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I think it would be a great PR idea for a billionaire to buy a few old ships and use them to drop rocks over the most popular/vulnerable fishing grounds. What h

I think it would be a great PR idea for a billionaire to buy a few old ships and use them to drop rocks over the most popular/vulnerable fishing grounds. What happened to rich people who were all not evil?

xingped 1y ago
New money outcompeted old money in the economic ecosystem and new money doesn't have the same historical fear of the proletarian guillotine.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  ...yet.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson
Grimblewald 1y ago
How do you think billionaires became billionaires? How can you extract a billion dollars of wealth in your life time, or even several generations? Certainly not by creating value. Almost certainly by destroying something else, privatising the profits and socialising the losses. E.g. mining, commercial fishing. Etc. We will never see billionairs act as a force for good because the current system only allows for evil to create such a level of private capital. I would go as far as to argue such wealth disparity is not natural and is only possible through severe perversion of the natural order.
- ninetyninenine 1y ago
  It is natural. Unfairness is the basis of civilization. In order to mobilize a group of humans for the common good they must be artificially incentivized to do it as the tragedy of the commons usually prevents people from doing these things collectively. Look up the tragedy of the commons. But in order for a group of humans to be incentivized like that there must exist an authority with enough wealth to incentivize humans to work collectively like that. That means one authority needs to get unfairly rich. And additionally there must be incentive itself for such an authority to conduct that action in itself. So basically there must be some unfair distribution of wealth for any of this to happen AND there must exist strategies that can be exploited for someone to gain that wealth. I’m not making this shit up. Literally in anthropology one of the theories about why certain places developed into advanced civilizations or not literally relied on whether or not the currency of the habitat could be used to accumulate wealth. For example fruits in Hawaii didn’t last long enough for someone to become a billionaire but grain in Europe does.
  - croes 1y ago
    Unfairness maybe be natural but billionaires are artificial.
    - ninetyninenine 1y ago
      Billionaires are the definition of unfairness. And therefore they are natural. Only From the perspective of civilization, of course, which is only a small fraction of human existence. From the perspective humanity overall, not only are billionaires unnatural, but civilization in itself is unnatural. Hence all the declining birth rates we see today.
      - oporquinho94 1y ago
        Sounds like something you just made up. Kind of moot to argue what is natural and what isn’t. Unfairness or billionaires might be natural or not - that doesn’t mean we have to accept their existence. You know what else is natural? To die at 30 from dysentery or a broken leg. Natural is a nonsense category
        ninetyninenine 1y ago
        You’re sort of confused. The person I’m responding to claimed it wasn’t natural. He came up with the category. So take your illogical argument up with him.
      - croes 1y ago
        https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/unfairness https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/unfairness No mention of billionaires. Show me one billionaires in nature beside mankind. Billionaires now and then are artificially created by the systems mankind creates. They are an anomaly
        ninetyninenine 1y ago
        This is just garbage. Not going to respond further to this.
- ds_ 1y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted, because you're absolutely right.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    The current top-10 billionaires on Forbes' list all got rich by creating value, though some like Larry Ellison certainly did both.
    - notachatbot123 1y ago
      I also create value but am not as rich. Maybe they extracted value from society by unethical means to acquire that much of it?
    - McDyver 1y ago
      I don't agree. They didn't get rich by creating value. They might have created value, but they got rich by keeping that value to themselves. I would also argue that they don't create the value themselves, but their workers do. Just like that joke: a worker is admiring the boss's Ferrari, and the boss tells him "if you continue working hard, next year I'll have 2"
      - koonsolo 1y ago
        I'm freelance, which means I'm my own boss working for a bigger company. So do I fall in the category of being exploited, or do I fall into keeping all the value for myself?
      - borski 1y ago
        > They didn't get rich by creating value. They might have created value… Odd to contradict yourself with only a period separating the contradictory statements. > I would also argue that they don't create the value themselves, but their workers do. Sure, that’s fair - but those workers also have jobs and salaries because of risk the founders took to de-risk the company before the employees joined. The level of risk required is not everyone’s cup of tea.
- koonsolo 1y ago
  I would say billionaires create value just like any other entrepreneur, but billionaires take their profitability to the extreme. So in that sense, I agree they start to lean over to exploitation. It's up to political structures and laws to keep billionaires under control. Since wealth naturally accumulates to those who already have wealth and power, I would say it's a natural process. Look at history and how many elites had huge power and wealth. Just compare the richest man now, Musk, with Augustus Caesar, Genghis Khan, etc... . Musk is a nobody. It's not up to the billionaires to keep themselves under control, it's up to us to create political structures to keep it under control. Which we are already doing (some countries better than others), and we could still improve.
gorbachev 1y ago
Ray Dalio is involved with Ocean research and education: https://www.daliophilanthropies.org/ocean/ https://www.daliophilanthropies.org/ocean/
TeMPOraL 1y ago
> What happened to rich people who were all not evil? Public opinion drove them crazy and turned them evil anyways.
easyThrowaway 1y ago
In a terminally capitalistic age (or whatever we should call the last 30 years, we are actually "capitalistic" the same way the URSS was "communist" in the '80s) being rich and being ethical are mutually exclusive.
closewith 1y ago
The truth is that only the evil remain ultra-rich as the rest use their money in ways that depletes there fortunes.
GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
> What happened to rich people who were all not evil? probably the same thing that happened to dragons and unicorns :) can anything happen to something that has never existed?
ljsprague 1y ago
Bill Gates promotes vaccination which is in some ways the opposite of "protecting nature".
borski 1y ago
They still exist. You just don’t hear about them in the news, because good news doesn’t sell ads.

