9 ms·
I would love to know what goes on in someone's head when they could use their money to massively improve the lives of millions of poor or un-privileged people,
by wlll 6y ago
I would love to know what goes on in someone's head when they could use their money to massively improve the lives of millions of poor or un-privileged people, or even save them from a premature and/or painful death, withough ever noticing the difference in your quality of life. But they don't.
- p49k 6y agoProbably the same things that enabled them to amass that amount of wealth in the first place.
- wlll 6y agoI don't know what that is though, hence my question.
- legohead 6y agoit's not like he has a bank balance of 171b. it's mostly his ownership in Amazon, which he isn't going to just sell away.
- wlll 6y agoNope, I figured that. He's still absurdly rich though.
- patall 6y agoWhile that is true, that is true for our entire society. Big projects are almost never started nowadays by selling somethings else (unless its a direct replacement). Instead, what usually happens is that you take a bank loan that is secured by assets, in this case his stock. Or to put it short: pretty much any bank would give Jeff a 10 bn loan that is tied to his stocks, its simply not true that there is any problem there.
- eloff 6y agoHave you ever heard of the giving pledge? Where wealthy people pledge to donate at least 50% of their wealth to charity? Jeff Bezos is not a member of it, but his ex-wife is. Have you looked at the amount of good Bill Gates has done in the world?
- wlll 6y agoI don't really get what your point is. I was aware that Bill Gates had given away at least half his money, given that he's still been left with more money than he could ever need by some large margin I'm not too interested in making him some sort of saint just yet.
- eloff 6y agoIt's easy to be a critic, tell me, what have you done for the world that gives you that lofty moral high ground?
- wlll 6y agoWhat is your point? I have to be perfect before I can criticise other things or people? I happen to be trying to make enough money so I can safely retire, hopefully before my mind and/or sight gives out, and so I can send my kids to uni. If I gave half my money away I'd be substantially poorer. If I Bill Gates gave half his wealth away, he likely wouldn't notice the difference.
- eloff 6y agoYou're criticizing Bill Gates because he hasn't done enough in your mind? He certainly did more than you or I, even from a perspective of relative means. Maybe be a little more generous when you're judging other people, because you have a much lower standard for judging yourself.
- wlll 6y agoI'm criticising two things. 1. People with so much money that they have enough to save thousands of people from starving to death, or dieing from prevantable diseases etc. etc. without ever noticing the difference to their wellbeing. 2. The fetishisation of people who give an irrelevant amount of their wealth away. There are literally people alive today who won't be in a week or more because they don't have enough money, and these people could save them and they would never notice. All the difference to them would be the tiny change in a number on a balance sheet.
- megaman821 6y agoMostly because it is not that simple. Rendering effective aid is a hard problem. You can give too money and cause massive inflation, you can give too many goods and services and destroy local economies, you can give too much to one branch of research and cause a brain-drain on the others.
- p49k 6y agoHe could simply start by investing money in improving the terrible working conditions and wages of his warehouse employees, who contributed to his wealth.
- CapricornNoble 6y agoNot everyone considers altruism objectively positive in all cases. It's possible that they consider it robbing the "un-privileged" of their agency, depriving them of their opportunities to grow their character by overcoming adversity, etc... Isn't this question somewhat tackled in The Watchmen, regarding Dr. Manhattan's godlike powers and apathy?
- sunsetMurk 6y ago> depriving them of their opportunities to grow their character by overcoming adversity I'm not a fan of that sentiment. There will still be plenty of adversities to overcome, but just not the ones removed by the do-gooder. For example, being able to eat a healthy meal every day and then competing through all the other adversities on a more level playing field.