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I don't think its so much a shame that Linus isn't a billionaire than it is we have billionaires at all. There is limited rational or ethical reason for one hu

by zanny 9y ago

I don't think its so much a shame that Linus isn't a billionaire than it is we have billionaires at all. There is limited rational or ethical reason for one human being to accumulate so much centralized wealth. There is being rewarded for hard work / skill / innovation and there is exploiting people to become rich, and the line between those is very hard to distinguish when talking about individuals making more than 9 figures off of the endeavor. It is also worth considering you don't make billions operating a nonprofit or making a valuable software product (or any product, in general). You make billions founding or investing early into a multinational corporation that amasses more wealth than many nations. And that is where I think the conversation breaks down - people take personal offense to conversations about wealth and equality but we aren't talking about people wielding the influence of themselves as individuals, we are talking about people who control more assets than some nations, that can potentially have financial influence on the world stage greater than the combined influence of millions of fellow humans.

sandworm101 9y ago
>>> You make billions founding or investing early into a multinational corporation that amasses more wealth than many nations. Or you buy land in the 80s.
- labster 9y ago
  Just not in Tokyo. That would be a bad investment by the 90s.
- amelius 9y ago
  What if you weren't born yet?
  - droidist2 9y ago
    Tough luck, roll the dice and hope you land on Community Chest or Free Parking.
    - amelius 9y ago
      That's a good analogy there. The chances of winning the boardgame "Monopoly" are virtually zero for somebody who joins the game late.
whataretensors 9y ago
Blame the SEC for this one. Their accredited investor regulation gave the future to the rich. Seed round, series A, B, C, etc should be a vehicle for class mobility. Instead it's a way for the rich and powerful to accumulate more wealth. With YC and other incubators acting as a filter for where investors should put money, it matters more which zipcode you were born into than your overall intelligence and creativity. People talk about bitcoin, but it's the only 'startup' that regulation didn't prohibit people from investing in. Facebook should have made millenials/gen x rich. Github should have made developers rich. The list goes on and on.
- derefr 9y ago
  Investor accreditation makes sense (for now.) Giving poor people free access to untested-investment-vehicle-X is basically the same as giving them over-the-counter access to scheduled drugs. Mistakes will be made, and the people making them—lacking resources as they do—won't be able to recover from them. Right now, we're spending a lot of money trying to figure out how to get people out of these ruts. (Free housing seems to be helpful.) Creating more ways for people to get themselves into them seems ill-thought-out. On the other hand (to pile tangent upon tangent), something like UBI would neatly fix the "problem" that investor accreditation addresses, because it would mean that even the poorest people would have a cushion in case their investments don't work out.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jrs95 9y ago
    It's not about poor people. A huge number of middle class people aren't accredited investors. But they could easily put a small sum into a high risk investment and potentially benefit greatly from it. Bitcoin is a decent example of this. There aren't any accredited investors regulations, and I highly doubt there's hardly anyone who bought so much of it that they'd go bankrupt if it became worth $0
    - dmoy 9y ago
0xbear 9y ago
That reminds me of an old (and highly illegal at the time) Soviet joke: it’s 1917, the Russian revolution is getting into its full swing. An old man is lying on a couch reading a newspaper. His grandson runs into a room, and excitedly proclaims: “Grandfather, Bolsheviks have seized the means of production, and there will be no rich people anymore”. To which the old man replies: “Funny, the revolutionaries of my generation fought so there’d be no _poor_ people anymore”.
- kaybe 9y ago
  Similar to what a Chinese teacher abroad told me: We tried even distribution and found that everyone being poor sucks, so now we let some people get rich first then actually have something to even out. Very optimistic but seems to be the official reading of the plan.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    Those folks have been through the communist grinder too. It’s only the doe-eyed idealists here in the US who think they’ll do it right this time, just like their Russian counterparts 100 years ago. 100M deaths later we’re back to square one.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sien 9y ago
The problem is that the realistic alternative is that there is effectively even more centralized wealth, or wealth control with governments. It would be neat if money was spread even more evenly. But the costs of the intervention to try and wangle it would probably outweigh the benefits. That isn't to say that taxes shouldn't be higher or benefits higher. But even Sweden and France have billionaires. They just have their wealth in foundations and in Luxembourg.
- ant6n 9y ago
  > But even Sweden and France have billionaires. The problem is impossible to solve because those who are doing better than the US still have this problem?
- foxylad 9y ago
  > It would be neat if money was spread even more evenly. Change "neat" to "critical", and I'll agree with you. My gut feel is that the US is close to another revolution. All those less-educated white males with several automatic rifles each are not going to like it when they find out their beloved Donald (oh look, another billionaire solving hard problems!) makes their lot worse instead of better.
  - zanny 9y ago
    People are mad, but they aren't mad at the powers that be, they are mad at arbitrary groups of "others" whom they dehumanize into a threat to their way of life. Its an intentional misdirection through disinformation, but rich and powerful men have been adept at it for centuries now, they learned well from the examples of the French, Bolshevik, and similar revolutions on how to make sure the impoverished masses are focusing their discontent on anyone but the ones truly responsible for their plight. If you wield power as long as you keep the poor fighting amongst themselves they can never organize against you. See how Occupy Wall Street fell apart through mostly infighting and misinformation as a simple example of this effect that isn't exactly contemporary.
ekianjo 9y ago