xingped 1y ago

New money outcompeted old money in the economic ecosystem and new money doesn't have the same historical fear of the proletarian guillotine.

hermitcrab 1y ago
...yet.
hermitcrab 1y ago
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson

Grimblewald 1y ago

How do you think billionaires became billionaires? How can you extract a billion dollars of wealth in your life time, or even several generations? Certainly not by creating value. Almost certainly by destroying something else, privatising the profits and socialising the losses. E.g. mining, commercial fishing. Etc. We will never see billionairs act as a force for good because the current system only allows for evil to create such a level of private capital. I would go as far as to argue such wealth disparity is not natural and is only possible through severe perversion of the natural order.

ninetyninenine 1y ago
It is natural. Unfairness is the basis of civilization. In order to mobilize a group of humans for the common good they must be artificially incentivized to do it as the tragedy of the commons usually prevents people from doing these things collectively. Look up the tragedy of the commons. But in order for a group of humans to be incentivized like that there must exist an authority with enough wealth to incentivize humans to work collectively like that. That means one authority needs to get unfairly rich. And additionally there must be incentive itself for such an authority to conduct that action in itself. So basically there must be some unfair distribution of wealth for any of this to happen AND there must exist strategies that can be exploited for someone to gain that wealth. I’m not making this shit up. Literally in anthropology one of the theories about why certain places developed into advanced civilizations or not literally relied on whether or not the currency of the habitat could be used to accumulate wealth. For example fruits in Hawaii didn’t last long enough for someone to become a billionaire but grain in Europe does.
- croes 1y ago
  Unfairness maybe be natural but billionaires are artificial.
  - ninetyninenine 1y ago
    Billionaires are the definition of unfairness. And therefore they are natural. Only From the perspective of civilization, of course, which is only a small fraction of human existence. From the perspective humanity overall, not only are billionaires unnatural, but civilization in itself is unnatural. Hence all the declining birth rates we see today.
    - oporquinho94 1y ago
      Sounds like something you just made up. Kind of moot to argue what is natural and what isn’t. Unfairness or billionaires might be natural or not - that doesn’t mean we have to accept their existence. You know what else is natural? To die at 30 from dysentery or a broken leg. Natural is a nonsense category
      - ninetyninenine 1y ago
        You’re sort of confused. The person I’m responding to claimed it wasn’t natural. He came up with the category. So take your illogical argument up with him.
    - croes 1y ago
      https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/unfairness https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/unfairness No mention of billionaires. Show me one billionaires in nature beside mankind. Billionaires now and then are artificially created by the systems mankind creates. They are an anomaly
      - ninetyninenine 1y ago
        This is just garbage. Not going to respond further to this.
ds_ 1y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted, because you're absolutely right.
- adastra22 1y ago
  The current top-10 billionaires on Forbes' list all got rich by creating value, though some like Larry Ellison certainly did both.
  - notachatbot123 1y ago
    I also create value but am not as rich. Maybe they extracted value from society by unethical means to acquire that much of it?
  - McDyver 1y ago
    I don't agree. They didn't get rich by creating value. They might have created value, but they got rich by keeping that value to themselves. I would also argue that they don't create the value themselves, but their workers do. Just like that joke: a worker is admiring the boss's Ferrari, and the boss tells him "if you continue working hard, next year I'll have 2"
    - koonsolo 1y ago
      I'm freelance, which means I'm my own boss working for a bigger company. So do I fall in the category of being exploited, or do I fall into keeping all the value for myself?
    - borski 1y ago
      > They didn't get rich by creating value. They might have created value… Odd to contradict yourself with only a period separating the contradictory statements. > I would also argue that they don't create the value themselves, but their workers do. Sure, that’s fair - but those workers also have jobs and salaries because of risk the founders took to de-risk the company before the employees joined. The level of risk required is not everyone’s cup of tea.
koonsolo 1y ago
I would say billionaires create value just like any other entrepreneur, but billionaires take their profitability to the extreme. So in that sense, I agree they start to lean over to exploitation. It's up to political structures and laws to keep billionaires under control. Since wealth naturally accumulates to those who already have wealth and power, I would say it's a natural process. Look at history and how many elites had huge power and wealth. Just compare the richest man now, Musk, with Augustus Caesar, Genghis Khan, etc... . Musk is a nobody. It's not up to the billionaires to keep themselves under control, it's up to us to create political structures to keep it under control. Which we are already doing (some countries better than others), and we could still improve.

gorbachev 1y ago

Ray Dalio is involved with Ocean research and education: https://www.daliophilanthropies.org/ocean/ https://www.daliophilanthropies.org/ocean/

TeMPOraL 1y ago

> What happened to rich people who were all not evil? Public opinion drove them crazy and turned them evil anyways.

easyThrowaway 1y ago

In a terminally capitalistic age (or whatever we should call the last 30 years, we are actually "capitalistic" the same way the URSS was "communist" in the '80s) being rich and being ethical are mutually exclusive.

closewith 1y ago

The truth is that only the evil remain ultra-rich as the rest use their money in ways that depletes there fortunes.

GuinansEyebrows 1y ago

> What happened to rich people who were all not evil? probably the same thing that happened to dragons and unicorns :) can anything happen to something that has never existed?

ljsprague 1y ago

Bill Gates promotes vaccination which is in some ways the opposite of "protecting nature".

borski 1y ago

They still exist. You just don’t hear about them in the news, because good news doesn’t sell ads.