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The wealthy class of the past had spend some of the wealth to be remembered via public works or patronage of art. Through their vanity or just a goodwill they

The wealthy class of the past had spend some of the wealth to be remembered via public works or patronage of art. Through their vanity or just a goodwill they wanted to be remembered for something. This doesn't seems to be a rule, but an exception. All of the social contracts of old societies were broken old time ago. Helping poor is either PR stunt or dirty work of middle class. Or a ploy to extract more wealth (lookup disaster capitalism). Globalization decoupled the 'haves' from the place they are living. They can uproot and travel away to another community. Be it SF or next SF. This was much harder in the past. Business and family ties would make it harder to just move to Spain. That tied the 'haves' to 'have-nots' in a way. So the 'haves' might be incentivized to make the place a better for everyone - this would be that saying that the philantrophism is just selfish behavior as you make your own environment a better place, only through indirect means. But this is largely no more.

mprovost 6y ago
That's a great point. In the past maybe people wanted to improve the city because that's where they lived, and saw themselves living. There was a comment on HN years ago that I still remember where they compared working in the Bay Area to working in the mines - when people would come over to the New World for a few years to make their fortune, and then go home rich. If you view yourself as a temporary resident, then you're probably not that interested in becoming part of the community and improving the place where you live. Why would you if you're going to take your FAANG money and move to cabin in the woods in a few years?
- me_me_me 6y ago
  > move to cabin in the woods Or gated community, completely isolated from real world. I wouldn't be surprised if this would start happening next decade or so, were large chunks of land will be used as pseudo autonomous zones where rich wall themselves off.

mprovost 6y ago

That's a great point. In the past maybe people wanted to improve the city because that's where they lived, and saw themselves living. There was a comment on HN years ago that I still remember where they compared working in the Bay Area to working in the mines - when people would come over to the New World for a few years to make their fortune, and then go home rich. If you view yourself as a temporary resident, then you're probably not that interested in becoming part of the community and improving the place where you live. Why would you if you're going to take your FAANG money and move to cabin in the woods in a few years?

me_me_me 6y ago
> move to cabin in the woods Or gated community, completely isolated from real world. I wouldn't be surprised if this would start happening next decade or so, were large chunks of land will be used as pseudo autonomous zones where rich wall themselves off.