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I hate this argument. There are 20 billionaires in Africa, you’re saying they had an advantage of race and country of origin? 4 in Vietnam. 6 in Peru. 27 in Th

I hate this argument. There are 20 billionaires in Africa, you’re saying they had an advantage of race and country of origin? 4 in Vietnam. 6 in Peru. 27 in Thailand. Your argument is another “blame the system / white men are evil” argument that just doesn’t hold up when put against facts.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
> There are 20 billionaires in Africa, you’re saying they had an advantage of race and country of origin. You conveniently skipped over the part where the comment you're responding to said "family or nation of origin". If anything, more billionaires in 3rd world countries got their wealth through corruption and family connections. Take the top billionaires in Africa: 1. Aliko Dangote: see "Family and Personal Life" on his Wikipedia page, which includes "He is the great-grandson of Alhaji Alhassan Dantata, the richest West African at the time of his death in 1955." 2. Nassef Onsi Sawiris: His Wikipedia entry starts with "is an Egyptian billionaire businessman, the youngest of Onsi Sawiris' three sons". Onsi Sawiris was a billionaire. 3. Mike Adenuga is more self-made, but even then, "his mother, Omoba Juliana Oyindamola Adenuga, was a businesswoman of royal Ijebu descent." There are other more notorious examples from that list of billionaires, like Isabel dos Santos. I'm interested to see how you re-evaluate your argument "when put against facts".
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  That, and also an "often or always" tied to the full list of qualifiers.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    “often or always” is a cop out for people who can’t decidedly prove a point.
    - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      Lol, no. "Often or always" is used by people who realize the world is rarely black and white. It's weird, you're arguing against a point that no one else is making. Of course there are many billionaires whose individual intelligence, innate gifts, hard work and diligence were crucial to them earning their fortune. Just as obviously as there are many billionaires who earned their fortune through family, connections, graft, etc. (It's also pretty easily arguable the majority of the wealthy earned their money this way, given that for every "self-made" rich person there are usually loads more family members/connections who inherit or benefit from that wealth). But the larger point is that nobody makes their fortune in a vacuum - even all these "self-made" rich relied upon the structures of their society to enable their wealth accumulation, so it seems more than morally fair that that society has a claim to some of that wealth so the next generation can reap the same benefits. Just look at all the Internet billionaires, or billionaires who rely on GPS. Both the Internet and GPS were created by the government, and it seems fair to me that the government take a chunk of the wealth enabled by the enormous investments into those systems.
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        Quite this, yes.
      - bluedevil2k 6y ago
        They’ve aleady paid income tax to help pay for GPS!!
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  You named 3 of the 20 I listed. What about the 138 in India? All from warlords and inheritance? Mark Cuban? Elon Musk? Warren Buffet? Larry Ellison? Steve Jobs? Steve Mozniak? Ted Arison?
dredmorbius 6y ago
The continent of North America, with a population of 579 millions, has by my reckoning 672 billionaires. Africa with a population of 1,216 millions has ... about 20 as you state (my tally from Wikipedia is 18, but I'll take the higher number). By billions of population, that works out to 1,160/billion North America, and 16.4/billion for Africa. It would seems odds might somewhat favour one born (or living in) North America. By a factor of roughly 70. One might similarly compare Germany and India, with roughly similar counts of billionaires at 107 and 102, respectively, though slighly differing populations: 83 millions vs. 1.3 billions. The rate per billion works out to 1,289/billion for Germany and 75/billion for India, differing by a factor of 17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continents_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continents_by_populati... Or is it just hard work?
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  There’s 300 oil billionaires in Saudi Arabia and ZERO in bordering Israel!!! C’mon, you are not trying to argue that every country/continent is completely identical in terms of economic development and access to resources, are you?
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    I'd think it's rather obvious that that's pretty much the antithesis of my argument.
    - bluedevil2k 6y ago
      Your argument was that Africa and US should have the same billionaires per capita which is crazy, cause as I point out, a country/continent has or lacks certain natural resources that make extreme wealth possible.
      - dredmorbius 6y ago
        I've apparently failed to communicate clearly. That is not at all my argument. The assertion to which I ras responding, and disputing, was your statement: "The people who are billionaires are billionaires because they are super competitive and super hard workers." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24395252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24395252 You are now asserting a markedly different, and I would suggest inconsistent, position.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

