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Comment by klausjensen | Hacker News Reader

What do you think actually makes the most difference:

a) Donating $10B b) Reducing his personal environmental impact to zero

You are literally more interested in virtue signalling than making actual change.

>What do you think actually makes the most difference: a) Donating $10B b) Reducing his personal environmental impact to zero

How does that Gandhi quote go: Be the change you want to see in the World... or was it pay for the change you want to see in the World?

You think Gandhi would have effected the change he did by paying others to engage in acts of civil disobedience? Paid others to break imperial laws and get arrested? Paid others to engage in hunger strikes?

Gandhi was a western educated and trained lawyer, but he boycotted western clothing and adopted the dhoti...it is not just a symbol (or virtue signaling) but it was a necessary act. Whereas $10B from Bezos for Climate change appears to be just a symbol, because he continues to head a Company that facilitates unbridled consumerism and global consumption and he seems unwilling to make personal sacrifices to his lavish lifestyle.

I dislike gross displays of privilege. Being rich and advocating for everyone else to reduce consumption while maintaining your own lavish, polluting lifestyle simply because you have the money to “offset” it is obscene.

Isn't it possible that Bezos is not a hero due to moral complications, but also that this effort of his will have a positive impact?

Yes, absolutely. No argument there.

Better to encourage it then, surely. If rich people are doing good things in order to win praise, what's the point of denying it to them? If enough of us react that way, we won't diminish the power of the rich people, we'll just get to watch them spend their money more selfishly.

This doesn't mean staying silent about the bad things they do. But if we only respond to the good things by bringing up the bad things, we end up perversely being more critical of the ones who do some good, and diverting our scrutiny away from those who don't even bother.

(I haven't looked into this pledge, so I'm just speaking on the hypothetical case where it is likely to do good, as you've acknowledged is at least possible.)

edit: I just noticed that you say in another comment you 'do not believe in climate change'. In which case I guess this line of reasoning won't have any force for you. But maybe you can understand why people who do see climate change as a serious problem are going to take a pragmatic view, and treat the investment of $10b as vastly more important than the lifestyle sacrifices of a single person.

I dislike when the planet is being ravaged and most people who with vast accumulations of wealth are sitting on their hands/fortunes.

"Gross displays of privilege" are a distant second.

I don't see any mention of Bezos agitating for consumption reduction in that article. I don't see any mention of his personal consumption habits so I'm curious where you got the data on which you are basing your claims (for all your know he has made personal sacrifices). Your entire argument appears unsound as a single individual's consumption has basically negligible impact on the environment (so it is trivial to "offset" it and massively reducing quality of life is basically just virtue signaling) whereas a cash grant of this magnitude could actually have an outsized impact.

> I dislike gross displays of privilege.

You appear to simply dislike people who have much more money than you.

I dislike when we have two standards of behavior. When someone is not destitute they are expected to conform to a multitude of societal norms, when they are poor every vice and misbehavior is excused.

I propose one standard of expectation and we make everyone follow it.

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