[ExI] effective altruism

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] effective altruism

 

 

 

On Mon, Jul 8, 2019 at 3:16 PM Ben Zaiboc <ben at zaiboc.net <mailto:ben at zaiboc.net> > wrote:

 

>> I always assumed that Bill Gates' philanthropic activities were a flawed attempt to somehow make up for what he's inflicted on the world in the process of making his money. 

 

>…I can't think of any billionaire who has inflicted less harm on the world when they made their money than Bill Gates…. John K Clark

 

How do we count stock fund billionehs who quietly make their money with astute investing, then get really lucky?  They didn’t harm anyone at all from what I can see.  All trades were completely voluntary, all traders chasing a common goal.  The lucky few make it big without inflicting a trace of harm to anyone.

 

How do we count guys like Peter Theil who made billions by working out the details of PayPal?  That didn’t harm anyone that I can tell, and pleeeenty of people benefitted greatly.  I don’t see counting the guy who used to ride shotgun on the armored truck to pick up the cash from the bricks and mortar stores and haul it to the bank, who now isn’t needed much (Remember those rolling bank trucks?  We don’t see them much anymore.)

 

Get a good idea, turn it into something outrageously cool, people will buy it, you make a buttload of money created from nothing, no one is harmed at all.  Now you get to pick and choose how to make your world a better place, including charities, including stockpiling gold (for that employs the miners, refiners and pocket liners) it includes hiring a bunch of guys to build you luxury stuff, for they get a fun job, feed their families, and the luxury stuff they build is still here after you perish, everyone wins, life is gooooood.

 

If we put our minds to it, we can think of plenty of people who made it big without taking anything from anyone.  This illustrates the notion that wealth does not need to be evenly distributed because it can be created in arbitrary quantities from nothing, then good people create good jobs and do good deeds with the profits.  

 

spike

 

 

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