And Then What?

A quest to discover "The Wealthiests' Final Goal"

I've always been wondering, not without a spark of naivety and being a rather ambitious individual, if humanity has already defined or at least vaguely detected a purported, univocal, indisputable final goal. And even more relevant would be to determine if this goal could be collective rather than, perhaps selfishly, personal.

What do I mean with that?

Recently I've been reading a lengthy and somehow revealing article by Nick Hanauer discussing openly and unapologetically (during a controversial TED Talks) why his caste, the plutocrats, should start worrying about the unsustainable amassment of wealth craved and guarded by most of these privileged individuals. Regardless of the reasons that moved Hanauer to address the issue, this can be seen as a long expected trend turnaround, where increasing inequalities may be close to reach a 'structural' limit.

During my adolescence deep-Web explorations regarding conspiracies —and whichever utterly-curious-teenager paranoia— I stumbled upon a few movies and documentaries, such as the Zeitgeist Trilogy. This series gives countless radical opinions and it may certainly embrace questionable theories and thoughts. Nonetheless, the films made me think and ponder and eventually make use of my grey matter, maybe not yet fully developed at that time. Among the several covered issues one particulary captivated me: the unrestrained power, and likely wealth, of a few undisclosed subjects that are supposedly acting behind the curtains that, for whatsoever reason, are not sharing the public attention they may deserve. In many movies and novels this kind of people may be referred as puppeteers or even masterminds. Otherwise —in a more realistic fashion as in our case— they can be called plutocrats, as previously mentioned.

And here I come to the main point; what would these people do once sitting on a pile, or even a mountain, of money? Or gold? Or art masterpieces maybe? Or in an unwelcoming pool of (bullshit) diamonds?

Or else, what when their cumulation of power and influence has reached stratospheric, nearly god-like, levels?

Although aware of the fact that rarely wealth and power are detached spheres, let’s focus for now on the ‘mere’ pecuniary question.

What money, thus this elite, cannot buy? Well, it may be simpler to start considering what money CAN buy.

Super/Hypercars? Checked.

The fanciest mansions/castles/islands? Checked.

Fancy clothes, wonderful trips, gold-plated gadgets, gourmet food? Checked.

Let's say the whole array of luxury goods one may think about, or even not.

What about power, success, health, time? Likely.

Allowing the following 10,546 generations of one's own progeny to enjoy a (more than) comfortable life. How thoughtful. Attainable.

Without bothering intangible questions such as respect, friendship and love, I would like now to restate my main question:

And then what?

Fortunately, there are indeed examples of uber-rich philanthropists that have either pledged to give or are donating without the necessity of the crowds to know.

On the other hand, not everybody may share this urgency, or obligation, to recognize his own privileged position and contribute in helping less well-off communities.

Not being able to get in touch with any of these omnipotent entities —whose existence may even be a speculation and an entirely unfounded hypothesis— I will hereby summon the, surely not negligible, Internet boundless wisdom. This last and somewhat desperate attempt is aimed to placate my deluging curiosity while gathering sufficient points of view to ultimately build a 'solid' theory of:

"What Is The Wealthiests' Ultimate Goal to Be Achieved In A Mere Human Lifespan?"

Transcending these 'mere' human limits may be already a plausible answer, but I am surely not here to bias the audience but to humbly ask for help.

This article is the first of a trilogy. The second article will address a few ideas—arbitrarily regarded as more relevant by the author— already present on the ever-expanding World Wide Web, to give a generic overview on the matter. The third and last article will select the replies collected thanks to the platform Quora (click here if you want to participate in the discussion) and give a, hopefully less blurred, vision of this atavic question.