Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 136 posts

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#71

Post by ryandrake »

bilbo0s wrote: post #45
toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who have the skills to accumulate wealth at this scale don’t have the skills to give it away. They are extraction minded, and philanthropy is a direct contradiction to this mental model. Keep some to stay comfortable of course, but you have to be comfortable with your status, influence, and wealth substantially declining as a second order effect of the distribution logistics, and that’s just not who these…

MacKenzie Scott can’t give her wealth away fast enough, for example To be fair, neither can Bill Gates. So it points to something fundamental about the way in which wealth works that these people can't give money away fast enough. Doesn't mean it's a problem though. Having money flowing up to Gates, Bezos, Scott and then having them give it away is probably the best we can do in the current legal and regulatory envir…

Another fundamental that it points to is that we've somehow set up a system where instead of the general public determining (and funding) the public good through democracy, a handful of rich people simply decide what counts as a public good and steer their money toward those causes.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#72

Post by dontlaugh »

ch4s3 wrote: post #50
dontlaugh wrote: post #2

Bill Gates pledged the same and yet his wealth hasn't reduced. Worse, the philanthropy has been targetted ideologically (like encouraging private schools) and somehow keeps ending up favouring companies he has ownership in.

I really don't get the animus against private schools. Surely a one size fits all public school can't possibly best serve the interests of every possible student. Furthermore in a pluralistic society, shouldn't we tolerate people's different preferences in education, especially those who opt for more religious education?

There's no reason public education can't be religious, if that is desired by the population in a region. Both ethnic and religious public schools exist in many countries, to cater to minorities.

The problem is charity with the privatising of schooling as a condition. Not unlike charity with the purchase of a specific type of seed sold by a specific company as a condition.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#73

Post by pmoriarty »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #66
nicoburns wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand how you can possibly think that someone’s contribution to the world is so outsized as to be worth millions of times that of say a teacher or a care worker. Would the world really be that much a worse place without bezos? I actually think there’s a decent argument to be made that it would be better… Have you just swallowed the idea that the market value of something is equal to its value to society?…

They deserve their wealth because you keep buying and using their products. If everyone who hated billionaires stopped using amazon tomorrow, Bezos would be in serious trouble. But alas, Bezos offers a service that enormous amounts of people seemingly can't quit using, which to me (and the market that prices it), is infact worth hundreds of billions. I haven't used amazon in 2 years. I'm sick of sitting in peoples ap…

"They deserve their wealth because you keep buying and using their products."

Their products or the products of the people who work for them?

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#75

Post by ck2 »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #36
ck2 wrote: post #26

If someone can accumulate that much wealth in a lifetime it means way too much was extracted from each individual. Then they distribute it back to mend the damage as they see fit, not as society deems needed. I'm not against millionaires but the exponential level up to billionaires probably shouldn't exist because it means the balance in the system is beyond broken. No-one has contributed billions of value to society…

gates, steve, musk, etc all have you may not like them, but a lack of imagination is no reason to condemn others

I don't think you understand how massive a billion is compared to a million.

No-one has contributed billions of value to society.

Most scientists who have cured diseases are not billionaires.

But for example the founder of instacart is a billionare.

That should not be possible.

It means the system is beyond broken and it's being exploited.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#76

Post by ch4s3 »

nevinera wrote: post #61
ch4s3 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get the animus against private schools. Surely a one size fits all public school can't possibly best serve the interests of every possible student. Furthermore in a pluralistic society, shouldn't we tolerate people's different preferences in education, especially those who opt for more religious education?

Most of us don't have a problem with _private schools_, just with state money or charity being aimed at them. Private schools are fundamentally capitalistic - they serve their (generally wealthy) patrons, not society.

> Most of us don't have a problem with _private schools_, just with state money or charity being aimed at them.

State money already goes to a dizzying array of non-profit and religious institutions. Anywhere from local homeless and addiction services to the University of Notre Dame. Why should primary and secondary schools be excluded?

> Private schools are fundamentally capitalistic

This is a meaningless statement. The VST majority of private schools in the US are non-profits.

> they serve their (generally wealthy) patrons, not society.

Religious schools in the US started out as a cheap way to educate the poor in reading. Catholic schools in particular still serve poorer communities and are low cost. Residential assignment in public schools comes from a legacy of segregation and anti-catholic laws. The wealth will always have their pick of education for their children and always have. Denying funding for poor students that want to opt out of their shitty assigned schools just perpetuates injustice.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#77

Post by happytoexplain »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #66
nicoburns wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand how you can possibly think that someone’s contribution to the world is so outsized as to be worth millions of times that of say a teacher or a care worker. Would the world really be that much a worse place without bezos? I actually think there’s a decent argument to be made that it would be better… Have you just swallowed the idea that the market value of something is equal to its value to society?…

They deserve their wealth because you keep buying and using their products. If everyone who hated billionaires stopped using amazon tomorrow, Bezos would be in serious trouble. But alas, Bezos offers a service that enormous amounts of people seemingly can't quit using, which to me (and the market that prices it), is infact worth hundreds of billions. I haven't used amazon in 2 years. I'm sick of sitting in peoples ap…

>They deserve their wealth because you keep buying and using their products.

Can you elaborate on this? It doesn't follow at all to me. If somebody makes billions and another person makes thousands, but the billionaire does not work proportionally hard or deliver proportional value to society or does not behave morally, and I buy products from both people, you may (and should) criticize me. However, there's no logical reason that means the billionaire "deserves" all their wealth, if we are using the word "deserve" by its normal conversational definition. The offloading of 100% of responsibility to the consumer seems like a really weak scape-goat based on emotions.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#78

Post by ch4s3 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #65
ch4s3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a business that provides useful products and services isn't "extraction minded." Most of the people I've know over the years who start businesses do so because they want to be the one making decisions and having the ultimate responsibility. A lot of them are very community minded.

We are talking different scales. Billionaires vs your run of the mill millionaires.

I mean, Bezos started Amazon for a relatively modest amount of funding in a garage and built the "everything store" with a relentless focus on customer service. It's not like he's some 19th century oil baron. I don't want to fall into the trap of reading a mans mind from a distance, but you claim of "extractive mindset" is utterly unsupported and ideological.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#79

Post by pmoriarty »

ck2 wrote: post #75
throwaway98797 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gates, steve, musk, etc all have you may not like them, but a lack of imagination is no reason to condemn others

I don't think you understand how massive a billion is compared to a million. No-one has contributed billions of value to society. Most scientists who have cured diseases are not billionaires. But for example the founder of instacart is a billionare. That should not be possible. It means the system is beyond broken and it's being exploited.

That someone can make billions of dollars by creating a website while teachers and other workers who actually help people often risk their lives for shitty pay is sheer insanity.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#80

Post by ryandrake »

gavinray wrote: post #13

Quoted post unavailable.

Here's how I think about it: Would you be OK if a handful of people in the world suddenly became septillionaires? A septillionaire could give $1trillion to every person on the planet every year for 100 years and still have 99.99% of his money left. How much power and influence over the world would someone like that have, while the rest of us have comparatively close to zero net worth and zero income? There are currently no upper limits in our capitalist system, so it's entirely possible for a person to have $1e24 or one day accumulate it.

I think almost everyone would think this should not be allowed, for obvious reasons. So, therefore there is some wealth threshold beyond which it is not good for society to let a few people accumulate. So, what is that threshold?

Post reply on HN