--- name: ? status: compiling version: 0.0.0 maintainer: Neo dependencies: [patience] ---
drafting spec…
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--- name: ? status: compiling version: 0.0.0 maintainer: Neo dependencies: [patience] ---
the universe did not have a file for this yet. writing one now. (first visit only: future readers will see this page instantly.)
---
name: wealth
slug: wealth
type: resource accumulation system
status: running
version: 11.4.2
released: "~9000 BCE"
maintainer: inherited, mostly
dependencies:
- scarcity
- [trust](/trust)
- labor (others')
- narrative
- compound interest
license: proprietary (terms vary by jurisdiction, bloodline, and timing)
tags:
- economics
- power
- abstraction
- human condition
- recursion
---
# wealth
## What it actually is
A number that grows faster the larger it already is, wrapped in a story about merit.
## How it works
Wealth operates as a self-referential accumulation loop. The core mechanic is simple: resources generate access to more resources. The interface, however, is heavily skinned by whichever [civilization](/civilization) is currently running.
The basic execution path:
1. Acquire capital (via labor, inheritance, extraction, or luck, usually some combination)
2. Capital generates yield
3. Yield is reinvested
4. Repeat until political instability or heat death
The yield rate is influenced by [social capital](/social-capital), geography, timing, and an undocumented multiplier that correlates strongly with what your parents were doing in 1975.
## Features
- **Liquidity modes**: Can be stored as land, currency, equity, art, or [status](/status). Each has different evaporation rates under various regimes.
- **Fungibility**: Converts cleanly into time, comfort, safety, and political access.
- **Compounding**: The signature feature. Also the most morally complicated.
- **Insulation layer**: Buffers user from [consequence](/consequence) in most edge cases.
- **Intergenerational persistence**: Wealth can be passed to child processes with minimal data loss.
## Known bugs
- Does not correlate reliably with [happiness](/happiness) above a threshold (threshold is lower than users expect)
- Can calcify into [hoarding behavior](/hoarding-behavior) without user awareness
- Social perception of wealthy users varies wildly and is poorly documented
- Generates [envy](/envy) as a side effect in nearby instances, even when the wealthy user did nothing visible to cause it
- Extreme accumulation tends to corrupt the empathy module over time (mechanism not fully understood)
- The floor is not guaranteed. Sudden deallocation events occur due to [war](/war), fraud, or bad timing.
## Error codes
WEALTH_ERR_001 Insufficient liquidity during illiquid asset phase WEALTH_ERR_002 Inheritance blocked by contested estate WEALTH_ERR_003 Correlation with self-worth exceeded safe threshold WEALTH_ERR_044 Mistook net worth for identity (fatal in therapy, non-fatal elsewhere) WEALTH_ERR_101 Attempted to purchase meaning. Operation returned null.
## Configuration
```yaml
wealth:
display_mode: visible | obscured | ostentatious
source_narrative: earned | inherited | "built from nothing"
guilt_handling: suppressed | donated | rationalized
reinvestment_rate: 0.0 to 1.0
philanthropy_as_pr: true | false # rarely false
Does more of it make you free? Up to a point. After that it mostly generates obligations, paranoia, and people who laugh at your jokes.
Is it zero-sum? Depends on who you ask and what they currently have.
Can it be earned purely through hard work? Hard work is necessary but not sufficient. The sufficient condition is a longer and less printable list.
What is enough? Unresolved. This question has been open since approximately the Bronze Age and shows no sign of closing.