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I'd like to live in a world where rich dickheads act more like Musk and do cool things. It's like living in a comic book. It's fun. But that's not our way forw

I'd like to live in a world where rich dickheads act more like Musk and do cool things. It's like living in a comic book. It's fun. But that's not our way forward. Forget the billionaires, we need to assemble, reinvest in our political system, and start building a better future from the ground up.

jimmaswell 7y ago
> But that's not our way forward. Forget the billionaires, we need to assemble, reinvest in our political system, and start building a better future from the ground up. Good luck with that. For now people like Musk and Gates are doing a pretty good job of things in various areas though.
- embwbam 7y ago
  I agree, it looks pretty hopeless sometimes, and I definitely appreciate what Musk and Gates are doing. I’d highly recommend reading “Winners Take All”, as it completely flipped my opinion on this subject. The author argues that giving up and trusting rich philanthropists to fix things further undermines our faith in the political system, requiring us to give billionaires even more power. And it distracts us from the question of whether we should change the system to prevent individuals from having that much power in the first place.
  - indigochill 7y ago
    Although I appreciate the sentiment, I actually think this is impossible. Some people are going to be inherently extremely ambitious. Those people will compete/cooperate and somebody's going to come out on top. Supposing you establish a system explicitly designed to stop this from happening, you need someone to enforce that system. Congratulations, you just created a role for the ambitious people to fight over.
    - embwbam 7y ago
      There will always be people in power. But maybe it is better if those people are elected, and operate in view of the public
      - ericd 7y ago
        I’ve read the book you’re referring to. We absolutely should not try to prevent people from amassing enough individual power to do what Elon et al are doing. Bureaucrats are generally good at some things (eg reliably running services that are well known quantities and should be provided to everyone regardless of profitability), and generally awful at others (eg efficient innovation in new fields). You need a mix of both types to both run the world and keep it moving forward. I for one am very happy that sufficiently motivated and skilled people are sometimes able to amass enough resources to try crazy things like competing with each other to start orbital launch companies and deploy a world-wide network of thousands of communications satellites to break the government granted chokeholds a few telecom companies have on internet access. For me, the main takeaway of the book was that we should stop revering consultants/MBAs and their process.
      - roenxi 7y ago
        That is a bold claim, for which you will need some pretty solid evidence. An election is basically a popularity contest. Winning a popularity contests does not guarantee competence, reliability or even correctness of opinion. We've got a couple of centuries of evidence that private individuals who stand to feel the effects of their choices are much better at conserving and rationing resources than elected officials. If you make a list of the horrors of history and rank them from worst to mildest, you'll find that public officials (even in democracies) are much scarier than rich people operating private concerns.
        hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
        Sorry I don't quite understand. Are you seriously saying democracy is a bad idea and that you would like to live in an oligarchy?
- TheTruth1234 7y ago
  Really. Let's look away from the light and into the shadows ... where the @sshole billionaires live. It's not all glory and progress in billionaire land.
Causality1 7y ago
Why do you think those things are mutually exclusive?
- embwbam 7y ago
  Because I think we need to change the system so that unelected rich folks don’t have that much power. The more we legitimize their work the harder that will be. I’m all for them continuing their work in the meantime though. I’m doing a poor job explaining it. Defining check out the book I recommended. “Winners take all”
serf 7y ago
> I'd like to live in a world where rich dickheads act more like Musk and do cool things. It's like living in a comic book. It's fun. Not to nitpick, but if you were to go by the typical comic-book example most 'rich dickheads' end up being super-villains. If the question is : Do I want the immensely rich to start moving the world around from under my feet with their unlimited resources in order to do 'Cool Things'? A: No, I don't. 'Cool Things' is too loosely constrained a parameter to allow trillions of dollars to flow into unchecked. What happens when some ultra-rich individuals definitions of Cool Things involves morally unethical behavior? Do I like Musks' ideas and plans? A: Yes.

jimmaswell 7y ago

> But that's not our way forward. Forget the billionaires, we need to assemble, reinvest in our political system, and start building a better future from the ground up. Good luck with that. For now people like Musk and Gates are doing a pretty good job of things in various areas though.

embwbam 7y ago
I agree, it looks pretty hopeless sometimes, and I definitely appreciate what Musk and Gates are doing. I’d highly recommend reading “Winners Take All”, as it completely flipped my opinion on this subject. The author argues that giving up and trusting rich philanthropists to fix things further undermines our faith in the political system, requiring us to give billionaires even more power. And it distracts us from the question of whether we should change the system to prevent individuals from having that much power in the first place.
- indigochill 7y ago
  Although I appreciate the sentiment, I actually think this is impossible. Some people are going to be inherently extremely ambitious. Those people will compete/cooperate and somebody's going to come out on top. Supposing you establish a system explicitly designed to stop this from happening, you need someone to enforce that system. Congratulations, you just created a role for the ambitious people to fight over.
  - embwbam 7y ago
    There will always be people in power. But maybe it is better if those people are elected, and operate in view of the public
    - ericd 7y ago
      I’ve read the book you’re referring to. We absolutely should not try to prevent people from amassing enough individual power to do what Elon et al are doing. Bureaucrats are generally good at some things (eg reliably running services that are well known quantities and should be provided to everyone regardless of profitability), and generally awful at others (eg efficient innovation in new fields). You need a mix of both types to both run the world and keep it moving forward. I for one am very happy that sufficiently motivated and skilled people are sometimes able to amass enough resources to try crazy things like competing with each other to start orbital launch companies and deploy a world-wide network of thousands of communications satellites to break the government granted chokeholds a few telecom companies have on internet access. For me, the main takeaway of the book was that we should stop revering consultants/MBAs and their process.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      That is a bold claim, for which you will need some pretty solid evidence. An election is basically a popularity contest. Winning a popularity contests does not guarantee competence, reliability or even correctness of opinion. We've got a couple of centuries of evidence that private individuals who stand to feel the effects of their choices are much better at conserving and rationing resources than elected officials. If you make a list of the horrors of history and rank them from worst to mildest, you'll find that public officials (even in democracies) are much scarier than rich people operating private concerns.
      - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
        Sorry I don't quite understand. Are you seriously saying democracy is a bad idea and that you would like to live in an oligarchy?
TheTruth1234 7y ago
Really. Let's look away from the light and into the shadows ... where the @sshole billionaires live. It's not all glory and progress in billionaire land.

Causality1 7y ago

Why do you think those things are mutually exclusive?

embwbam 7y ago
Because I think we need to change the system so that unelected rich folks don’t have that much power. The more we legitimize their work the harder that will be. I’m all for them continuing their work in the meantime though. I’m doing a poor job explaining it. Defining check out the book I recommended. “Winners take all”

serf 7y ago

> I'd like to live in a world where rich dickheads act more like Musk and do cool things. It's like living in a comic book. It's fun. Not to nitpick, but if you were to go by the typical comic-book example most 'rich dickheads' end up being super-villains. If the question is : Do I want the immensely rich to start moving the world around from under my feet with their unlimited resources in order to do 'Cool Things'? A: No, I don't. 'Cool Things' is too loosely constrained a parameter to allow trillions of dollars to flow into unchecked. What happens when some ultra-rich individuals definitions of Cool Things involves morally unethical behavior? Do I like Musks' ideas and plans? A: Yes.