Billionaires Build • Hacker News Board

Re: Billionaires Build

#271

Post by generalizations » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

drewrv wrote: post #235

This essay uses a weak straw-man: the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people I think the "principle of charity" or "steel-man" criticism of billionaires isn't that every single billionaire is directly exploiting people. It would be closer to something like this: The problem is that our society has feedback loops that make it hard to escape poverty, and feedback loops that let the wealthy amass more…

> It doesn't have to be this way, it's a product of our laws and can be changed

I don't think any of your three statements are true, based on my (limited) knowledge of history. Far as I know, the only way to break the feedback loop is to restart it - a revolution or the like - and build something in its place that maximizes the time until the loop has to be broken again.

If anything, I'd guess that it's human nature to try and amass power/money/influence/cows, and the more you have the easier it is to get more. That's not a fault with our laws, it's what people do - on average, in aggregate.

Re: Billionaires Build

#272

Post by yetanothermonk » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #245

yetanothermonk wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way I could hear people interpreting your comment--I agree on the framing point by the way, there's also external framing now with a hate-billionaires view--is that the steps to get to the thesis make sense but the thesis is not palatable. I'm not sure you'd agree with that interpretation of your comment; I'd love to hear what the problem is with that interpretation

I actually do agree with that interpretation. My beliefs ultimately imply that there's nothing wrong with being a billionaire, but that's not a conclusion I find palatable so it's not something I'm particularly interested in defending on its own merits. I'd say it's like writing an argument to decrease penalties for shoplifting and titling it "Don't Punish Thieves". It's not wrong, but it's certainly not a productive…

That's interesting and I think I can understand being in that same frame of mind. I wonder, if the implication doesn't match up with what you want the implication to be, how do you break that stalemate?

Here, I guess I'm of the belief that there's nothing wrong with billionaires; the wrong thing is how little there is for a billion people in the world.

Re: Billionaires Build

#273

Post by cactus2093 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #266

drewrv wrote: post #235

This essay uses a weak straw-man: the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people I think the "principle of charity" or "steel-man" criticism of billionaires isn't that every single billionaire is directly exploiting people. It would be closer to something like this: The problem is that our society has feedback loops that make it hard to escape poverty, and feedback loops that let the wealthy amass more…

it's not a weak straw man. There are people who say this: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/aoc-accuses-...

And worth pointing out, there are not just random people saying it but members of the US Congress with many millions of supporters.

Re: Billionaires Build

#274

Post by simonebrunozzi » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #41

My first thought was that PG made a mistake blending these two topics since the discussion of what works in a YC interview is being short-circuited by the reflexive political discussion of billionaires. My second thought is that it wasn't a mistake.

Ah, I see what you did here. Brilliant.

Re: Billionaires Build

#275

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

QueensGambit wrote: post #15

daedalus6174 wrote: post #7

One mistake pg makes here is assuming that to be an exploitative billionaire you have to be good at exploiting people or have personal manipulative qualities. You don’t. Owning a large company in a capitalist system is inherently exploitative. Simply owning a large company and taking surplus value from a large number of people is exploitation.

"Simply owning a large company and taking surplus value from a large number of people is exploitation." Who are these large number of people? Customers or suppliers? In socialism, customers are usually held captive because of limited suppliers. In capitalism, suppliers are usually held captive because of fierce competition to get customers. Neither sounds inherent exploitation by the entrepreneur.

I believe that the claim is that the workers are exploited, because they produced value but received less than the value they produced. And that does sound like exploitation. But consider the alternative.

Let's say that every worker was paid for the full value that they produced. That would mean that the profit of every company was $0, because the workers got all the value produced. How many companies would we have? Probably not very many. Risk my capital to start a business, for a return of $0? Yeah, no. I'll pass. So will most people.

And that would mean that we wouldn't have the things that large businesses produce, from computers to airplanes to vaccines.

Even for the workers, is that a net win? I don't think so.

Re: Billionaires Build

#276

Post by dang » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

throwaway09223 wrote: post #259

drewrv wrote: post #235

This essay uses a weak straw-man: the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people I think the "principle of charity" or "steel-man" criticism of billionaires isn't that every single billionaire is directly exploiting people. It would be closer to something like this: The problem is that our society has feedback loops that make it hard to escape poverty, and feedback loops that let the wealthy amass more…

This isn't a straw man, it is an extremely common belief and it deserves to be addressed and debunked. My social media is stuffed to the brim with people posting exactly this sentiment. It is true that there are other, more reasonable beliefs.

I don't disagree, but can you please not create accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Re: Billionaires Build

#277

Post by thiagotomei » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

hnracer wrote: post #224

chillwaves wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe in meritocracy? Because ownership of that amount of wealth is surely going to skew the entire system. How long before we just have a permanent ruling class, and how does that move humanity forward?

Familial wealth disperses and collapses pretty quickly, eventually being split up between 2 to the n heirs thereabouts. Irrespective, the wealth is the property of an individual who earned that wealth through voluntary exchange. If they want to give it all to their kids, to a charitable cause, or just destroy it, that should be their right as owners of that property, it is not just for the state to steal that propert…

This is a common hard-libertarian talking point.

Consider point 13.6 of Scott Alexander's (Slate Star Codex) Non-Libertarian FAQ:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-liberta...

If you assume that "individual property earned through voluntary exchange" is the ultimate value to be upheld, you may end up having to defend a hellscape world. You need at least to temper it with something along the lines of the Lockean proviso.

Re: Billionaires Build

#278

Post by ohashi » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

tekdude wrote: post #207

I think one issue with this viewpoint is that while a successful company may be doing wonderful things for its users... not everyone is a user. Even the users themselves are not users 100% of the time. So, even if a company is not actively exploiting its workforce, customers, or suppliers, it might be exploiting its non-users without ever giving them much opportunity to object. Again, Airbnb is probably the best exam…

Wonder if we will look at this like climate change that the oil companies knew about decades ago.

Re: Billionaires Build

#279

Post by eloff » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

IanCal wrote: post #262

eloff wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that entrepreneurial endeavors are not a zero sum game. Politicians and people sometimes act like billionaires are hoarding a big slice of pie selfishly for themselves, but the reality is they made the pie bigger by adding value to the world. By the definition of how markets work they had to have added more value then they got compensated. This is how it works with idealized new products. With hi…

Those can both be true. If I provide enough value to buy a thousand lifetimes worth of food and sit in my castle with it while people outside my moat starve - am I not selfishly hoarding that food?

Yes. A lot of billionaires do choose to share, currently that's up to them. I think we can should make laws to put higher taxes on the rich, but in practice it's tough to do that well. Often they just move themselves or their money to get around that.

One has to balance harvesting eggs com the golden goose with not killing it or driving it away.

Taxing just billionaires specifically wouldn't do much as there aren't many of them. It would have to be a broader tax of some variety.

Re: Billionaires Build

#280

Post by ohashi » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

austinpena wrote: post #206

RestlessMind wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an amazing nugget which should be the context for any controversial discussion about "Billionaires". I have utmost respect for the former category, but I also believe that the later category should not exist (as in those people should exist but they should not have any unearned billions and all the unearned power and privileges that come with it).

You don’t believe that if someone makes billions they should be able to pass it on to their children?

Why? Do they need to pass all of it on? If they made billions, wouldn't 10% be enough for a lifetime while 90% could be returned to the public?