4 ms·

Finally, a billionaire willing to smack back at capitalism

23 points by O__________O 4y ago

Comevius 4y ago
Apparently Yvon Chouinard was really pissed off for appearing on the Forbes list, prompting him to offload his fortune. Not that I will ever be in the same shoes as him, but I get it. I wouldn't want to be associated with the ruthless wealth-creating monsters on that list either. Those people have destroyed their humanity and now they are destroying humanity itself.
dmix 4y ago
Billionaires giving away their wealth and dedicating themselves to philanthropy started with Carnegie. Gates getting a large group of billionaires to donate half was also over a decade ago. The half always made sense since the other half could still be dedicated to productive capital that contributes back to philanthropy half. I guess when it’s the environment and not trying to save hundreds of millions of lives through eradicating malaria and related health/development investments it gets treated as uniquely special?
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  Yeah, reporters needs to read more. Also the attitude of zero sum wealth is so glaring in the article. The constant swipes at capitalism is getting boring too. Without capitalism there would not have been wealth to donate (and other isms also cause damage to the planet in the first place).
jinglebiscuits 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cu6EbELZ6I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cu6EbELZ6I Not as great as it seems.
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  I watched to 8 minutes. So, primarily, the video's allegation is that Choinard donated all of his shares except the voting shares, which means he effectively retains control? That does seem pretty bad.
  - jopython 4y ago
    Alas, Choinard still cannot make every everyone happy.
dudeinjapan 4y ago
He even wears a Patagonia fleece just like the rest of us.
throwthere 4y ago
> And the exception highlights an unhealthy reality of our wealth-obsessed, capitalist system: It often requires more intention and effort to give away money than to passively amass billions. Lol what?
- prottog 4y ago
  Yeah, what utter nonsense.
- busterarm 4y ago
  > passively amass billions. Sadly large portions of our population actually believe this.
12xo 4y ago
julkali 4y ago
Off-topic, but IMO it is ridiculous that in 2022 there are still websites which are too lazy to deal with GDPR and just completely deny any access from Europe. I understand that they may have had little European traffic before 2018 so there is little incentive to dig into the details of cookie consent, but the quick fix of just turning off all non-essential cookies for those IP ranges is trivial ...
- vesinisa 4y ago
  Whoa, no it's not that trivial by a long shot. To be GDPR compliant they would need to train all their staff who deal with customer data, audit their entire infrastructure to map all the places where they store customer data and draft GDPR-compliant privacy notices for all of that data, as well as establishing the processes for dealing with all the lawful GDPR customer requests that they'd start getting. This is very, very expensive, and requires retaining external consultants and lawyers who are experienced in GDPR compliance. I fully sympathize with all foreign companies that have no meaningful REVENUE from the European Union who instead of putting themselves in possible legal jeopardy just decide to block traffic from the EU and be done with it. It's the honorable thing to do, and frankly Europeans should be looking in the mirror and be asking if our good intentions of consumer privacy protection are actually leading the stifling of our digital landscape due to over-regulation. A good indication to me that a law is not working is if it is so over-reaching that very few companies (even within EU) are able to comply with all of its requirements.
DueDilligence 4y ago
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 4y ago
The sheer amount of puff pieces written about this guy and what he’s doing tells me all I need to know about the situation.
jbverschoor 4y ago
Not accessible in the eu.. 451: Unavailable due to legal reasons We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact info@phillytrib.com or call 215-893-4050.
bioemerl 4y ago
The person featured In the picture at the top of the article is not the person the article is about, that is the author.
- readthenotes1 4y ago
  As it's an editorial, I respectfully disagree with your first assertion.
perch56 4y ago
451: Unavailable due to legal reasons Gotta love how the inability to respect GDPR and privacy leads to someone blocking the whole EU from accessing the website.
- bornfreddy 4y ago
  Yup. Here's the link if anyone still cares to read it regardless: https://archive.ph/NN84B https://archive.ph/NN84B
skrebbel 4y ago
This site gives me a 451 Opting Out Of Tracking Not Allowed because I’m trying to load it from the EU. Anyone got a tl;dr?
- bornfreddy 4y ago
  You can access most of such sites by replacing "https:// https://" with "archive.is". Link: https://archive.ph/NN84B https://archive.ph/NN84B
btdmaster 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20220927045211/https://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/finally-a-billionaire-willing-to-smack-back-at-capitalism/article_a6417464-247a-5c52-8d64-2f2e3c215d6e.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220927045211/https://www.phill...
SSJPython 4y ago
> Capitalism holds neither employees nor noble missions in high regard. That's because this isn't the goal of capitalism. The goal is growth and positive ROI through the use of private ownership of the means of production. Labor, like land and capital, are just an input to production in capitalism. And "noble missions" - whatever that means - are meaningless. They are subjective and have nothing to do with the economic system. > For once, a billionaire is doing something worthy of our applause. Populist bullshit. I'm happy companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. exist. They have made my life so much easier. One of the founders of JetBrains (IntelliJ, PyCharm) became a billionaire because they make spectacular products. Yes, these companies have issues, but welcome to reality: everything has issues. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
>100% of its nonvoting stock has gone to a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating climate change and protecting undeveloped land around the world. Looks like he just wasted 3 billion. Why not donate that money to something real like R&D of renewables? This will just fund more people who are profesional climate grifters: telling you that you are murdering the planet any time you do anything, and that the world will be uninhabitable and over becuase of you, all while collecting a fat check from this nonprofit.
- bioemerl 4y ago
  If you spend $100 on r&d, you've gotten $100 in r&d. You spend $100 on convincing people that they need to spend money on r&d, you're $100 can contribute far more than $100 to overall movement towards an end to climate change. Is this what is going to happen with that money? I don't know. However, it's possible that this is still a good move even though it isn't going directly to research.
  - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
    Better yet, why don't we force the climate advocates to work for no pay (with only rice and watter for food) and spend the rest on r&d? I think that would contribute even more to the overall movement.
    - bioemerl 4y ago
      This just seems totally unreasonable. You can't ask people to work for no pay, or to live off rice and water.
      - taolegal 4y ago
        > to live off rice and water isn't that pretty much the austerity that environmentalists want since they can't just kill off people to lower the population?
        4y ago
kgantchev 4y ago
Totally the first billionaire to give up his wealth to charity. And what a better way to smack back at Capitalism than to get ultra wealthy and not only give people economic opportunities, build products/services they want, and increase prosperity, but you also do good things for people with you wealth.

