I think it depends how much of a sacrifice you are making by saving. If your life is materially very much worse today than it could be, because you’re hoping for a payoff 10 or 20+ years hence, I’d say probably save less, but not 0. But money has sharply decreasing marginal utility once your basic needs are met, and I can picture myself blowing all of my savings on a year-long party, and then going “well actually that wasn’t that much fun and my health is much worse and I have no savings, I regret this decision”. On the other hand, I can picture myself deciding to go on a nice holiday for a few weeks this year rather than in a few years, which yes would impact my savings rate but not by that much (it would be a lot compounded over 30 years at standard rates of return between 5-10% per year, but not a lot in the near term), and 5 years hence going “well I half expected to be dead by now, and the economy is exploding such that I am now a billionaire on paper, and if I hadn’t taken that holiday that cost me a single digit number of thousands of dollars, and had invested it instead, I’d have another $50 million… but I don’t regret that decision, I’m a billionaire and an additional 50 million doesn’t make a difference”. Third scenario: The nanobots or whatever are clearly about to kill me within a very short time frame—in my last short span of time before death, what decision will I wish I had made? I’m really not sure, and I think future-me would look back at me today and go “you did the best you knew how with the information you had” regardless of what decision I make. Probably future me will not be going either “I wish I had been more hedonistic” or “I wish I had been less hedonistic”. Probably his wish will be “I wish it hadn’t come to this and I had more time to live.” And if I spend a chunk of my time trying to increase the chance that things go well, rather than doing a hedonism, I bet future-me will be pleased with that decision, even if my ability to affect the outcome is very small. Provided I don’t make myself miserable to save pennies in the meantime, of course.
Any experiences you really really want to have before you die that aren’t ruinously expensive, don’t wait, I’d say. But: my view is we’re entering into a period of rapid change, and I think it’s good to enter into that having lots of slack, where liquid assets are one form of slack. They give you options for how to respond, and options are valuable. I can definitely picture a future a year or two out where I go “If only I had $x, I could take this action/make this outcome more likely. Oh wait, I do have $x. It may have seemed weird or crazy to spend $x in this way in 2025, but I can do it, and I’m going to.” And then the fact I was willing to blow $x on the thing, makes other people sit up and pay attention, in addition to getting the thing done.
I think it depends how much of a sacrifice you are making by saving. If your life is materially very much worse today than it could be, because you’re hoping for a payoff 10 or 20+ years hence, I’d say probably save less, but not 0. But money has sharply decreasing marginal utility once your basic needs are met, and I can picture myself blowing all of my savings on a year-long party, and then going “well actually that wasn’t that much fun and my health is much worse and I have no savings, I regret this decision”. On the other hand, I can picture myself deciding to go on a nice holiday for a few weeks this year rather than in a few years, which yes would impact my savings rate but not by that much (it would be a lot compounded over 30 years at standard rates of return between 5-10% per year, but not a lot in the near term), and 5 years hence going “well I half expected to be dead by now, and the economy is exploding such that I am now a billionaire on paper, and if I hadn’t taken that holiday that cost me a single digit number of thousands of dollars, and had invested it instead, I’d have another $50 million… but I don’t regret that decision, I’m a billionaire and an additional 50 million doesn’t make a difference”. Third scenario: The nanobots or whatever are clearly about to kill me within a very short time frame—in my last short span of time before death, what decision will I wish I had made? I’m really not sure, and I think future-me would look back at me today and go “you did the best you knew how with the information you had” regardless of what decision I make. Probably future me will not be going either “I wish I had been more hedonistic” or “I wish I had been less hedonistic”. Probably his wish will be “I wish it hadn’t come to this and I had more time to live.” And if I spend a chunk of my time trying to increase the chance that things go well, rather than doing a hedonism, I bet future-me will be pleased with that decision, even if my ability to affect the outcome is very small. Provided I don’t make myself miserable to save pennies in the meantime, of course.
Any experiences you really really want to have before you die that aren’t ruinously expensive, don’t wait, I’d say. But: my view is we’re entering into a period of rapid change, and I think it’s good to enter into that having lots of slack, where liquid assets are one form of slack. They give you options for how to respond, and options are valuable. I can definitely picture a future a year or two out where I go “If only I had $x, I could take this action/make this outcome more likely. Oh wait, I do have $x. It may have seemed weird or crazy to spend $x in this way in 2025, but I can do it, and I’m going to.” And then the fact I was willing to blow $x on the thing, makes other people sit up and pay attention, in addition to getting the thing done.