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Comment by adetrest | Hacker News Reader

This is both absurd and obscene. I could think of a million better ways to spend the money and benefit people or ecosystems if I had 10 or 20 million $ burning a hole in my pocket. Shame to the people spending this kind of money on such trivial and useless things, and to Bugatti (and other brands) for humoring them. It makes me really sad to know there are people who would rather blow these amounts and waste the money.

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Luckily, you don't have to be super wealthy to do this! If you have ~$7k in your bank account you were planning on spending on things beside food and shelter, you can easily save a life in the developing world instead.

https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

An alternative is that this money goes into buying 10 apartments, pushing their value up, and making even more money for the buyer. Buying this $13m car will transfer money to dozens of employees, subcontractors and shareholders in Bugatti. "Blow this amount" and "Waste the money" = the money is put into circulation. If the buyer doesn't "Blow the money" then they either keep it, or invest it and gain even more money from someone else.

This is wasted labor. These people could instead spend their time more productively.

On what exactly? I feel like we don't have a shortage of people able to execute, but rather a shortage of good ideas or ideas we are willing to invest money in.

> but rather a shortage of good ideas or ideas we are willing to invest money in.

We have no shortage of good ideas or socially useful things to do. What we have is a problem with getting funding for these useful pursuits.

See: parable of the broken window

Not according to the market

This is maybe a little bit (in a contorted way) similar to "Parable of the broken window"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

In this case there are probably some highly skilled people involved who were able to increase their know-how (doing research to make the car somehow be xxM$ worth) thanks to being funded by whoever bought the car, but the whole exercise generates probably very little intellectual value outside of this context.

>the whole exercise generates probably very little intellectual value outside of this context

Why do you assume that the R&D required to produce this vehicle is somehow wasted effort?

I did not assume that it was "wasted" ("little" is more than 0).

Precisely the parable of the broken window.

The same could be said about 95% of SV hackers. At least Bugatti employees do honest work for living and do not make the world a worse place.

So easy for you to be sanctimonious from the comfort of your internet perch. How about you post the entirety of your purchasing history for the past year here and we will pick through it and decide which of your transactions are "absurd and obscene"?

Or maybe you can realize that moralizing about what other people do with their own money is the absurd and obscene thing.

> This is both absurd and obscene.

Someone with less money than you could say the same thing about a lot of your purchases from your discretionary income. The people paying for a $13m Bugatti are likely spending a lot in taxes which is generally how society has agreed upon people benefiting society through their spending. You could argue for higher taxes but that probably doesn't impact much spending for these people who own 80+ cars and have $13m+ to buy a car with.

Don't think of a Bugatti as a car. Think of it as a piece of art, because that's closer to what it is. Many of their customers will either never drive the car or drive it a half dozen times or less.

There may come a time in the future where Bugatti makes cars that aren't even drivable. It won't matter. People will still buy them. They could make an engine block out of solid gold and sell it and people would buy it just for the novelty.

I agree. When you see them IRL, luxury cars are inspiring, because they're engineered to be the best they can be, with attention to every detail. They may be impractical as transportation, but they're beautiful in many dimensions. They're not just about human capability, but about aspiration. The joy of being free on an open road, speeding past everyone else, not because one's better than them, but because it's possible.

Really the opposite of what I was trying to say lol. I’m saying the engineering is bananas. Totally impractical and barely functions outside of a super narrow range of specifications for a short time. They are just showpieces, like some ridiculous sculpture. You are never going to drive something like this on the open road and speed past everyone lol. If you drive them at all you just see them stuck in traffic in LA or weaving in between Toyota Camrys on the way high dangerously and for no reason. It’s more like a piece of fancy jewelry.

But hey, that’s how you know it’s art. Two people can look at the same object and think the same thing for two different reasons.

then make 10 or 20 million and do something better with it.

I hate this argument of "I could have done something better with x", it's reeks of authoritarianism. Yes, there is a better way to spend money, if you decide what "better" means, which you don't, because it's not your money.

Well those money provide jobs, r&d and so on. So it has pretty good effects overall.

Taus are boring. Be dark eldar and enjoy the good stuff in life.

Anyone who puts things in terms of Warhammer 40k armies probably knows a great deal about spending large amounts of disposable income for little to no actual benefit. :-)

Warhammer 40,000 Tournament Just Eight Guys Throwing Cash at Each Other

Hardtimes satire.

>spend the money and benefit people or ecosystems

I think the kind of people buying $13 million cars often neither know nor care about the state of the world outside their bubble of luxury.

Most likely not only are they aware but they have probably paid 10’s of millions in taxes, donated 10’s of millions to charity and created jobs for 100’s if not thousands.

The idea that they get money for nothing and spend it all on luxuries is very misguided.

Fortunately, many of us live in free countries and are free to spend our money as we choose. At the least, the money going to bugatti with benefit the people who helped design and build the cars. Maybe those aren't the people you think should be helped, but after all we are free.

"Le meilleur des mondes possibles."

Unless you want to sell certain types of plants/chemicals, gambling services or your own body...

I don't have the freedom to spend $13M as I see fit... I don't think if your spending budget were 1/100,000th of mine, you would consider us equally free.

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