23 points by O__________O 4y ago

Apparently Yvon Chouinard was really pissed off for appearing on the Forbes list, prompting him to offload his fortune. Not that I will ever be in the same shoes as him, but I get it. I wouldn't want to be associated with the ruthless wealth-creating monsters on that list either. Those people have destroyed their humanity and now they are destroying humanity itself.

dmix 4y ago

Billionaires giving away their wealth and dedicating themselves to philanthropy started with Carnegie. Gates getting a large group of billionaires to donate half was also over a decade ago. The half always made sense since the other half could still be dedicated to productive capital that contributes back to philanthropy half. I guess when it’s the environment and not trying to save hundreds of millions of lives through eradicating malaria and related health/development investments it gets treated as uniquely special?

cscurmudgeon 4y ago
Yeah, reporters needs to read more. Also the attitude of zero sum wealth is so glaring in the article. The constant swipes at capitalism is getting boring too. Without capitalism there would not have been wealth to donate (and other isms also cause damage to the planet in the first place).

jinglebiscuits 4y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cu6EbELZ6I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cu6EbELZ6I Not as great as it seems.

foobarbecue 4y ago
I watched to 8 minutes. So, primarily, the video's allegation is that Choinard donated all of his shares except the voting shares, which means he effectively retains control? That does seem pretty bad.
- jopython 4y ago
  Alas, Choinard still cannot make every everyone happy.

dudeinjapan 4y ago

He even wears a Patagonia fleece just like the rest of us.

throwthere 4y ago

> And the exception highlights an unhealthy reality of our wealth-obsessed, capitalist system: It often requires more intention and effort to give away money than to passively amass billions. Lol what?

prottog 4y ago
Yeah, what utter nonsense.
busterarm 4y ago
> passively amass billions. Sadly large portions of our population actually believe this.

