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Billionaires shouldn't exist
Rank: Elder Joined: 10/4/2006 Posts: 13,823 Location: Nairobi
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mv_ufanisi wrote:I expect to join the billionaire class sometime in my life by making something useful that a lot of people will enjoy.
I see no immorality in it. What's the difference between that and Eliud Kipchoge's record? Both involve a high discipline, lots of self sacrifice and creating a lot more value not just for yourself and others.
If you don't want to dream big, give the floor to those who are daring enough to go and make it happen. you are... just define the currency All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!
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Rank: Elder Joined: 10/4/2006 Posts: 13,823 Location: Nairobi
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I think it's stupid to believe that billionaires should not exist... they add value to people's lives and in return people reciprocate. it's bullshit to think that just because they used something public that everyone else had access to and failed to capitalize they owe it to the creator of that public thing. it's a very stupid mentality. We need to understand that most of their wealth is actually stocks in companies that employ thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. In the end it's a simple calculus if you created X value for Humanity, you should be allowed to capture some of that X for yourself. All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!
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Rank: Member Joined: 1/15/2010 Posts: 625
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Billionaires exist because of non-linear effects. If you don't understand that you'll miss the whole point. Non-linear effects work like this
- Two musicians compose a song using pretty much the same resources. One Song goes multi-platinum while the other doesn't even get played on the radio. The musician with the song that does super well could make even 100 Million USD from that one song while the other probably makes a loss coz of the production costs.
- Same thing for painters. Give two painters exactly the same materials. One can paint a masterpiece that becomes worth hundreds of millions while the other could end up with a painting in his basement.
- Two start ups work on different products. One goes global and achieves unicorn status while the other never gains traction.
Almost the same level of resources but very different outcomes. Technology and the internet has amplified these effects. Now you can build an app that in a short time has a billion users. In the old days that was just not possible. We have got into a situation with a lot of winner take all effects because of how interconnected the world is.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 12/9/2009 Posts: 6,592 Location: Nairobi
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tycho wrote:I am back, @2012  First, to my surprise, my odds of being a billionaire are higher than I expected. I was groomed since childhood, I passed adolescence with my script safe, by 25 I had laid the foundations of 'my greatness'. And I am in more agreement with my father There are only a few moves to go, and inshallah, I am likely to join the billionaires club. But still on the other hand, I am convinced that being of an exclusive economic class and having more wealth than others is immoral and unethical. For this I will turn to Dienes's idea of 'Psychological wealth' and Plato's Republic as key evidence along with other aspects of reason and truth, and of course, the general trend in history. Moreover, my assertion that billionairehood entails crookedness, of price and social responsibility stands. Morality is something inbuilt in you. You have a conscience, you know the difference between right and wrong. If you owned a company like Apple or Amazon or Microsoft that people you've employed keep creating great products and your company's value keeps rising to where you are a multi-billionaire, what would be wrong with that? Or like Warren Buffet who invests low and the value gains, why not? I think there's room for all kinds of people in the world some even commit suicide with their accounts full like Robbin Williams and Avicii at 28 yrs. Money might not be everything but as long as they are not blocking circulation of money then it's good with me. Very good.
BBI will solve it :)
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Rank: Elder Joined: 7/1/2011 Posts: 8,804 Location: Nairobi
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masukuma wrote:I think it's stupid to believe that billionaires should not exist... they add value to people's lives and in return people reciprocate. it's bullshit to think that just because they used something public that everyone else had access to and failed to capitalize they owe it to the creator of that public thing. it's a very stupid mentality. We need to understand that most of their wealth is actually stocks in companies that employ thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. In the end it's a simple calculus
if you created X value for Humanity, you should be allowed to capture some of that X for yourself.
Please give an example of such a thing that has been accessible to all equally but has been used by the few billionaires. Not having billionaires doesn't mean that there are no returns for work. The argument given is that of marginal productivity being the just deserts. Do you have another model?
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Rank: Elder Joined: 7/1/2011 Posts: 8,804 Location: Nairobi
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mv_ufanisi wrote:I expect to join the billionaire class sometime in my life by making something useful that a lot of people will enjoy.
I see no immorality in it. What's the difference between that and Eliud Kipchoge's record? Both involve a high discipline, lots of self sacrifice and creating a lot more value not just for yourself and others.
