[JohnKemeny]

It's about putting an upper limit to the amount of resources a single person is allowed to amass and thus control.

We agree that we don't want a dictator. A single person with too much wealth can be almost as powerful, hence there are good arguments in favor of setting such limits.

[edanm]

And yet many people have far more actual power over people's lives, for example many elected and/or appointed officials.

If a cop in my city wants to ruin your life, there's a chance it'll be easier for them to do so than it is for a rich individual, not to mention the mayor of the city.

And unlike a billionaire, who'd have to spend money to actually "control people's lives" and is therefore limited by some constraint , an elected official gets to control people's lives with no constraint at all.

[tijtij]

What if the cop wants to ruin the lives of a large group of people? How about if it's a group people living in the next town over, can he get away with it? If he does manage to ruin the lives of people, will he get voted out or dismissed?

Bill Gates improved the lives of countless people around the world. He could as easily made the lives of countless worse if he wanted to or as an unintended consequence of his projects.

[edanm]

> He could as easily made the lives of countless worse if he wanted to or as an unintended consequence of his projects.

As an unintended consequence, sure, but that's more true of scientific/technological progress specifically than what Bill Gates did, which was closer to business and tech popularization. If a scientist invents a super-virus that kills everyone, then yes, obviously, they've made the world worse, but that's not really tied to money.

As for "as easily" making countless lives worse in other ways - I kind of disagree there. He made countless lives better because people voluntarily bought his products. He didn't coerce people, they chose to do it. There's no analagously easy way to spend money to ruin people's lives, and especially not if you consider the kind of scrutiny and backlash he'd receive.

[dillydogg]

Bill Gates is now largely considered a scourge in the public health community from my understanding

[lobocinza]

Can you expand on that? I don't like him but AFAIK most of the criticism come from conspirationists.

[dillydogg]

Yes, of course. I made a pretty books statement with no support.

My friends who work in public health research despise the foundation because they are absolute gatekeepers on what can and cannot be funded. If you are trying to do research that is not part of the foundations priorities, good luck, they say.

The Foundation is essentially only accountable to themselves and can have global impacts on health research distribution. A recent example is that their whims affected the speed and distribution of COVID vaccines.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/14/global-covid-pandem...

[lobocinza]

Thanks!

[madsbuch]

This is a straw man: A police man can only ruin so many lives. He would have to be Santa Claus in order to harres the entire population of the US.

A policeman does not have the same impact over peoples lives as, eg., Jeff Bezos.

[edanm]

A policeman in my city could arguably have more impact on my life than Jeff Bezos does. What kind of impact do you think Jeff Bezos has exactly?

And obviously, a policeman is the lowest-power individual in this scenario - my city councilman probably has more impact than that.

[madsbuch]

It is because this debate is not about your life, but the life of the masses.

[nec4b]

Michel Jordan or Bill Gates are almost as powerful as Putin?