5 ms·

If you were to flatten a Mt. Everest and spread the material over the earth's surface, it would raise the height by 1mm. But having such resource concentrated

If you were to flatten a Mt. Everest and spread the material over the earth's surface, it would raise the height by 1mm. But having such resource concentrated could spur individual risk taking and effort and thus innovation. e.g. Elon Musk

voisin 3y ago
Diminishing returns. What extra risk do you take at $1b versus 100m? Now 10b vs 1b? Now 100b vs 1b? Now, 1m vs 100k. We should focus our systems on increasing more people from 100k to 1m rather than 10b to infinity.
- passion__desire 3y ago
  Giving money as charity doesn't help either. ask Bono. Capital expensive projects like SpaceX require lot of money and wouldn't be possible by a group of 1000 individuals putting 1m into the bucket. Too many cooks.
  - voisin 3y ago
    Ok, but aside from Elon, how many examples are there of billionaires doing things like SpaceX (which had a very good business plan too don’t forget. It isn’t purely out of goodwill that he created that enterprise)? My point is that the vast majority of billionaires seem to spend their money not taking massive risks for the betterment of humanity but rather they buy islands and jets and art and blah blah blah.
    - passion__desire 3y ago
      Whether a private individual puts in the risk or a nation state it doesn't matter. Ultimately your point is we should enrich everybody which is a fair point. But underlying that sentiment is the fact there should be products and services worth buying for that much money otherwise you would just be increasing inflation.
- creer 3y ago
  The entire extra risk probably, actually. Some things like SpaceX does not happen because someone had a hundred thousand to contribute to seed capital. Some ventures are ambitious.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
Our greatest success was letting Elon get as far as he did. Our greatest failure was not removing the power the wealth enables once he weaponized it. [Edit: Removed a statement that was interpreted in a way that was not intended] The concentrated wealth is undemocratic power (which is of course appealing to some mental models), it is not magic number goes up that is the concern. As sibling comments says, optimize for innovation from more people, not enabling billionaire kings. Millionaires are fine; comfortable, and mostly harmless. Billionaires believe themselves to be gods, untouchable. This is a policy failure.
- sillysaurusx 3y ago
  Whoa. I didn’t expect you to say something this awful. Would you mind considering whether to edit that out? (If you’re wondering which part, re-read your comment and imagine it was about your father.)
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    My father dying would be no loss to the world either. It would be a loss to me, but only to me. These are inconvenient truths, regardless of the feelings you may have about them. You and I have experienced life differently. Regardless, I have edited my comment to err on the side of caution, thank you.
    - sillysaurusx 3y ago
      I mean, that might be true, but you didn’t specify "to the world". Just that he might as well go die and nobody would care. I’m not trying to give you a hard time, I was just genuinely surprised.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Your opinion on the topic is going to be based on the aggregate harm you believe a human to have incurred, and has the potential to incur going forward. I understand we may strongly disagree on this topic. I do not miss when harmful people are gone. That is distinct from "something bad should happen to this person," which is very different and I would agree exceptionally distasteful.
dutchCourage 3y ago
I think most people would like fewer Elon Musks, not more. Your Everest example also assumes that giving an unfathomable amount of money to Musk is more beneficial to society than using it for other purposes. I find that hard to believe.
- creer 3y ago
  I think it was about recognizing that Everest standing in one place makes it a convenient target. While the reality is that simply guillotining that everest and spreading the blood over the entire population achieves nothing (1mm). One thing that this metaphor does not illustrate is that you cannot spread a billionaire's wealth in cash to the population to pay for rent and food. Nearly the entirety of that wealth is in shares of operating corporations. You would have to find other people / suckers to whom to sell the shares - in exchange for which billions in cash? Or you could liquidate the operating corporations, getting pennies on the dollars (again from whom?) and putting all the workers out of their job. Either way, Musk et al are convenient targets but - aside from building SpaceX and StarLink and providing entertainment, they are irrelevant to your life.

voisin 3y ago

Diminishing returns. What extra risk do you take at $1b versus 100m? Now 10b vs 1b? Now 100b vs 1b? Now, 1m vs 100k. We should focus our systems on increasing more people from 100k to 1m rather than 10b to infinity.

passion__desire 3y ago
Giving money as charity doesn't help either. ask Bono. Capital expensive projects like SpaceX require lot of money and wouldn't be possible by a group of 1000 individuals putting 1m into the bucket. Too many cooks.
- voisin 3y ago
  Ok, but aside from Elon, how many examples are there of billionaires doing things like SpaceX (which had a very good business plan too don’t forget. It isn’t purely out of goodwill that he created that enterprise)? My point is that the vast majority of billionaires seem to spend their money not taking massive risks for the betterment of humanity but rather they buy islands and jets and art and blah blah blah.
  - passion__desire 3y ago
    Whether a private individual puts in the risk or a nation state it doesn't matter. Ultimately your point is we should enrich everybody which is a fair point. But underlying that sentiment is the fact there should be products and services worth buying for that much money otherwise you would just be increasing inflation.
creer 3y ago
The entire extra risk probably, actually. Some things like SpaceX does not happen because someone had a hundred thousand to contribute to seed capital. Some ventures are ambitious.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Our greatest success was letting Elon get as far as he did. Our greatest failure was not removing the power the wealth enables once he weaponized it. [Edit: Removed a statement that was interpreted in a way that was not intended] The concentrated wealth is undemocratic power (which is of course appealing to some mental models), it is not magic number goes up that is the concern. As sibling comments says, optimize for innovation from more people, not enabling billionaire kings. Millionaires are fine; comfortable, and mostly harmless. Billionaires believe themselves to be gods, untouchable. This is a policy failure.

sillysaurusx 3y ago
Whoa. I didn’t expect you to say something this awful. Would you mind considering whether to edit that out? (If you’re wondering which part, re-read your comment and imagine it was about your father.)
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  My father dying would be no loss to the world either. It would be a loss to me, but only to me. These are inconvenient truths, regardless of the feelings you may have about them. You and I have experienced life differently. Regardless, I have edited my comment to err on the side of caution, thank you.
  - sillysaurusx 3y ago
    I mean, that might be true, but you didn’t specify "to the world". Just that he might as well go die and nobody would care. I’m not trying to give you a hard time, I was just genuinely surprised.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Your opinion on the topic is going to be based on the aggregate harm you believe a human to have incurred, and has the potential to incur going forward. I understand we may strongly disagree on this topic. I do not miss when harmful people are gone. That is distinct from "something bad should happen to this person," which is very different and I would agree exceptionally distasteful.

dutchCourage 3y ago

I think most people would like fewer Elon Musks, not more. Your Everest example also assumes that giving an unfathomable amount of money to Musk is more beneficial to society than using it for other purposes. I find that hard to believe.

creer 3y ago
I think it was about recognizing that Everest standing in one place makes it a convenient target. While the reality is that simply guillotining that everest and spreading the blood over the entire population achieves nothing (1mm). One thing that this metaphor does not illustrate is that you cannot spread a billionaire's wealth in cash to the population to pay for rent and food. Nearly the entirety of that wealth is in shares of operating corporations. You would have to find other people / suckers to whom to sell the shares - in exchange for which billions in cash? Or you could liquidate the operating corporations, getting pennies on the dollars (again from whom?) and putting all the workers out of their job. Either way, Musk et al are convenient targets but - aside from building SpaceX and StarLink and providing entertainment, they are irrelevant to your life.