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Comment by borgchick | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it is the ideas we lack, it is the focus on money. Ideas that won't make tonnes of money don't make it into reality.

It's not, "hey, is that idea going to help people/planet/____"?

It's, "hey, is that idea going to make me rich?"

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I think this is because as capitalism solves more and more problems, a greater proportion of the remaining problems are caused by capitalism. It's difficult for the system to solve these problems without reshaping its boundaries.

First time I've seen someone discuss the triple bottom line in the wild.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/triple-bottom-line.asp

But don't a lot of policies like for example a carbon tax indirectly reflect components of a triple bottom line in the bottom line of businesses? I would argue that making externalities show up in the annual report has been part of economic policies for a long time.

I honestly just meant the term, but to what you are saying, I think it depends. If a company outsources their work force to a sweatshop in Asia is that following the TBL? Maybe, but probably not. It will, however, cause their stock price to go up and make them more competitive in their market.

Most public companies only started reporting a sustainability report about 4 years ago.

http://www.ga-institute.com/nc/issue-master-system/news-deta...

And, even worse, the biggest money would rather kill a business that is merely profitable or slow growing.

That isn't true for everyone. Innovation happens with non profits too.

The difference though, and why you see so much coming out of private companies, is that more people are motivated by money than are motivated by altruism. But there are still plenty motivated by altruism.

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