> So generally, the more you have to lose, the more you will worry. Simple.
This is not simple and I don't follow that it's true a priori. Moreover I don't necessarily agree that it's the correct characterization, either. I don't know anyone with wealth whose approach to thinking about wealth is that they have "more to lose." That strikes me as begging the question. I can understand why a given rich person might feel that way, but I don't see why the modal rich person would feel that way.
The essence is that you're asking me to refute a statement that you have not actually supported. Had you supported with something grounded I'd agree that my anecdotal reply isn't much of a refutation. But so far it's my direct experience and observations against something which boils down to intuition. Intuition is misleading.
Is it not?
1. Having something comes with the risk of loosing it.
2. with risks comes the potential to add worry.
3. People with more to lose have more potential to be worried about it
How is my reasoning flawed?
The only thing you cannot lose is your past. You might lose the memory of it, but that does not nullify it's existence.
2. Again - the ability to take risks increases - this is one reason the rich get richer - they can make riskier investments while the poor can't make such bets
3. People with more to lose - are the people who lose a greater percentage of their savings - a rich person losing $1000 vs a poor person losing $1000 - a poor person loses more
Logical reasoning works best with absolutes, things like individual motives (applied to larger populations) and "risk", "worry" etc have a lot of nuances - you need to work with probabilities backed by data.
This is correct, but in a way that implies the opposite of your conclusion!
Let Alice be a wealthy person and Bob be a poor person. Suppose they each loose $100K. Who suffers the greatest loss in utility/welfare/happiness?
All else being equal, the answer is Bob. Bob will loose his house and have to live on the streets, but Alice certainly won’t.
The takeaway here is that being wealthier gives you a bigger buffer. Being poor means you have more to loose from the vissicitudes of life.
Bigger buffer does not always mean big enough. That is why rich work to make more and more money. It is never enough. You don't know how much money might be required to save you in a future calamity. After a certain point, no amount of money might be able to save you. Then you need to keep people on power on payroll. And they, in turn, will be going through the same thing, demanding more and more money.
The point is, A buffer is not never big enough, if the rate of drain can be arbitrarily high, which is the case for human existence in the current economic makeup.
So you see, once you are rich, there is not stopping.
Actually there is. If someone thinks that, "This is enough. What I have is the buffer I am willing to store for future calamities. For me and my descendants". But I doubt rich people ended up being rich thinking like that. Or if someone is stupid/naive to not see things as they are. Then they will spend themselves to bankruptcy anyway.
Then either they ll kill themselves or grow wise, and might grow rich and go the first path the second time.
Sure. Some people are afraid of public speaking. But some people on the other hand, can't wait to get in front of people. But I think it wouldn't be too off to say people are generally afraid of public speaking.
So generally, the more you have to lose, the more you will worry. Simple. If you want to refute that, argue logically why it might not be the case, instead of just "I am rich, and you are wrong". Please.