[techorange]

Marc Andreessen made a point in a recent interview that there used to be a contact that said that liberals used to support billionaires who made a bunch of money and then donated it to charity, but then the liberal establishment turned away from billionaires and blamed them for all the world's problems.

But like Silicon Valley turned away from charity along time ago. In 2014, Larry page said he'd rather give his billions to Elon Musk to go to Mars. Most Silicon Valley folks have said that actually startups are the way to help humanity, not being charitable.

So I dunno, I disagree with you, but I feel like the whole social contract has broken down.

And presuming we elected folks to set tax rates and make decisions to spend that money helping people, I don't see anything ignoble about choosing to help manage that process.

But like given your whole "taking money on the threat of violence" quote, either you're a super-libertarian who 99% of the country disagrees with anyways. Or you do think the Government should spend money on things and maybe it's noble to be the person who does that (military etc.) You just disagree with this particular spending of the money in which case... Ok.

[nradov]

Is it really most? The other Larry (Ellison) has donated huge amounts to charity, and pledged even more.

https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=192

[anon291]

> And presuming we elected folks to set tax rates and make decisions to spend that money helping people, I don't see anything ignoble about choosing to help manage that process.

I never said it was ignoble. I just said it wasn't particularly noble. I think a SpaceX engineer making a shit ton of money to develop re-usable rockets and thus putting America ahead of every other country is doing a more noble occupation. I even think a financier enabling spacex to do that work is a more noble occupation.

> But like given your whole "taking money on the threat of violence" quote, either you're a super-libertarian who 99% of the country disagrees with anyways.

I'm actually not a libertarian in the slightest, and think the tax rate should be significantly higher. For example, many states in this country continue to release violent criminals due to supposed lack of jail space. This is honestly insane in a country as rich as the United States, and we should raise taxes as high as necessary so that lack of space is no longer a reason to not make violent criminals complete their sentence (or stay locked away for life, if that is the sentence). I would support a 100% tax rate on nonessential income until we have the basic infrastructure necessary to run a civilized country.

> Or you do think the Government should spend money on things and maybe it's noble to be the person who does that (military etc.)

No, in general, government work is no more noble than private sector work. The a priori is that it's less noble since your entire livelihood depends on forced threats.

> You just disagree with this particular spending of the money in which case... Ok.

Well yes, you see, us non-libertarians don't magically all agree on what to spend money on.