3 ms·

Agreed. What if someone with Theil's resources "brute forced" some area of therapeutic development, like Gates did with vaccines? I say brute forced because t

Agreed. What if someone with Theil's resources "brute forced" some area of therapeutic development, like Gates did with vaccines? I say brute forced because the natural tendency of investment has never tended toward vaccines. It has tended toward small molecules with large target patient populations that can pay high drug prices. But through sheer force of philanthropic will, Gates allowed something to happen that might not have happened otherwise, by virtue of economics (choose whatever theory you like).

guylhem 14y ago
Yes- that's the interesting point : when you get so much money, you can invest it in interests worthy to you, with an overhead equal to what you will tolerate and will normally be less that what a bureaucracy will tolerate - so it's more efficient than a similar sized government projects. The Gates example is perfect. We, the human race, have capital and more than before. We could be investing it in science. But we don't do it as much as we did previously. This worries me, because all the evidence seems to point to a cultural explanation. I don't know how to call it - so far the best way I've found to express it is "a reduction in the will to live", a reduction of hope in the future. The alternative explanation would be that accumulating the capital in fewer persons leads for some reason to a deceleration of investment, a notion I can't find any explanation for, since the richest would have more and more surplus as they venture away from the needs of everyday's life and therefore more and more reasons to invest it in technical progress instead of spending it on the necessities of life. There is this idea of ostentious consumption and Veblen goods, but it seemed to me that with the decreasing marginal interest (who needs a 12th Ferrari?), investment and therefore progress would be the tendancy. It's not. So I'm worried. Maybe there is a decreasing marginal interest in the will to live, that impacts investment and progress ? This could be supported by the decreasing birth rates in most countries and they get away from basic survival.

guylhem 14y ago

Yes- that's the interesting point : when you get so much money, you can invest it in interests worthy to you, with an overhead equal to what you will tolerate and will normally be less that what a bureaucracy will tolerate - so it's more efficient than a similar sized government projects. The Gates example is perfect. We, the human race, have capital and more than before. We could be investing it in science. But we don't do it as much as we did previously. This worries me, because all the evidence seems to point to a cultural explanation. I don't know how to call it - so far the best way I've found to express it is "a reduction in the will to live", a reduction of hope in the future. The alternative explanation would be that accumulating the capital in fewer persons leads for some reason to a deceleration of investment, a notion I can't find any explanation for, since the richest would have more and more surplus as they venture away from the needs of everyday's life and therefore more and more reasons to invest it in technical progress instead of spending it on the necessities of life. There is this idea of ostentious consumption and Veblen goods, but it seemed to me that with the decreasing marginal interest (who needs a 12th Ferrari?), investment and therefore progress would be the tendancy. It's not. So I'm worried. Maybe there is a decreasing marginal interest in the will to live, that impacts investment and progress ? This could be supported by the decreasing birth rates in most countries and they get away from basic survival.