> it is we have billionaires at all. This line of thinking always makes me laugh. You don't complain when a doctors makes money by serving hundreds of patients every month right? Then, when someone builds a product/service that is used by hundreds of millions, or billions of people, the natural conclusion is that they will become millionaires and billionaires. It's very natural, and very logical. > we are talking about people who control more assets than some nation How about folks who centralize powers like politicians in high level functions, who have not even been elected but appointed? How do you feel about that? They also can have massive influence on the world's affairs, even if they are not billionaires. I'd be way more concerned about that.
- opportune 9y ago
  There's no problem with someone having a billion dollars, the problem comes from those billion dollars being diverted into rent producing assets
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - kazinator 9y ago
    Rented assets allow people to take advantage of resources without the hassle and expense of owning them. If there is a demand for the use of certain assets without the hassle of owning them, why shouldn't some billionaire invest into that to meet the need.
- jumpman500 9y ago
  > It's very natural, and very logical. Being natural and logical doesn't make it moral or ethical. I think you're only kidding yourself if you believe that people deserve that much money and power. > How about folks who centralize powers like politicians in high level functions, who have not even been elected but appointed? How do you feel about that? They also can have massive influence on the world's affairs, even if they are not billionaires. I'd be way more concerned about that. Nice use of whataboutism. We can protest, resit, or vote for politicians and bureaucrats. A billionaire will be a billionaire unless the economy collapses or they decide to become a philanthropist.
cgag 9y ago
Aren't there a ton of those multinational corporations making products and software? Some of those companies have produced far more than some nations. What of it?
- zanny 9y ago
  The corporations being more powerful than nations is a thing, but is tangential. Corporations are controlled by charter and regulations of the nation they incorporate in and are accountable on more fronts than an individual actor. This is a discussion of what happens when individuals have access to state-scale resources of their own personal possession. Tons of corporations are worth a billion dollars, many more than individual humans are worth a billion dollars, and the implications and side effects of each controlling such large centralized capital differ substantially because of the rules of business they each abide by.
JoshTriplett 9y ago
> There is limited rational or ethical reason for one human being to accumulate so much centralized wealth First: yes, there are ethical reasons to accumulate so many resources: because some problems are incredibly hard to solve and need a lot of resources to even start to solve. Second, it is not on the people who have earned something to prove why they should be "permitted" to keep it; it's on the people who believe it should be taken away from them to justify that. Saying "it's a shame that there are billionaires" is a complaint that some people are wildly successful and shouldn't be, or that they shouldn't be permitted to keep what they earn. There is justifiable resentment and offense to a conversation that starts with a thinly veiled demand for justification, rather than a presentation of justification. The burden of proof is approached the wrong way, and nobody seems to discuss that. (I'm not interested in quibbles over the word "earn" here.) It's not a shame that there exist billionaires. It's a shame that there exist people with nothing. The former doesn't need fixing; the latter absolutely does.
- foxylad 9y ago
  > yes, there are ethical reasons to accumulate so many resources: because some problems are incredibly hard to solve and need a lot of resources to even start to solve. Allowing people to become billionaires is a hideously inefficient way to solve hard problems. Most billionaires hoard their wealth, or spend it on the hard problem of ostentatious display of wealth. Billionaires who solve hard problems: Bill Gates and Elon Musk. The rest of that wealth goes on things like solid gold soap dishes for superyachts - my neighbour worked at a shipyard, and a customer had them rip out merely gold-plated soap dishes in all the showers. If even a fraction of that money funded university research departments, say, we'd get far more problems solved.
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    > Allowing One word in, and already the same inverted burden of proof problem as the comment I replied to. > people to become billionaires is a hideously inefficient way to solve hard problems It's a good thing that's not the reason, nor is any reason required, and that's not your choice to make. And, also critically important: it's a great way to solve specific hard problems that aren't the ones most people are focused on. Over the course of my lifetime, I expect to donate 99+% of my lifetime earnings towards specific charitable causes that are not something that the vast majority of people care about, though I believe they should. > If even a fraction of that money funded university research departments, say, we'd get far more problems solved. University research departments are a passable way to solve some problems, motivated by the ability to attract grant money and publish papers. Many problems are far more efficiently and quickly solved when motivated directly by producing a product or service people will pay for. Again, the problem is not that we have millionaires and billionaires. The problem is that we have people with nothing. Let's fix that.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
There is no problem in having billionaires, there is no problem in an income gap. If we are all billioniares, fine. If the lowest income can buy everything they want, fine. The problem is that billionaires buy politicians, people are too poor to live in western countries despite working, sometimes two jobs, and people with income from work pay for social security and income taxes while billionaires with income from capital gains don't pay relevant taxes and don't pay for social security or their fair amount for health care. So focusing on billionaires is a distraction. We need to focus that people have meaningful income - especially with the coming AI/robot revolution - and meaningful lives. Capital gains and companies need to be taxed the way people with income from employed work are taxed and need to contribute the same amount to health care and social security. But this will not happen, because see "buy politicians". There is only one reason that billionaires and celebrities hang around with boring politicians. It's the best investment.
- bantunes 9y ago
  > There is no problem in having billionaires > The problem is that billionaires buy politicians Is your solution somehow forcing billionaires to not do what their wealth allows them to? If they can, they will. That's why having billionaires is a problem.
golergka 9y ago
Your reasoning seems to be coming from an assumption that there should be an underlying ethical reason for this; that there is, in fact, some common ethical ground that could possibly be enforced on all of humanity for the greater good. But why do you think that such an assumption could be even remotely true?

