3 ms·
> insofar as even stating “wealthiest person of all time” is meaningful Quite, how can you compare Alexander to Musa to Montezuma to Rockerfeller to Bezos to P
by iso1631 4y ago
> insofar as even stating “wealthiest person of all time” is meaningful
Quite, how can you compare Alexander to Musa to Montezuma to Rockerfeller to Bezos to Putin?
Wealth itself is pretty meaningless once you get to a certain level of course. Who's wealthier, Bezos or Musk? Does it matter?
Would you rather be Mansa Musa or someone of median wealth and income in say New Zealand in the 21st century?
- ch4s3 4y ago> Would you rather be Mansa Musa or someone of median wealth and income in say New Zealand in the 21st century? This is probably a more interesting quest than you suspect. It turns on your preferences around material comforts vs. you love of control and power.
- Amezarak 4y agoDepending on the specific locale and period in history, there's a lot of people who were likely happier and meaningfully freer than people in 21st century New Zealand and could have expected to live just as long. Modern people are generally very physically and mentally unhealthy, and most of us work now work in conditions that older peoples would have considered unfree (ie my employment depends on the whims of someone else and my labor primarily benefits them.) I go back and forth as to whether having the Internet and air conditioning make up for it. I don't think I'd want to be Mansa Musa personally, but I think it's pretty likely he enjoyed his life a lot more than the average person today.