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Tax_onomy t1_iv25uj5 wrote

Reply to comment by defcon_penguin in [OC] Forbes 2022's Most Philanthropic US Billionaires by row64software

Guy believes his companies are a form of charity because "aspirationally they want to save the world". Can't make that shit up

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Killingagency t1_iv4to0k wrote

that is actually a good line of thinking from him. I know you probably disagree on first thought but hear me out.

If you have a clearly set (innovative) goal for your company it benefits humanity. Any kind of new tech brings us forward and increases our welfare. Any kind of product is usually bought when it brings value to the buyer. Products bring a better life to people, especially if they are set on progressing humanity.

So as an owner it's actually better to invest most of your money back into your company. Donating that money brings less value to humanity in those cases. kinda like: give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, learn a man fishing and he will eat for a lifetime. Donations are a fish, whereas innovations are the fishing skills.

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thurken t1_iv4wcw0 wrote

Donating is generally done to organisations so it is not giving man a fish but giving a teacher and a medic the tool to help the man learn, grow, and heal.

The difference is that these organizations are driven by the usefulness to the people while a company is driven by its profits. Only in some case profits and usefulness to the people is aligned.

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Killingagency t1_iv4y5qn wrote

>donating is generally done to organisations

Yes but these organizations do not produce anything. They just redistribute money, like you said they give out medicine or food. That is the exact equivalent of giving a man a fish.

>They are driven by usefulness while a company is driven by profits.

Yes and how do you get profit? By being useful. You trade money against value. You buy things that make your life better. Every single thing you touch has been created by a company not by a charity. All a charity does is redestribute the essential products to places who are unable to fish (produce) themselves.

I also find it funny you mention medicine and food, because all of those innovations (yes food has a lot of innovation especially in the supply chain and harvesting) are created by for profit organisations.

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st4n13l t1_ivaanfy wrote

>Any kind of new tech brings us forward and increases our welfare

>Products bring a better life to people

>Donations are a fish, whereas innovations are the fishing skills.

If you believe this shit, I've got a bridge to sell you.

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Killingagency t1_ivab0na wrote

whats there to belief lol, its the truth.

It baffles me how many people, like you, somehow can claim the oppossite whilst literally standing and living in the middle of all these innovations.

Like literally every single item you touch is the proof lol.

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st4n13l t1_ivadom8 wrote

My issue with your statement is that it's absolute. Not that new products and innovations can improve lives but rather that all products and innovations do improve lives simply by existing.

>Like literally every single item you touch is the proof lol.

Proof that products exist. Not proof all products improve our lives.

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Killingagency t1_ivajn6l wrote

Well fair enough, talking in absolutes is always easily countered. However people buy products because it provides them value.

If a product doesn't provide (enough) value either the company switches to different products or goes bancrupt.

So yeah each product that you have is proof that it improves life. But what I am mostly aiming at, is to compare each product to their counterpart 100+ years ago.

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MansfromDaVinci t1_iv4uia3 wrote

Ah yes, philanthropic leaded petrol. Innovation is not humanitarian neither is business. If the charity is shit awful and the business is very beneficial this is true otherwise it's not.

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Killingagency t1_iv4uxsz wrote

You don't understand the message. I'm not saying we do not need charities, especially during a humanitarian crisis they are essential.

However keep in mind every single thing that makes your life liveable. From your isolated house, to phones, to computers, to food and medicine, all comes from (for profit) companies. If people would have donated that money back then to charities you would be worse off.

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MansfromDaVinci t1_iv51r1w wrote

You don't understand, sometimes companies make things that improve life say insulin, sometimes they make DDT, and they don't care either way, they care about what makes a profit. Charities also make houses, food and medicine and do care about the human effect.

Every single thing that makes my life unbearable, from social media echo-chambers, through processed food, to global warming comes from for profit companies. In my country the idiot right-wing sold off the public services to companies for a song and now we are trillions poorer in lost profits, pay through the nose for them at point of access, pay again from taxes and get a worse service.

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Killingagency t1_iv55dyw wrote

ok you start, sell literally everything you own and start buying only from charities who "care" about you. I'm incredibly interested in how far you will come lol, keep me updated.

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thurken t1_iv4wt18 wrote

No they come first from for non-profit science, which is the biggest breakthrough. I'm not saying companies are useless: they leverage greed to accelerate the productionizaton, scalability, and marketing of science breakthroughs and this is useful. But here we're not talking about not having companies, but after having successful companies and making billions, giving some of these billions away. If you want to be convincing you should cite examples of billionaires not giving their billions and making our life liveable because of that.

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Killingagency t1_iv4ygc9 wrote

science comes mainly from universities which are for profit.

Also a lot of breakthrough comes from R&D, which is also science but well funded and with a clear goal.

I would much rather have Musk invest all of his wealth into R&D at SpaceX than give it to charities.

Edit: public universities are non-profit officially, but they do indirectly profit from their research by attracting more students. They are world aparts from charities.

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SpunkyBananaSpunk t1_iv4znmx wrote

Universities that do research are all not-for-profit. and universities generally don't make much money from research. There really isn't that much profit in basic research which is why it is important to have it publicly funded.

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Killingagency t1_iv50b0u wrote

Well yes and no.

State funded (public) universities are officially not-for-profit. However they are no charity and behave themselves as a for profit organization. They maximise their amount of students, maximise their quality and minimise costs, they are at risk of going bancrupt and have many deals and ties with businesess. Their quality of research indirectly attracts students and with that money.

Besides the world surrounding research is definitly for-profit mostly, journals and publishers play the key role and are generally for-profit. The only people not really earning well on their efforts are the researchers themselves.

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psyche_2099 t1_iv4x1ae wrote

Counterpoint - if that money had been donated, I and everyone else on the planet might be living reasonably comfortably, without the looming spectre of climate change coming to kill us all.

Break it down:

If everyone on the planet had more or less the same base wealth, we'd all be equally comfortable.

Innovation and drive don't come from capital, people are independently innovative, so I imagine it reasonable to think some (not all, but enough) of our creature comforts would exist.

Without the drive for profits, these billionaires wouldn't be ferociously driving their businesses to be profitable, so those companies would be more sustainable and climate change less severe. Plus wealthier people disproportionately emit CO2.

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Killingagency t1_iv4zntp wrote

We tried running that test globally multiple times it didn't work once.

Innovation comes from competition, plain and simple. Take away the competition and you take away the drive of people for more.

Besides that, it simply doesn't work like you suggest.

Let's imagine your perfect world, we will redistribute all of the wealth among all people equally.

Well the problem is, it would literally take less than an hour for all of that to become unequal. Some people would spend it outright on drugs and alcohol. Others will invest it to create something new thus creating more wealth in some form.

It's the pareto distribution a fundamental "law" that is natural in every single creative domain. The amount of goals scored in NBA? 20% of people have 80% of the goals. Same for articles published, records sold, money earned, etc etc.

You cant fight it. An equal redistribution of wealth is fundamentally not possible.

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