by zanny 9y ago

sandworm101 9y ago

>>> You make billions founding or investing early into a multinational corporation that amasses more wealth than many nations. Or you buy land in the 80s.

labster 9y ago
Just not in Tokyo. That would be a bad investment by the 90s.
amelius 9y ago
What if you weren't born yet?
- droidist2 9y ago
  Tough luck, roll the dice and hope you land on Community Chest or Free Parking.
  - amelius 9y ago
    That's a good analogy there. The chances of winning the boardgame "Monopoly" are virtually zero for somebody who joins the game late.

whataretensors 9y ago

Blame the SEC for this one. Their accredited investor regulation gave the future to the rich. Seed round, series A, B, C, etc should be a vehicle for class mobility. Instead it's a way for the rich and powerful to accumulate more wealth. With YC and other incubators acting as a filter for where investors should put money, it matters more which zipcode you were born into than your overall intelligence and creativity. People talk about bitcoin, but it's the only 'startup' that regulation didn't prohibit people from investing in. Facebook should have made millenials/gen x rich. Github should have made developers rich. The list goes on and on.

derefr 9y ago
Investor accreditation makes sense (for now.) Giving poor people free access to untested-investment-vehicle-X is basically the same as giving them over-the-counter access to scheduled drugs. Mistakes will be made, and the people making them—lacking resources as they do—won't be able to recover from them. Right now, we're spending a lot of money trying to figure out how to get people out of these ruts. (Free housing seems to be helpful.) Creating more ways for people to get themselves into them seems ill-thought-out. On the other hand (to pile tangent upon tangent), something like UBI would neatly fix the "problem" that investor accreditation addresses, because it would mean that even the poorest people would have a cushion in case their investments don't work out.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jrs95 9y ago
  It's not about poor people. A huge number of middle class people aren't accredited investors. But they could easily put a small sum into a high risk investment and potentially benefit greatly from it. Bitcoin is a decent example of this. There aren't any accredited investors regulations, and I highly doubt there's hardly anyone who bought so much of it that they'd go bankrupt if it became worth $0
  - dmoy 9y ago

