this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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Asklemmy

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[โ€“] ArbitraryOasis@reddthat.com 6 points 2 years ago

My two cents:

  1. The current problem is rather that relatively many rich people are trying to do good things. The vast amount of private donations and privately funded NGOs, etc., have a strong influence within traditional, often national, political and governmental processes. This has had good and bad consequences and has been done with good and not so good intentions. Even if all consequences were good, the question remains to what extent we object to the fact that the choices of where to put money have been made by individuals and not arrived at through democratic processes, which can also lead to good or bad consequences.

  2. It is unfortunate that "effective altruism" has become the trendy moral framework for many wealthy individuals, especially within Silicon Valley, to make decisions about where they put their money and how. Effective altruism is a questionable moral theory because it is primarily about the question of "how" to act and less about why. The theory suggests no underlying value system. As a result, it remains a values-free form of consequentialism, unlike, say, utilitarianism, a form of consequentialism that does propose an underlying value, namely happiness - and thus happiness maximization as a goal. Moreover, "effective" is a vague term, which also remains relatively free to fill in.

The free-fillability of effective altruism combined with the inherently individual choices of, well, individuals, currently creates friction between wealthy individuals and democratically elected bodies.

This is imho the current issue we need to think about, regardless of any "goodness" of consequences. Where do the responsibilities, rights, duties, freedoms and liabilities of wealthy individuals start, lie and end with respect to those of democratically elected governments, other representatives of the people, and, of course, 'regular' citizens.

[โ€“] TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago

Bruce Wayne.

[โ€“] atrielienz@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Chuck Feeney out here just existing and you having the audacity to suggest that good billionaire's don't exist. 3.7 Billion dollars donated in his lifetime.

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[โ€“] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

Give me a billion dollars and I'll donate some to the ravioli foundation.

[โ€“] YeetPics@mander.xyz 4 points 2 years ago

That one brought a couple friends and his billionaire son down and unalived together.

Probably unintentional, but that one moment saved the planet a lot of hurt down the line I'm sure.

[โ€“] Uncaged_Jay@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

J.K. Rowling, amongst others, have given away so much money that they've lost their billionaire status.

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[โ€“] MargotRobbie@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Kanye West made "Graduation".

That's not to excuse the gigantic list of awful things he said and did (especially recently), but finding ONE thing a bad person did isn't hard.

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[โ€“] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The amount of exploitation and destruction of the environment that it takes to accumulate 1 billion dollars can never be offset by any amount of โ€œgoodโ€ that is done by money. If I extract resources and a exploit a community and get a billion dollars, then turn around and give every cent back to that community, surplus value will still be lost.

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[โ€“] davefischer@beehaw.org 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

About the only complaint I have about him is that he still owned slaves.

[โ€“] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago

Double dog dare me?

[โ€“] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

Michael Kelly caused Blockbuster to go out of business.

[โ€“] stiephel@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago

Some of them have died already. That is good.

[โ€“] TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Bill gates and Warren Buffet have both argued for higher taxes on the wealthy and have donated millions to solve social problems.

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