[solardev]

What does that even mean? He won't have to work for a few centuries instead of a millennium? Lol.

Compared to his employees' livelihoods, a billionaire losing some bit of their immeasurable wealth is irrelevant. He made a stupid bet and doesn't suffer any real consequences for it because Meta has no real accountability.

[dsfyu404ed]

If we want to treat the numbers as meaningful and make low effort quips about wealth inequality being bad for society when they go up then we must also concede that it is meaningfully bad for him when the numbers go down if we are to be logically consistent.

Personally I think beyond a couple billion it serves no purpose for quality of life for anyone and we only care in order to crudely "keep score" of who's in charge of more "stuff" since it can't really be liquidated or repurposed other endeavors efficiently and these people are de-factor world leaders in some capacity (a private industry analogue to GDP if you will).

[solardev]

It's not a logical inconsistency to point out that dollars matter a lot less once you have enough.

The difference between having a dollar and ten dollars a day is huge. The difference between a hundred and a thousand a day is still big, sure, but you're probably not going to die of starvation either way. And once you're in dev salary land and higher, you're counting bedrooms, acres, cars, vacations, yachts...

The wealth inequality thing matters not because Bezos has spaceships and Zuckerberg only has 3d glasses. It's that we still have millions of people with food and shelter insecurity, regardless of how much the richest have.

It's not a linear thing. Zuckerberg losing a few million is utterly meaningless vs a regular family losing a few thousand.

[achenet]

> If we want to treat the numbers as meaningful and make low effort quips about wealth inequality being bad for society when they go up then we must also concede that it is meaningfully bad for him when the numbers go down if we are to be logically consistent.

No. If wealth inequality is bad, that does not imply wealth is good.

If we simply assume inequality is the bad thing, then we could deduce that the best society would be hunter gatherers with zero wealth, and Zuck losing wealth is a good thing, because it makes society more equal.

It is therefore logically consistent to say "wealth inequality is bad and Zuck losing wealth is good".

[kortilla]

That wealth is not “immeasurable”. It’s just hard for someone to understand when their point of comparison is personal finances.

It directly impacts his ability to start new companies, new charities, etc. This is on the scale of wiping out the abilities to create fabs, do infrastructure projects, etc.

[solardev]

Sounds like a good thing. Last thing we need is billionaires owning more things.

[kortilla]

It has nothing to do with ownership being good or bad. It’s having people with vision and acumen for financially sustainable businesses setting up these projects for success.

Look at how much the Gates foundation has done for Malaria. What government institution has been able to compete on that level with or without sucking down involuntary tax dollars to support it?

[solardev]

Capitalism is just as often not the meritocracy you think it is, but just capital buying up production...

Not sure what you're getting at with the Gates foundation. Throw enough money and good people at a problem and chances are they'll eventually arrive at a solution. National Parks, Manhattan Project, Apollo, Interstates, dams, the B52 or F22, darpanet, etc. Republicans starving the beast is what kills government. It works fine in many other countries or even ours in past decades.