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The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

johnkay.com

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Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#31

Post by xenophanes »

streetnigga wrote: post #30
xenophanes wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big SENS fan here. Good question. A lot of the reason is that people do philanthropy to gain various types of status and reputation. It's often a social action. Investing in SENS wouldn't impress their friends in the right way, while various other causes optimize for social signaling. Yachts and social media companies are a bit different. The yachts are for fun in addition to being a social signal that impresses some…

Yachts are also good for committing manslaughter[0]. This is coming from the wealthy man who thinks focus on the wealthy means a Kristallnacht. "Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent,' namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich," Perkins, a founding memb…

He didn't say that yachts are good for manslaughter or that manslaughter is good.

I don't want to debate politics with you because you don't come off as seeking a rational open-minded discussion.

I'm commenting primarily to make it clear that I do not agree with you. I didn't want to leave that ambiguous since both your and my comments about the rich were primarily negative in this thread.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#32

Post by xenophanes »

nostromo wrote: post #14
FD3SA wrote: post #12

I've always been baffled by the investment choices of billionaires. If you accept an empirical view of the universe, no matter what you do, you will eventually die. Your experiences of the world will cease to exist. Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.). At first, this might sound repulsive. The idea of a group of elites discovering and hoard…

Having kids is the old-school form of immortality. I imagine many of those other billionaires are thinking about their dynasty.

Their kids will need SENS ~30 years after they do.

I get that the typical plan is to have a dynasty via grand kids, great grand kids, etc, but it's dumb to ignore SENS.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#33

Post by gms7777 »

FD3SA wrote: post #12

I've always been baffled by the investment choices of billionaires. If you accept an empirical view of the universe, no matter what you do, you will eventually die. Your experiences of the world will cease to exist. Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.). At first, this might sound repulsive. The idea of a group of elites discovering and hoard…

>If you accept an empirical view of the universe, no matter what you do, you will eventually die. Your experiences of the world will cease to exist. Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.).

By claiming that the only rational investment would be life extension, you're making the implicit assumption that your life and experiences are worth something (otherwise, why bother extending your life?). If we agree there, why are hedonistic pursuits that (arguably) increase the quality of your life, any less rational than investments that increase the quanitity of life?

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#34

Post by exratione »

xenophanes wrote: post #23
FD3SA wrote: post #12

I've always been baffled by the investment choices of billionaires. If you accept an empirical view of the universe, no matter what you do, you will eventually die. Your experiences of the world will cease to exist. Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.). At first, this might sound repulsive. The idea of a group of elites discovering and hoard…

Big SENS fan here. Good question. A lot of the reason is that people do philanthropy to gain various types of status and reputation. It's often a social action. Investing in SENS wouldn't impress their friends in the right way, while various other causes optimize for social signaling. Yachts and social media companies are a bit different. The yachts are for fun in addition to being a social signal that impresses some…

Jason Hope is demonstrating that you can generate status from funding SENS. More of this would be a good thing:

http://www.jasonhope.com

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#35

Post by mturmon »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #22
FD3SA wrote: post #12

I've always been baffled by the investment choices of billionaires. If you accept an empirical view of the universe, no matter what you do, you will eventually die. Your experiences of the world will cease to exist. Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.). At first, this might sound repulsive. The idea of a group of elites discovering and hoard…

Because apparently even billionaires haven't managed quite the same form of sophomoricism as you , in which you trick yourself into believing that one cannot actually value things outside of one's own subjective experiences and personal lifespan. They're not irrational, they just care about things outside themselves.

Fascinating. I will have to perform significantly more logical introspection to understand this peculiar phenomenon.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#36

Post by eli_gottlieb »

xenophanes wrote: post #28
sliverstorm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parent was not arguing they should be funding SENS to do good. My parent's premise was, why are these people not acting selfishly? Further, that funding SENS would be the most rational selfish choice. Funding SENS for the sake of your children is not selfish, so it's irrelevant to the question of why are billionaires not investing in SENS to extend their own lives, as the rational selfish choice

If you care about your children, then hugely benefitting them is both selfish (changes the world in a way you personally prefer) and rational. Whatever the OP meant I think it's important.

"Selfish" is usually used to mean "not valuing things outside oneself".

This whole thread is why I find the "rationalist" community obnoxious. We have to turn it into a circlejerk about white American salariat wishes for immortality? Come on, let's spend 10 whole minutes acknowledging that other people with their own worldviews really do exist.

EDIT: DERP, part of a sentence was applied to the wrong thread.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#37

Post by acd »

We need to reform the banking sector, the too big to fail banks that creates credit out of nothing and gets saved by the state when they make misstakes. When the 1% superrich can't create money out thin air we will have a better middle class.

See the GDP per capita vs median income development on the link below http://lanekenworthy.net/2008/09/03/slow-income-growth-for-m...

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#38

Post by xenophanes »

exratione wrote: post #34
xenophanes wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big SENS fan here. Good question. A lot of the reason is that people do philanthropy to gain various types of status and reputation. It's often a social action. Investing in SENS wouldn't impress their friends in the right way, while various other causes optimize for social signaling. Yachts and social media companies are a bit different. The yachts are for fun in addition to being a social signal that impresses some…

Jason Hope is demonstrating that you can generate status from funding SENS. More of this would be a good thing: http://www.jasonhope.com

FWIW I'm not convinced that more appeasement of status signaling stuff would be a good thing, even if that kind of compromise got SENS some more money in the short term.

Living longer is great but living better is also very important. Social games waste so much of many people's lives.

Re: The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper

#40

Post by streetnigga »

xenophanes wrote: post #31
streetnigga wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yachts are also good for committing manslaughter[0]. This is coming from the wealthy man who thinks focus on the wealthy means a Kristallnacht. "Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent,' namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich," Perkins, a founding memb…

He didn't say that yachts are good for manslaughter or that manslaughter is good. I don't want to debate politics with you because you don't come off as seeking a rational open-minded discussion. I'm commenting primarily to make it clear that I do not agree with you. I didn't want to leave that ambiguous since both your and my comments about the rich were primarily negative in this thread.

If the topic is use of wealth, 'social signals' then monies spent on Yacht races by owners like the one linked is applicable. I do not think there could be a bigger waste of resources than 'social signalling' by the wealthy with Yacht based fundraisers.

Essentially I would go the more direct route, not with events that allow you to use your toys. Not sure where you getting signals of irrationality or lack of open minded discussion. Is it because the word Yacht brings up images of extreme waste instead of philanthropy, resulting in me linking to the likes of Mr Kristallnacht? How well is that social signalling going if this happens to people?

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