> I do not understand a mindset of 'My only purpose is to amass a pile of wealth so large that I don't spend any of it or do anything else ever, merely use the mechanisms of finance to subsist unproductively off the leakage from my giant pile of wealth, literally forever'.

> You're going to die having made no use of the hoard you seized, despite having taken it from others who need wealth of their own to survive. Rethink these assumptions.

I would encourage you to rethink your assumptions. What you wrote goes completely against how economics actually works.

You are not "seizing" a hoard, and definitely not taking it from others. Unless you are literally a thief, that's just not how things work - you are making it seem like the economy is zero-sum, whereas it absolutely is not.

Also, having a pile of wealth that you don't spend is something that no one actually does - almost everyone invests their money, which means it is put to good use, as an investment - the wealth that someone created out of thin air, is turned into the building blocks for new people to create their own wealth.

I highly recommend you read a little about economics, it's one of the most rewarding and eye-opening things I've ever studied (only as an amateur, I'm not a professional economist or anything.)

> I highly recommend you read a little about economics

Can you suggest some resources?

It depends how far into economics you want to get (and remember, I am not at all an economist, just an interested layperson).

A good book for getting started, IMO, is Charles Wheelan's "Naked Economics".

The first thing that I read was "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell, which I liked a lot and highly recommend - however, keep in mind that Thomas Sowell is very capitalist/right leaning, and the book is quite "biased".

A great textbook, if you really want to get further into economics, is Greg Mankiw's Principles of Economics (almost all undergrad economics textbooks are called "Principles of Economics", for some reason, so you have to search by author.) That's definitely the place to go if you want to have a more sophisticated understanding of economics than you'll just get by reading books.

Thanks! I'll start here.

Rationalization.

There's no need for a dichotomy between "meaningful poorly-paid work" and "unethical pointless well-paid work." It's perfectly possible to work at a nonprofit that is "beneficial to society" while simultaneously optimizing your own personal financial position.

Can't speak for the OP, but saying you are able to live without working is no the same as saying that you won't work. When discussing financial security and financial worries, being able to survive and fulfill all your obligations until your death without holding a job is the point where you are "free" from having to worry about finances. It doesn't mean you won't work, and many of us would continue to have a day job in such a case, it just means that we wouldn't have to worry about how to take care of our family if we got fired.