0xbear 9y ago

That reminds me of an old (and highly illegal at the time) Soviet joke: it’s 1917, the Russian revolution is getting into its full swing. An old man is lying on a couch reading a newspaper. His grandson runs into a room, and excitedly proclaims: “Grandfather, Bolsheviks have seized the means of production, and there will be no rich people anymore”. To which the old man replies: “Funny, the revolutionaries of my generation fought so there’d be no _poor_ people anymore”.

kaybe 9y ago
Similar to what a Chinese teacher abroad told me: We tried even distribution and found that everyone being poor sucks, so now we let some people get rich first then actually have something to even out. Very optimistic but seems to be the official reading of the plan.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  Those folks have been through the communist grinder too. It’s only the doe-eyed idealists here in the US who think they’ll do it right this time, just like their Russian counterparts 100 years ago. 100M deaths later we’re back to square one.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

sien 9y ago

The problem is that the realistic alternative is that there is effectively even more centralized wealth, or wealth control with governments. It would be neat if money was spread even more evenly. But the costs of the intervention to try and wangle it would probably outweigh the benefits. That isn't to say that taxes shouldn't be higher or benefits higher. But even Sweden and France have billionaires. They just have their wealth in foundations and in Luxembourg.

ant6n 9y ago
> But even Sweden and France have billionaires. The problem is impossible to solve because those who are doing better than the US still have this problem?
foxylad 9y ago
> It would be neat if money was spread even more evenly. Change "neat" to "critical", and I'll agree with you. My gut feel is that the US is close to another revolution. All those less-educated white males with several automatic rifles each are not going to like it when they find out their beloved Donald (oh look, another billionaire solving hard problems!) makes their lot worse instead of better.
- zanny 9y ago
  People are mad, but they aren't mad at the powers that be, they are mad at arbitrary groups of "others" whom they dehumanize into a threat to their way of life. Its an intentional misdirection through disinformation, but rich and powerful men have been adept at it for centuries now, they learned well from the examples of the French, Bolshevik, and similar revolutions on how to make sure the impoverished masses are focusing their discontent on anyone but the ones truly responsible for their plight. If you wield power as long as you keep the poor fighting amongst themselves they can never organize against you. See how Occupy Wall Street fell apart through mostly infighting and misinformation as a simple example of this effect that isn't exactly contemporary.

ekianjo 9y ago

> it is we have billionaires at all. This line of thinking always makes me laugh. You don't complain when a doctors makes money by serving hundreds of patients every month right? Then, when someone builds a product/service that is used by hundreds of millions, or billions of people, the natural conclusion is that they will become millionaires and billionaires. It's very natural, and very logical. > we are talking about people who control more assets than some nation How about folks who centralize powers like politicians in high level functions, who have not even been elected but appointed? How do you feel about that? They also can have massive influence on the world's affairs, even if they are not billionaires. I'd be way more concerned about that.

opportune 9y ago
There's no problem with someone having a billion dollars, the problem comes from those billion dollars being diverted into rent producing assets
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kazinator 9y ago
  Rented assets allow people to take advantage of resources without the hassle and expense of owning them. If there is a demand for the use of certain assets without the hassle of owning them, why shouldn't some billionaire invest into that to meet the need.
jumpman500 9y ago
> It's very natural, and very logical. Being natural and logical doesn't make it moral or ethical. I think you're only kidding yourself if you believe that people deserve that much money and power. > How about folks who centralize powers like politicians in high level functions, who have not even been elected but appointed? How do you feel about that? They also can have massive influence on the world's affairs, even if they are not billionaires. I'd be way more concerned about that. Nice use of whataboutism. We can protest, resit, or vote for politicians and bureaucrats. A billionaire will be a billionaire unless the economy collapses or they decide to become a philanthropist.

