Item — HN Reader

I just wish for once one of these egomaniacal billionaires would actually put all their efforts and resources into solving climate change or ending world hunger.

Even his medical initiative Chan-Zuckerberg biohub is a self-congratulatory shell game. I worked in the same building as them for years, literally all they did was have parties, conferences, networking events and self-congratulatory schmooze things and never prioritized actual lab research or clinical advancements.

4 comments

Be careful what you wish for. Serious, persistent world hunger in certain countries primarily exists not due to climate change or lack of food or even lack of money but because of local violence and corruption. For example, the notorious 1980s famine in Ethiopia attracted much attention in developed countries and many people (including billionaires) donated money to help. There was a drought which made farming difficult but the main problem was a violent civil war. Armed groups used food as a weapon against the civilian population by destroying crops and stealing foreign aid.

So, if you want "these egomaniacal billionaires" to end world hunger then you're effectively asking them to form private militias and impose peace by force in the developing world. The new colonialism. Is that what you want?

(observer here)

>to end world hunger then you're effectively asking them to form private militias and impose peace by force in the developing world

Does this happen to be your space? If this comment were posted to a forum of experts, I imagine they would hotly debate whether a range of ideas would work.

I struggle to imagine the private militia concept would be suggested in that context; with that said, I know nothing.

Incentives drive outcomes, do they not? It's too easy to become a billionaire as a charlatan and too hard as somebody able to make a difference. Rather than granting Zuck nearly unlimited power and politely asking him to use it wisely if he doesn't overly mind the inconvenience, why not create a world where monsters can't have that much power in the first place?

I don’t think anyone would disagree with you there but that requires changing the nature of humanity. Which is a much less realistic outcome.

I don't think it requires changing humanity. Just put a 100% wealth tax after 1 billion. And step letting money run politics.

Yeah, but who is going to lobby for it? Certainly nobody with actual money to pay for the lobbying.

And which politician would want to vote that in? Certainly no one with any rich friends who donate to their campaigns. Which means no politician that supports this is ever going to have the budget to get elected in the first place.

And then you have the problem that you cannot just fix this in one country. Because then all these rich people will find tax loopholes to claim they’re not nationals and thus exempt from this tax. So you have to convince every rich person and every politician in every country to change.

And now that you’ve created a wealth vacuum, you need to ensure that nobody rises up to flip the system again, using their wealth to manipulate everyone into repealing these new laws.

And now we are at the stage of having to change the nature of humanity…

The problem we have is that economics is driven by scarcity and consumption; and humans are largely driven by greed (or at the very least, a desire to make life comfortable). And we can’t have a future where rich people aren’t greedy, without changing the entire way economics works. Which also requires changing human nature too.

The basic concept of an impenetrable global taxation scheme came to mind about a decade ago, but at the time I was hopeful such a thing would be possible. (Ain’t no communist, but realize nice to have public roads etc. to get your employees to work - everyone chips in -> we all make more money.)

Is it human nature to rise up once a breaking point is reached? Since I concede it is not in our nature to finish our shift at our third job and go knock on neighbors’ doors, rock the vote. (agitating to elect the least greedy capable people)

Quick, keep my hope alive!

I just find it ridiculous that we as a society have allowed CEOs to become that wealthy. It's one thing to make your money from lucky investments, and become a billionaire. It's another to get there by simply running a corporation.

I don't mind them getting uberwealthy.

I mind the tolerance of society when some of these billionaires make their money on the back of negative externalities.

When "small" conflicts, like unpermissioned surveillance they use to psychological leverage against us, literally paying for content that gets eyeballs without taking any responsibility for the misinformation and hate they are financing to get produced, actively algorithmically pushing attention getting material without taking any responsibly for misinformation or hate material they are actively promoting, when they get paid for ads, but take no responsibility for taking money from scams and promoting them, and all the other seemingly "minor" but pervasive negative externalities that they hyper scale, people get hurt, and all of society gets degraded.

As everyone points out: incentives. If you don't take perverse incentives away from billionaires, or continue to give them perverse safe harbors, then those billionaires will relentlessly reinvest and innovate, in more harms, at ever greater scales. Things we still think are minor ethical issues, are not when they are hyper scaled.

This isn't some passive, life is rough sometimes situation, that people should be expected to weather. This highly financed, highly managed psychological, social and political harm, for profit. Even if the harm is distributed and seemingly low in any given incident. It adds up to a visibly degraded society.

Somehow social media gets treated with all the lack of responsibility of a neutral web site server. But they are highly active in how they operate. They should be responsible for their very active choices.

> I just wish for once one of these egomaniacal billionaires would actually put all their efforts and resources into solving climate change or ending world hunger.

I don’t. That presupposes that they have anything to contribute to begin with.

Their wealth beyond some millions (edit: being generous) is built on exploitation. That’s not necessarily a transferrable... skill.