12xo 4y ago

julkali 4y ago

Off-topic, but IMO it is ridiculous that in 2022 there are still websites which are too lazy to deal with GDPR and just completely deny any access from Europe. I understand that they may have had little European traffic before 2018 so there is little incentive to dig into the details of cookie consent, but the quick fix of just turning off all non-essential cookies for those IP ranges is trivial ...

vesinisa 4y ago
Whoa, no it's not that trivial by a long shot. To be GDPR compliant they would need to train all their staff who deal with customer data, audit their entire infrastructure to map all the places where they store customer data and draft GDPR-compliant privacy notices for all of that data, as well as establishing the processes for dealing with all the lawful GDPR customer requests that they'd start getting. This is very, very expensive, and requires retaining external consultants and lawyers who are experienced in GDPR compliance. I fully sympathize with all foreign companies that have no meaningful REVENUE from the European Union who instead of putting themselves in possible legal jeopardy just decide to block traffic from the EU and be done with it. It's the honorable thing to do, and frankly Europeans should be looking in the mirror and be asking if our good intentions of consumer privacy protection are actually leading the stifling of our digital landscape due to over-regulation. A good indication to me that a law is not working is if it is so over-reaching that very few companies (even within EU) are able to comply with all of its requirements.

DueDilligence 4y ago

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 4y ago

The sheer amount of puff pieces written about this guy and what he’s doing tells me all I need to know about the situation.

jbverschoor 4y ago

Not accessible in the eu.. 451: Unavailable due to legal reasons We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact info@phillytrib.com or call 215-893-4050.

bioemerl 4y ago

The person featured In the picture at the top of the article is not the person the article is about, that is the author.

readthenotes1 4y ago
As it's an editorial, I respectfully disagree with your first assertion.

perch56 4y ago

451: Unavailable due to legal reasons Gotta love how the inability to respect GDPR and privacy leads to someone blocking the whole EU from accessing the website.

bornfreddy 4y ago
Yup. Here's the link if anyone still cares to read it regardless: https://archive.ph/NN84B https://archive.ph/NN84B

skrebbel 4y ago

This site gives me a 451 Opting Out Of Tracking Not Allowed because I’m trying to load it from the EU. Anyone got a tl;dr?

bornfreddy 4y ago
You can access most of such sites by replacing "https:// https://" with "archive.is". Link: https://archive.ph/NN84B https://archive.ph/NN84B

btdmaster 4y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20220927045211/https://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/finally-a-billionaire-willing-to-smack-back-at-capitalism/article_a6417464-247a-5c52-8d64-2f2e3c215d6e.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220927045211/https://www.phill...

SSJPython 4y ago

> Capitalism holds neither employees nor noble missions in high regard. That's because this isn't the goal of capitalism. The goal is growth and positive ROI through the use of private ownership of the means of production. Labor, like land and capital, are just an input to production in capitalism. And "noble missions" - whatever that means - are meaningless. They are subjective and have nothing to do with the economic system. > For once, a billionaire is doing something worthy of our applause. Populist bullshit. I'm happy companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. exist. They have made my life so much easier. One of the founders of JetBrains (IntelliJ, PyCharm) became a billionaire because they make spectacular products. Yes, these companies have issues, but welcome to reality: everything has issues. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago

>100% of its nonvoting stock has gone to a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating climate change and protecting undeveloped land around the world. Looks like he just wasted 3 billion. Why not donate that money to something real like R&D of renewables? This will just fund more people who are profesional climate grifters: telling you that you are murdering the planet any time you do anything, and that the world will be uninhabitable and over becuase of you, all while collecting a fat check from this nonprofit.

bioemerl 4y ago
If you spend $100 on r&d, you've gotten $100 in r&d. You spend $100 on convincing people that they need to spend money on r&d, you're $100 can contribute far more than $100 to overall movement towards an end to climate change. Is this what is going to happen with that money? I don't know. However, it's possible that this is still a good move even though it isn't going directly to research.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  Better yet, why don't we force the climate advocates to work for no pay (with only rice and watter for food) and spend the rest on r&d? I think that would contribute even more to the overall movement.
  - bioemerl 4y ago
    This just seems totally unreasonable. You can't ask people to work for no pay, or to live off rice and water.
    - taolegal 4y ago
      > to live off rice and water isn't that pretty much the austerity that environmentalists want since they can't just kill off people to lower the population?
      - 4y ago

kgantchev 4y ago

Totally the first billionaire to give up his wealth to charity. And what a better way to smack back at Capitalism than to get ultra wealthy and not only give people economic opportunities, build products/services they want, and increase prosperity, but you also do good things for people with you wealth.