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points by modo_mario 1 day ago | 0 comments

>The point is a rising standard of life.

You or the farmer you buy food from competes for farmland with Bil Gates. You or the one providing your house builder with wood competes for lumber forest with Alex Karp.

The list goes on and on.

It appears trough technological innovation the standards of life rise in many ways but trough innequality it can affect the standards/ affordability of our basic needs.

[–] arjie 1 day ago

EMA food prices in number of hours of work required to sustain oneself and they have fallen for half a century. Bill Gates has not only been alive for the entirety of that period but he has been leading Microsoft for the majority of it. If this is how the list is (and I’m simply going to judge it by its first element) then it seems to provide stronger evidence against equality being a prime goal, considering wealth equality has dropped during that period.

[–] modo_mario 1 day ago

Yes and yields have gone up, etc.

I'm not going to point at bill gates buying and leasing out loads farmland and attribute to it new corn strains, better pesticides and higher feed conversion chicken breeds.

You may as well be calling for soviet style state controll the way consolidation, top down ownership is and competition mechanics are dismissed or praised depending on the standpoint.

[–] dukeyukey 1 day ago

If Bill Gates offers megamoney for farmland, and Alex Karp offers megamoney for lumber, then it encourages the creation of more farmland and lumber.

[–] haizhung 1 day ago

You got it backwards. Bill Gates and Alex Karp don’t pay megamoney for lumber or farm land. They consume a bit more than the average person, but not by the same %age as they are richer.

But everyone else can’t afford basic necessities or furniture anymore. And so being a farmer or a woodworker or whatever becomes a less attractive job, less people will do it, and you will have a harder time finding someone fixing your plumbing. Or pay a premium.

Instead, the ultra-wealthy are demanding extreme luxury, and so a would-be farmer is now a hotel page boy carrying around some rich dudes’ luggage, hoping for a tip.

[–] modo_mario 1 day ago

Just to be sure. Are you being sarcastic?

[–] eastbound 1 day ago

Bill Gates buys huge amounts of land precisely for ecology: Beef meat causes global warming in a disproportionate way compared to chicken or even disproportionate per euros or per gram of protein compared to lentils. All ecologists agree that beef/red meat should disappear from our plates if we want to overcrowd the Earth with more equal people, and along with erradicating a hugely deathly disease that is malaria during his lifetime, Bill Gates will also have accomplished that dream too.

I find a lot of consistency of his audience in hating him for the very reason that he implements his audience's wishes. To this audience, there is no redeeming oneself.

[–] modo_mario 1 day ago

>Bill Gates buys huge amounts of land precisely for ecology

Yes and he was gonna give a vast share of his wealth away for the good of the many over 5 years and then tripled it. woops. Let us not pretend farmland has not been a good investment in those parts. Let us be honest. Almost every such good thing he does is a tax credit which polishes his image and legacy. He was a pretty cutroath businessman and there's no reason for me to now paint him with some saintly image.

>Beef meat causes global warming in a disproportionate way compared to chicken or even disproportionate per euros or per gram of protein compared to lentils.

I can get behind the idea that beef has a bigger carbon footprint due to the fossil fuel fertilisers used to grow their feed as compared to the conversion ratio freaks that modern meat chicken breeds are. The fact that the methane from their farts is somehow the long term issue I however reject. And I'd like to point out that without much of both that excrement and fossil fuel based fertiliser we have a famine on our hands so 'overcrowd the Earth with more equal people' doesn't seem like such a fine coherent goal.

>I find a lot of consistency of his audience in hating him for the very reason that he implements his audience's wishes. To this audience, there is no redeeming oneself

Explain to me why do you presume I am "his audience".

[–] senordevnyc 1 day ago

Almost every such good thing he does is a tax credit which polishes his image and legacy. He was a pretty cutroath businessman and there's no reason for me to now paint him with some saintly image.

Bill Gates has had a major role in more than 120 million extremely poor children not dying of horrible diseases in some of the most destitute places on earth.

But he bundled a browser with his OS thirty years ago, so fuck all that, right?

[–] modo_mario 1 day ago

Then I guess billionaires really should pay less taxes unlike us plebs since they're so much better at picking out and solving the wrongs of the world. It is good that Microsoft was bribing some african governments because clearly they could use the money so much better saving them from themselves by redirecting that income to the global fund (and tax credits) Perhaps we should incentivise his veiled land purchases for the common good since on thing obviously absolves of another.

BTW just since you use it for the rethoric. Can I also point out how that major role in 120 million children (by their own estimation and 40mil since 2000 on some other own estimation) includes the work of everyone else donating to, remotely involved with or working in line with his organisation. You know including my tax money going to the the vaccination drives of Gavi, the WHO, UNICEF, etc It seems to miss the bit where bill himself attributed the vast majority of such global health and development funding to donor nations.

You think we could get a tax credit for our major role in that?

[–] senordevnyc 1 day ago

Where did I suggest that he should pay less taxes? I just think the sneering at him because of MS’s business practices decades ago is pathetic.

[–] modo_mario 18 hours ago

>Where did I suggest that he should pay less taxes?

You went on about his saintly works disregarding that for those billionaires it's quite relevant that they're structured as tax deductions and quite in tune with their wealth gain contrary to stated aims.

>I just think the sneering at him because of MS’s business practices decades ago is pathetic.

Oh the business practices are consistent and present. People just pay less attention or get a more clear view looking back. That said he has a 0.9% to 1.4% stake now.

What i consider pathetic is attributing some grand benevolence to his veiled purchase of farmland trough loads of shell companies. Are we also to take it Alex Karp just really really cares about forest preservation? You know it's somewhere in the sidelines of Cladonia Skog AB's aims.