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Because this has really bad unintended consequences written all over it. When the people controlling a significant percentage of the world's wealth are more im

by e40 13y ago

Because this has really bad unintended consequences written all over it. When the people controlling a significant percentage of the world's wealth are more importantly concerned with their immortality than the well being of the rest of us, it will come out in many, many ways, and a lot of them won't be good for the rest of us.

smsm42 13y ago
Why you think that other people should be primarily concerned with your well being? I think your well being is your concern, and faulting some imaginary billionaire for not being concerned enough about you looks like extreme form of entitlement for me. But I notice you can't name even one way that would be bad. All you can do is a vague prediction "oh, it would be so bad you won't believe". Not really convincing. The amount of wealth controlled by top 1% in US stayed essentially the same for the last 100 years - about 1/3 (with some fluctuations, but roughly stayed around that). Some say US has an unusually high inequality, so if we take it as a top boundary, we can say that in the world top 1% controls no more than 1/3 of the wealth. Yet while one can say there are a lot of problems, no unimaginable horrors came out of it and society wasn't destroyed - on the contrary, life of virtually every person in all the strata of the society has become better.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  "The amount of wealth controlled by top 1% in US stayed essentially the same for the last 100 years - about 1/3 (with some fluctuations, but roughly stayed around that). Some say US has an unusually high inequality, so if we take it as a top boundary, we can say that in the world top 1% controls no more than 1/3 of the wealth. Yet while one can say there are a lot of problems, no unimaginable horrors came out of it and society wasn't destroyed - on the contrary, life of virtually every person in all the strata of the society has become better." I don't think that statistically follows - I've not done the math, but it reminds me quite a bit of Simpson's Paradox.

by e40 13y ago

smsm42 13y ago

Why you think that other people should be primarily concerned with your well being? I think your well being is your concern, and faulting some imaginary billionaire for not being concerned enough about you looks like extreme form of entitlement for me. But I notice you can't name even one way that would be bad. All you can do is a vague prediction "oh, it would be so bad you won't believe". Not really convincing. The amount of wealth controlled by top 1% in US stayed essentially the same for the last 100 years - about 1/3 (with some fluctuations, but roughly stayed around that). Some say US has an unusually high inequality, so if we take it as a top boundary, we can say that in the world top 1% controls no more than 1/3 of the wealth. Yet while one can say there are a lot of problems, no unimaginable horrors came out of it and society wasn't destroyed - on the contrary, life of virtually every person in all the strata of the society has become better.

dllthomas 13y ago
"The amount of wealth controlled by top 1% in US stayed essentially the same for the last 100 years - about 1/3 (with some fluctuations, but roughly stayed around that). Some say US has an unusually high inequality, so if we take it as a top boundary, we can say that in the world top 1% controls no more than 1/3 of the wealth. Yet while one can say there are a lot of problems, no unimaginable horrors came out of it and society wasn't destroyed - on the contrary, life of virtually every person in all the strata of the society has become better." I don't think that statistically follows - I've not done the math, but it reminds me quite a bit of Simpson's Paradox.