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I have no problem with billionaires personally. I do have a problem with people being billionaires if the "value" they've created is negative (obviously this is

I have no problem with billionaires personally. I do have a problem with people being billionaires if the "value" they've created is negative (obviously this is my opinion). Consider two billionaries: - One creates a cold nuclear fusion device the size of a 10" x 10" x 10" cube. You can plug anything to this device and it will power it, indefinitely. - Another gets little boys and girls addicted to some sort of super candy, irresistible for those under 13. Surely one of these people is more valuable

hackeraccount 5y ago
What's the line from The Big Labowski, "That's like... your opinion man." That said the first thing is a bomb. The second thing is a - presumably - harmless addiction foisted on a group that's not really in a position to harm other people and will have a reasonably hard time harming themselves. I mean, children, sure but honestly they don't really have all that much agency. There's a lot of upside on #1 but I'd expect a huge amount of downside too. #2 doesn't have any upside but I don't see a lot of downside either.
mdp2021 5y ago
You seem to be implying that governments should be more attentive in taxing externalities.
- sudhirj 5y ago
  Indirectly, yeah. Correctly calculating and taxing externalities might have prevented 'bad' billionaires from being made, but doesn't give us a plan on where to go from here. Lots of gray area, though. Lots of arguments were made against Gates when Microsoft's value increased with anti-competitive practices, but it's hard to argue with what it's been spent on today.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    The problem is that then billionaires spend millions on media and social media campaigns to carpet bomb people with the idea that up is down and that their venture isn't really a negative externality.
- ruined 5y ago
  seems more explicit than implying. there's no market mechanism to handle externalities by definition, if you're going to have a market you really ought to handle it somehow
notsureaboutpg 5y ago
Well of course who are you to decide what is addictive vs. what is, by some type of utilitarian calculation, maximally happiness increasing in society. To many people kids under 13 are addicted to video games. To many others the creators of those games are adding happiness to our society and the negative effects are minimal and outweighed. Vice versa a cold nuclear fusion device can be used by the US military to try and oppress some group across the world for indefensible reasons. It's not realistic to apply moral arguments to people's wealth accumulation in any legally binding type of way. Of course we know creating Playboy is a worse way to accumulate wealth than say inventing an efficient battery technology, but how to write this into law that can be applied equally to each new case isn't clear at all.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
The problem with allowing billionaires is it leads to a huge concentration of power, which is a threat to equality, justice and democracy by nature.
WhyNotHugo 5y ago
Likewise, there's the idea of "creating value" and the idea of "extracting value". - If one buys wheat, bakes bread and sells it making a profit, they're creating value. - If one buys all the wheat in the region, creates a shortage and price spike, and then sells it at a profit, they're just exacting wealth. The second case is not contributing any value to society -- quite the contrary, they're just redistributing the existing one for themselves, giving nothing in return (hence "extracting value"). Sure, the second option is legal, but that just seems like an oversight when law-making, and it definitely harms society more than anything else.
dogma1138 5y ago
The problem with this argument is that reality isn’t black and white; and when we legislate what essentially then boils down to morality it tends to turn into a cluster fuck. If you look at essentially all billionaires they don’t fit on either edge of your spectrum, and where they actually fall in the middle isn’t an easy question to answer either.

hackeraccount 5y ago

What's the line from The Big Labowski, "That's like... your opinion man." That said the first thing is a bomb. The second thing is a - presumably - harmless addiction foisted on a group that's not really in a position to harm other people and will have a reasonably hard time harming themselves. I mean, children, sure but honestly they don't really have all that much agency. There's a lot of upside on #1 but I'd expect a huge amount of downside too. #2 doesn't have any upside but I don't see a lot of downside either.

mdp2021 5y ago

You seem to be implying that governments should be more attentive in taxing externalities.

sudhirj 5y ago
Indirectly, yeah. Correctly calculating and taxing externalities might have prevented 'bad' billionaires from being made, but doesn't give us a plan on where to go from here. Lots of gray area, though. Lots of arguments were made against Gates when Microsoft's value increased with anti-competitive practices, but it's hard to argue with what it's been spent on today.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  The problem is that then billionaires spend millions on media and social media campaigns to carpet bomb people with the idea that up is down and that their venture isn't really a negative externality.
ruined 5y ago
seems more explicit than implying. there's no market mechanism to handle externalities by definition, if you're going to have a market you really ought to handle it somehow

notsureaboutpg 5y ago

Well of course who are you to decide what is addictive vs. what is, by some type of utilitarian calculation, maximally happiness increasing in society. To many people kids under 13 are addicted to video games. To many others the creators of those games are adding happiness to our society and the negative effects are minimal and outweighed. Vice versa a cold nuclear fusion device can be used by the US military to try and oppress some group across the world for indefensible reasons. It's not realistic to apply moral arguments to people's wealth accumulation in any legally binding type of way. Of course we know creating Playboy is a worse way to accumulate wealth than say inventing an efficient battery technology, but how to write this into law that can be applied equally to each new case isn't clear at all.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

The problem with allowing billionaires is it leads to a huge concentration of power, which is a threat to equality, justice and democracy by nature.

WhyNotHugo 5y ago

Likewise, there's the idea of "creating value" and the idea of "extracting value". - If one buys wheat, bakes bread and sells it making a profit, they're creating value. - If one buys all the wheat in the region, creates a shortage and price spike, and then sells it at a profit, they're just exacting wealth. The second case is not contributing any value to society -- quite the contrary, they're just redistributing the existing one for themselves, giving nothing in return (hence "extracting value"). Sure, the second option is legal, but that just seems like an oversight when law-making, and it definitely harms society more than anything else.

dogma1138 5y ago

The problem with this argument is that reality isn’t black and white; and when we legislate what essentially then boils down to morality it tends to turn into a cluster fuck. If you look at essentially all billionaires they don’t fit on either edge of your spectrum, and where they actually fall in the middle isn’t an easy question to answer either.