4 ms·

>Gates rightly (and self-servingly) also points out that Piketty does not consider philanthropy as a means to correct some of capitalism's imbalances. It certa

by bluthru 12y ago

>Gates rightly (and self-servingly) also points out that Piketty does not consider philanthropy as a means to correct some of capitalism's imbalances. It certainly helps, but in a well-designed system philanthropy wouldn't be required. Philanthropy is a symptom rather than a cure.

enraged_camel 12y ago
I would posit that it is also a cure, but for the person's conscience. One of the reasons people engage in philanthropy is because it makes them feel good about themselves. This especially holds true for Bill Gates. He was a ruthless capitalist for decades before he realized that's not the kind of legacy he wants to leave behind. (I don't say that to cheapen his efforts -- on the contrary it makes me respect him more.) You pose a great question though: would philanthropy exist in a well-designed system? To answer this we must first decide what "well-designed" means, but I'm sure everyone could agree that it would involve a system in which poverty does not exist (since poor people are the primary recipients of the vast majority of philanthropy). So then the question becomes: if there were no poor people, would we have philanthropy? I think we still would for the reasons I described above: at the end of the day, helping others makes us feel good about ourselves, and there are a lot of people who need help for whatever reason above and beyond a wealth transfer.
- dropit_sphere 12y ago
  >You pose a great question though: would philanthropy exist in a well-designed system? I'm convinced that it is only the good faith of enough actors that allows any system to function at all. Every tax or subsidy fixes one problem while creating another. Not to say we shouldn't have them---externalities should be addressed---but that a system "perfectly designed for outcomes humans like" is equivalent to creating strong AI that happens to run on a market economy.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > but that a system "perfectly designed for outcomes humans like" is equivalent to creating strong AI that happens to run on a market economy. Isn't that assuming that "market economy" is something "perfectly designed for outcomes humans like"? I disagree with treating current economic system as something inherently optimal - it has a lot of problems, all of which we can see even today. I agree with the equivalence to creating strong AI, but I don't think it would run on anything close to a market economy we have today.
    - dropit_sphere 12y ago
      I think we agree. My intent was not to laud the market so much as to kill the hope of a perfectly-designed system by showing that the thing requires Elua to make it really "work out well" from our perspective. We do a whole lot of stuff to satisfy Gnon---marketing, sales, firing people, etc. Sometimes that happens to also satisfy Elua, like when we get iPhones. But Gnon MUST be resisted sometimes, and I think philanthropy is one of those times.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        I see now that we do indeed agree. Philanthropy is what happens when you manage to escape the reach of Gnon, even for a little while. People like Bill&Melinda are able to directly address the needs that neither markets nor governments can satisfy. > I'm convinced that it is only the good faith of enough actors that allows any system to function at all. I think that how many actors displaying good faith we accumulate in a single system is a degree to which we have control over Gnon. It's actually sad that as societies instead of working to increase trust in one another, we're trying to take it out of the equation. We're literally sacrificing our futures to Moloch in exchange for temporary security. The less a system is interruptable by humans enforcing human values, the more any error in encoding those values in the system is squeezing us (hence, FAI problem), and we're both aware of how such systems tend to evolve. ETA The way some people don't understand how we're screwing ourselves over with market economy reminds me of a thing I learned in high school physics class. The equation for potential energy in a gravity field goes like E = -G m_a m_b / r, with r being the distance between the two attrated bodies. But when you're learning about gravity for the first time, you're being taught the E = mgh equation, where g is a constant acceleration and h is the height above the surface. In one case, energy is proportional to 1/r; in the other, it is proportional to r. So how do you reconcile those two views, and how is it that people didn't stumble upon the first equation before the second one, and that we can do a lot of good computations with it? When you draw a graph of E(r) (first equation) you'll get a hyperbola. But if you zoom in hard enough, to the area of typical values of r we encounter daily, you'll see a straight line. Gravitational attraction linearizes pretty well in the range of parameters we're used to deal with every day. In a similar way, there is a disconnect between human values and the market that is supposed to help optimize for them. They are aligned, but not perfectly. Many people seem to have zoomed in so far that they see a straight line where they should see a hyperbole, a growing deviation from desired course. This is exactly what we're seeing today. To put it bluntly, market economy, or Moloch in general, has outlived its usefulness. It is optimizing values increasingly decoupled from our own, so it's high time to start thinking how to get rid of it.