> There are 20 billionaires in Africa, you’re saying they had an advantage of race and country of origin. You conveniently skipped over the part where the comment you're responding to said "family or nation of origin". If anything, more billionaires in 3rd world countries got their wealth through corruption and family connections. Take the top billionaires in Africa: 1. Aliko Dangote: see "Family and Personal Life" on his Wikipedia page, which includes "He is the great-grandson of Alhaji Alhassan Dantata, the richest West African at the time of his death in 1955." 2. Nassef Onsi Sawiris: His Wikipedia entry starts with "is an Egyptian billionaire businessman, the youngest of Onsi Sawiris' three sons". Onsi Sawiris was a billionaire. 3. Mike Adenuga is more self-made, but even then, "his mother, Omoba Juliana Oyindamola Adenuga, was a businesswoman of royal Ijebu descent." There are other more notorious examples from that list of billionaires, like Isabel dos Santos. I'm interested to see how you re-evaluate your argument "when put against facts".

dredmorbius 6y ago
That, and also an "often or always" tied to the full list of qualifiers.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  “often or always” is a cop out for people who can’t decidedly prove a point.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    Lol, no. "Often or always" is used by people who realize the world is rarely black and white. It's weird, you're arguing against a point that no one else is making. Of course there are many billionaires whose individual intelligence, innate gifts, hard work and diligence were crucial to them earning their fortune. Just as obviously as there are many billionaires who earned their fortune through family, connections, graft, etc. (It's also pretty easily arguable the majority of the wealthy earned their money this way, given that for every "self-made" rich person there are usually loads more family members/connections who inherit or benefit from that wealth). But the larger point is that nobody makes their fortune in a vacuum - even all these "self-made" rich relied upon the structures of their society to enable their wealth accumulation, so it seems more than morally fair that that society has a claim to some of that wealth so the next generation can reap the same benefits. Just look at all the Internet billionaires, or billionaires who rely on GPS. Both the Internet and GPS were created by the government, and it seems fair to me that the government take a chunk of the wealth enabled by the enormous investments into those systems.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Quite this, yes.
    - bluedevil2k 6y ago
      They’ve aleady paid income tax to help pay for GPS!!
bluedevil2k 6y ago
You named 3 of the 20 I listed. What about the 138 in India? All from warlords and inheritance? Mark Cuban? Elon Musk? Warren Buffet? Larry Ellison? Steve Jobs? Steve Mozniak? Ted Arison?

dredmorbius 6y ago

The continent of North America, with a population of 579 millions, has by my reckoning 672 billionaires. Africa with a population of 1,216 millions has ... about 20 as you state (my tally from Wikipedia is 18, but I'll take the higher number). By billions of population, that works out to 1,160/billion North America, and 16.4/billion for Africa. It would seems odds might somewhat favour one born (or living in) North America. By a factor of roughly 70. One might similarly compare Germany and India, with roughly similar counts of billionaires at 107 and 102, respectively, though slighly differing populations: 83 millions vs. 1.3 billions. The rate per billion works out to 1,289/billion for Germany and 75/billion for India, differing by a factor of 17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continents_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continents_by_populati... Or is it just hard work?

bluedevil2k 6y ago
There’s 300 oil billionaires in Saudi Arabia and ZERO in bordering Israel!!! C’mon, you are not trying to argue that every country/continent is completely identical in terms of economic development and access to resources, are you?
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  I'd think it's rather obvious that that's pretty much the antithesis of my argument.
  - bluedevil2k 6y ago
    Your argument was that Africa and US should have the same billionaires per capita which is crazy, cause as I point out, a country/continent has or lacks certain natural resources that make extreme wealth possible.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      I've apparently failed to communicate clearly. That is not at all my argument. The assertion to which I ras responding, and disputing, was your statement: "The people who are billionaires are billionaires because they are super competitive and super hard workers." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24395252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24395252 You are now asserting a markedly different, and I would suggest inconsistent, position.