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> making money that is beyond the amount of money that they would need to buy a nice house and feed themselves well. What if he has a cause that he's working t
by gretch 4y ago
> making money that is beyond the amount of money that they would need to buy a nice house and feed themselves well.
What if he has a cause that he's working toward? Like he's donating X million every year toward Y disease cure? Because maybe he has a cousin or something with the affliction or some other personal reason. This is exactly what Bill Gates is working on with Malaria
- jononomo 4y agoI don't buy this line of reasoning -- if you have $10 million then you can just go to the front lines yourself and fight malaria directly. The idea that you're going to make a lot of money so that you can pay other people to live a good life in your place just doesn't cut it.
- therealdrag0 4y agoWhy would fighting it directly be better than funding others to fight it?
- gretch 4y agoWhat do you mean 'fight it directly'? You think he can just flip a switch from American businessman to becoming a PhD level biologist and epidemiologist and be actually effective at getting anything done? He's funding the work of experts in the field who have dedicated their lives so that the solution can actually be advanced.
- xracy 4y agoohhhhh, you're just a troll. You're literally making a point and the counterpoint to your own statement. He's both the right person for the job because he's a billionaire, and the wrong person for the job because he's a billionaire in tech.
- jononomo 4y agoYou don’t need a PhD to wash the feet of the poor.
- gretch 4y agoIf you are trying to actually rid the world of malaria, do you think washing the feet of the poor is the best way to do that? Like, I'm not saying that it's not a noble job, or that it doesn't need to be done, but how does it get you closer to preventing malaria? How many feet need to be washed before malaria disappears? You're confusing treatment (make people feel better while sick) with cure (make it actually go away forever)
- xracy 4y agoIf he had such a cause, then this wouldn't be a "what if" question. woooo, I can play the what if game too: What if Billionaires gave their money to the gov't as part of taxes like the rest of us? What if the gov't did that, since they're better situated to finding and distributing the right resources to the right people than a random billionaire is at just "fixing disease". (Not saying they're good at this, just that they're better at acting in the interests of the people than "pick a billionaire from a hat to save us all")
- gretch 4y agoOkay cool. I’m not against that at all. Tim Cook isn’t responsible for the govt though. What is your point? You came onto a thread about time cook and his Apple compensation and started complaining about govt tax policies?
- xracy 4y agoI'm saying it doesn't matter if Tim Cook has a cause, because he's probably not very good at helping that cause. Which is a direct response to your original point which was an absurd hypothetical about how Tim Cook should be allowed to make as much money as he wants, cause what if he maybe ends up doing some good for society. I agree with the original point that people don't really need much more than a living wage... I'm saying that it's absurd to pray for Billionaires to do good for the rest of us, when we could just tax them, and make them do it. That's where the gov't comes in.