by bluthru 12y ago

enraged_camel 12y ago

I would posit that it is also a cure, but for the person's conscience. One of the reasons people engage in philanthropy is because it makes them feel good about themselves. This especially holds true for Bill Gates. He was a ruthless capitalist for decades before he realized that's not the kind of legacy he wants to leave behind. (I don't say that to cheapen his efforts -- on the contrary it makes me respect him more.) You pose a great question though: would philanthropy exist in a well-designed system? To answer this we must first decide what "well-designed" means, but I'm sure everyone could agree that it would involve a system in which poverty does not exist (since poor people are the primary recipients of the vast majority of philanthropy). So then the question becomes: if there were no poor people, would we have philanthropy? I think we still would for the reasons I described above: at the end of the day, helping others makes us feel good about ourselves, and there are a lot of people who need help for whatever reason above and beyond a wealth transfer.

dropit_sphere 12y ago
>You pose a great question though: would philanthropy exist in a well-designed system? I'm convinced that it is only the good faith of enough actors that allows any system to function at all. Every tax or subsidy fixes one problem while creating another. Not to say we shouldn't have them---externalities should be addressed---but that a system "perfectly designed for outcomes humans like" is equivalent to creating strong AI that happens to run on a market economy.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > but that a system "perfectly designed for outcomes humans like" is equivalent to creating strong AI that happens to run on a market economy. Isn't that assuming that "market economy" is something "perfectly designed for outcomes humans like"? I disagree with treating current economic system as something inherently optimal - it has a lot of problems, all of which we can see even today. I agree with the equivalence to creating strong AI, but I don't think it would run on anything close to a market economy we have today.
  - dropit_sphere 12y ago
    I think we agree. My intent was not to laud the market so much as to kill the hope of a perfectly-designed system by showing that the thing requires Elua to make it really "work out well" from our perspective. We do a whole lot of stuff to satisfy Gnon---marketing, sales, firing people, etc. Sometimes that happens to also satisfy Elua, like when we get iPhones. But Gnon MUST be resisted sometimes, and I think philanthropy is one of those times.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      I see now that we do indeed agree. Philanthropy is what happens when you manage to escape the reach of Gnon, even for a little while. People like Bill&Melinda are able to directly address the needs that neither markets nor governments can satisfy. > I'm convinced that it is only the good faith of enough actors that allows any system to function at all. I think that how many actors displaying good faith we accumulate in a single system is a degree to which we have control over Gnon. It's actually sad that as societies instead of working to increase trust in one another, we're trying to take it out of the equation. We're literally sacrificing our futures to Moloch in exchange for temporary security. The less a system is interruptable by humans enforcing human values, the more any error in encoding those values in the system is squeezing us (hence, FAI problem), and we're both aware of how such systems tend to evolve. ETA The way some people don't understand how we're screwing ourselves over with market economy reminds me of a thing I learned in high school physics class. The equation for potential energy in a gravity field goes like E = -G m_a m_b / r, with r being the distance between the two attrated bodies. But when you're learning about gravity for the first time, you're being taught the E = mgh equation, where g is a constant acceleration and h is the height above the surface. In one case, energy is proportional to 1/r; in the other, it is proportional to r. So how do you reconcile those two views, and how is it that people didn't stumble upon the first equation before the second one, and that we can do a lot of good computations with it? When you draw a graph of E(r) (first equation) you'll get a hyperbola. But if you zoom in hard enough, to the area of typical values of r we encounter daily, you'll see a straight line. Gravitational attraction linearizes pretty well in the range of parameters we're used to deal with every day. In a similar way, there is a disconnect between human values and the market that is supposed to help optimize for them. They are aligned, but not perfectly. Many people seem to have zoomed in so far that they see a straight line where they should see a hyperbole, a growing deviation from desired course. This is exactly what we're seeing today. To put it bluntly, market economy, or Moloch in general, has outlived its usefulness. It is optimizing values increasingly decoupled from our own, so it's high time to start thinking how to get rid of it.