If you don't want to dream big, give the floor to those who are daring enough to go and make it happen. 1. There is nothing immoral by making useful things. Immorality creeps in when your accumulation of wealth creates a distortion of both economic and moral value in a context. 2. In the case of Kipchoge for example, Kipchoge was a pawn for the legitimization of a fossil fuel exploiter who may need such PR. It may be immoral to support someone who is doing something harmful just because you're going to get a billion. 3. Getting a billion doesn't appear to be about simply creating value. One thing I know for sure is that markets are controlled by the use of soft and hard power.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 7/1/2011 Posts: 8,804 Location: Nairobi
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2012 wrote:tycho wrote:I am back, @2012 First, to my surprise, my odds of being a billionaire are higher than I expected. I was groomed since childhood, I passed adolescence with my script safe, by 25 I had laid the foundations of 'my greatness'. And I am in more agreement with my father There are only a few moves to go, and inshallah, I am likely to join the billionaires club. But still on the other hand, I am convinced that being of an exclusive economic class and having more wealth than others is immoral and unethical. For this I will turn to Dienes's idea of 'Psychological wealth' and Plato's Republic as key evidence along with other aspects of reason and truth, and of course, the general trend in history. Moreover, my assertion that billionairehood entails crookedness, of price and social responsibility stands. Morality is something inbuilt in you. You have a conscience, you know the difference between right and wrong. If you owned a company like Apple or Amazon or Microsoft that people you've employed keep creating great products and your company's value keeps rising to where you are a multi-billionaire, what would be wrong with that? Or like Warren Buffet who invests low and the value gains, why not? I think there's room for all kinds of people in the world some even commit suicide with their accounts full like Robbin Williams and Avicii at 28 yrs. Money might not be everything but as long as they are not blocking circulation of money then it's good with me. Very good. If proof for this statement is the presence of a 'conscience' then we can also say that classical or operant conditioning is responsible for conscience. This is inimical to your assertion.
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Rank: User Joined: 8/15/2013 Posts: 13,237 Location: Vacuum
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tycho wrote:How are billionaires made? One Mariana Mazzucato believes that billionaires are made by their respective governments. For example Zuckerberg or Apple guys owe it to government based and government sponsored research.
I believe the same applies in our country. Name a billionaire, and there is very likely to be government support behind.
So why should governments create a few very wealthy people who have to do philanthropy - in many cases a form of misanthropy - instead of redistributing wealth to as many people as possible? This thread would be more approproate if it was titled " poverty shouldn't exist" Isn't the work of government to create a conducive environment for people to prosper? @Tycho, do you want a government which creates a conducive environment for poverty to spread? You could have made sense if you argued for equitable creation of billionaires If Obiero did it, Who Am I?
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Rank: Elder Joined: 7/1/2011 Posts: 8,804 Location: Nairobi
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Swenani wrote:tycho wrote:How are billionaires made? One Mariana Mazzucato believes that billionaires are made by their respective governments. For example Zuckerberg or Apple guys owe it to government based and government sponsored research.
I believe the same applies in our country. Name a billionaire, and there is very likely to be government support behind.
So why should governments create a few very wealthy people who have to do philanthropy - in many cases a form of misanthropy - instead of redistributing wealth to as many people as possible? This thread would be more approproate if it was titled " poverty shouldn't exist" Isn't the work of government to create a conducive environment for people to prosper? @Tycho, do you want a government which creates a conducive environment for poverty to spread? You could have made sense if you argued for equitable creation of billionaires The role of government is to help people 'come out of the cave' as Socrates put it. This 'cave' describes a kind of political economy that must be transcended. Talk, encouragement of 'billionaire' thinking is a kind of thinking that keeps humanity in the cave. It does so primarily by reliance on perceived and tangible objects. If, our ethic and aspiration is directed at the tangible object and we have non Pareto conditions - where we can only get better at the expense of others - then the more an individual makes, the more he/she must make others worse off. So I can say the title you are proposing is a soft version of the one I put. But they are equivalent in fact. Or are very likely to be equivalent - treasury could decide to borrow heavily for welfare while the sharks feast. I know we love toys, but this hasn't always been so, especially here in Africa. The colonizers found civilizations that had a different world view. And it was working well. What happened during the colonization was treachery against a philosophy that was so different from the one we think is necessary or the sweetest that can be.
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Rank: New-farer Joined: 2/12/2019 Posts: 58
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I understand that people grudge billionaires, as they understand that they don't need so much money. Frankly, a lot of billionaires made their fortunes with dirty, from the law point, methods. But you need to fight not with billionaires, but with law gaps that allow them to make such fortunes. If a billionaire made money with own skills, then this is excellent.
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