't complain = a scam artist of sorts
Now the followup question would of course be how do we measure consumption, achievement, and toughness. I think everyone agrees that consumption is easy to measure in monetary sense. That's why saving is so central to people here. Achievement is more troublesome: many claim that it is not a matter of economy, while I claim that it is, just like consumption, something you can put a money tag on (in fact, my definition is a bit more nuanced: the big achievement stems from lack of substitution, hence my musings about "difficult to replace" people; but money tends to reflect that aspect). Finally, how do we measure toughness - this should not be so difficult, as we can just analyze the outward communication of the badass candidate.