cgag 9y ago

Aren't there a ton of those multinational corporations making products and software? Some of those companies have produced far more than some nations. What of it?

zanny 9y ago
The corporations being more powerful than nations is a thing, but is tangential. Corporations are controlled by charter and regulations of the nation they incorporate in and are accountable on more fronts than an individual actor. This is a discussion of what happens when individuals have access to state-scale resources of their own personal possession. Tons of corporations are worth a billion dollars, many more than individual humans are worth a billion dollars, and the implications and side effects of each controlling such large centralized capital differ substantially because of the rules of business they each abide by.

JoshTriplett 9y ago

> There is limited rational or ethical reason for one human being to accumulate so much centralized wealth First: yes, there are ethical reasons to accumulate so many resources: because some problems are incredibly hard to solve and need a lot of resources to even start to solve. Second, it is not on the people who have earned something to prove why they should be "permitted" to keep it; it's on the people who believe it should be taken away from them to justify that. Saying "it's a shame that there are billionaires" is a complaint that some people are wildly successful and shouldn't be, or that they shouldn't be permitted to keep what they earn. There is justifiable resentment and offense to a conversation that starts with a thinly veiled demand for justification, rather than a presentation of justification. The burden of proof is approached the wrong way, and nobody seems to discuss that. (I'm not interested in quibbles over the word "earn" here.) It's not a shame that there exist billionaires. It's a shame that there exist people with nothing. The former doesn't need fixing; the latter absolutely does.

foxylad 9y ago
> yes, there are ethical reasons to accumulate so many resources: because some problems are incredibly hard to solve and need a lot of resources to even start to solve. Allowing people to become billionaires is a hideously inefficient way to solve hard problems. Most billionaires hoard their wealth, or spend it on the hard problem of ostentatious display of wealth. Billionaires who solve hard problems: Bill Gates and Elon Musk. The rest of that wealth goes on things like solid gold soap dishes for superyachts - my neighbour worked at a shipyard, and a customer had them rip out merely gold-plated soap dishes in all the showers. If even a fraction of that money funded university research departments, say, we'd get far more problems solved.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  > Allowing One word in, and already the same inverted burden of proof problem as the comment I replied to. > people to become billionaires is a hideously inefficient way to solve hard problems It's a good thing that's not the reason, nor is any reason required, and that's not your choice to make. And, also critically important: it's a great way to solve specific hard problems that aren't the ones most people are focused on. Over the course of my lifetime, I expect to donate 99+% of my lifetime earnings towards specific charitable causes that are not something that the vast majority of people care about, though I believe they should. > If even a fraction of that money funded university research departments, say, we'd get far more problems solved. University research departments are a passable way to solve some problems, motivated by the ability to attract grant money and publish papers. Many problems are far more efficiently and quickly solved when motivated directly by producing a product or service people will pay for. Again, the problem is not that we have millionaires and billionaires. The problem is that we have people with nothing. Let's fix that.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

There is no problem in having billionaires, there is no problem in an income gap. If we are all billioniares, fine. If the lowest income can buy everything they want, fine. The problem is that billionaires buy politicians, people are too poor to live in western countries despite working, sometimes two jobs, and people with income from work pay for social security and income taxes while billionaires with income from capital gains don't pay relevant taxes and don't pay for social security or their fair amount for health care. So focusing on billionaires is a distraction. We need to focus that people have meaningful income - especially with the coming AI/robot revolution - and meaningful lives. Capital gains and companies need to be taxed the way people with income from employed work are taxed and need to contribute the same amount to health care and social security. But this will not happen, because see "buy politicians". There is only one reason that billionaires and celebrities hang around with boring politicians. It's the best investment.

bantunes 9y ago
> There is no problem in having billionaires > The problem is that billionaires buy politicians Is your solution somehow forcing billionaires to not do what their wealth allows them to? If they can, they will. That's why having billionaires is a problem.

golergka 9y ago

Your reasoning seems to be coming from an assumption that there should be an underlying ethical reason for this; that there is, in fact, some common ethical ground that could possibly be enforced on all of humanity for the greater good. But why do you think that such an assumption could be even remotely true?