Why do people with this much wealth want even more wealth for themselves? I've never understood this.
Once your basic needs are met and you have a comfortable standard of living, everything else is a game, and people like to win. Why does anyone need a fancy car? Why does anyone need to compete with their neighbors and coworkers? Why does a billionaire need a superyacht when an adequately sized one will do? This is simply how some (or maybe even most) people are wired.
Note that Im not stating a judgement either way, just pointing out how the system currently works.
I haven't seen an actual push for "taxing the super rich" go through. Sanders ran on that and lost. Reality at the moment is that at the moment if what you said is true it wouldn't matter because Americans don't care.
Think incentives, not ideals.
The only real system change is through revolution, and revolutions are never pretty.
Change needs sacrifice.
That's the hard part, I'm all up for overthrowing this shit but the consequences are always the biggest deterrent.
True, but there are a host of other things that people like. The idea that "winning" is the ultimate goal in life is more socially induced than immanent.
If as a society we decide to foster different attitudes and goals we will obtain different outcomes and different kinds of people (to a certain extent, of course).
That idea will be a lot more prevalent among people who end up being the winners than among those who don’t, at every scale. Effort doesn’t get everything but it gets a lot.
Why isn't there a OANN of the left? Sure the MSM has a mainstream liberal bias, but there's hardly any Big Left (as in full on communist) media, at least in the English speaking world. There's a multitude of reasons, but I believe a big part of it is there simply isn't funding for that sort of thing.
Partisan media assigns fabricated evil motivations to explain his actions, like they do with everyone who they view as not on their side. People who get their idea of him from these sources have distorted view of him.
You mean if he had had a crystal ball, which absolutely nobody on the planet possesses.
Hyper concentrating your wealth in a highly risky investment, is not a good investment strategy. In the absence of a crystal ball, he made a very reasonable choice to cash the Facebook position out given his exposure to numerous other high-risk tech-related positions.
Bill Gates would be richer if he had never sold a share of Microsoft, and it would have similarly been a really bad approach to personal wealth management. That doesn't mean Gates wasn't interested in the money (for his goals, the more money the better), it means he was acting rationally, prudent, in diversifying.
Amusingly isn't that what a Palantir actually is?
What he actually said:
The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.
https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
It is rather obvious that he thinks women shouldn't vote given he blames them, in part, for the decline of "capitalist democracy".
I could have also mentioned his work to make sure the general public has much less privacy while fighting with lots of money to make sure his privacy is respected. I have little use for those who wish to have separate rules for themselves than they want others to follow.
He didn't say what you claimed, why not just edit your post and retract it. By not doing backing down it makes it look like you knew it was untrue, but just wanted to take the cheap shot.
He uses his money to support people who would make marriage be hetrosexual only because he has enough money to work around the issues bothers me. His doesn't think those who aren't as rich as he is are worthy of having all the rights and privileges he has.
It’s quite clear he believes women voting and “capitalist democracy” are fundamentally incompatible.
How about you cite a source instead of jumping on the false accusation bandwagon.
https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/05/01/peter-thiel/suffrage...
I have enjoyed seeing PG just sort of fade into the background of YC and enjoy his kids (his twitter feed). He seems to have done well by doing well and seems fairly satisfied with all of it.
If you're rich, it looks like "Everyone else, especially governments, sucks at allocating resources. I will do a better job."
And here's the kicker, being extremely wealthy is the result of being good at the skill of resource allocation.
If you add skills such as 'externalizing costs', and 'diverting resources', sure, I'll buy what you're selling.
If not that then some kind of patronage of the arts.
The problem with leisure is pretty constant really once you don't have to work.
You can only party all the time for so long before your addictions catch up with you. It is like the delusional of retiring to the beach to drink wine all day. Maybe fun for a few weeks but 6 months? You will be in bad shape rather quick.
Personally it is harder to understand that upper middle manager who works on something they aren't passionate about, who isn't a co-founder, and yet keeps committing more and more of their life and ambition to the company.
Me, I would just retire if I had a fraction of that, or so I think since I'm nowhere there ..
But it's true that these people keep going. Like Elon could have retired at any stage when he sold a company, but instead invested it in a new one. You know, spend time with family and friends. Instead he's running multiple companies.
My theory is that this is exactly the reason why they are so wealthy, and the rest of us are not.
"When you've done so much useful work, why would you ever want to do any more?"
"If you have so many friends, why would you ever be nice to somebody new?"
"You love your family so much, why not stop now?"
"Michael Phelps already has a gold medal, why does he keep swimming?"
But if you fast forward to the modern age, you’ll find that almost all work creates new wealth.
I, for one, have made many purchases from ads that I’m very happy with. Some were even life-changing. I would not have known that I wanted these things without the ad, and I’m better off now than before.
Not necessarily for the person doing the work, though.
Personally I find it scandalous how we treated "essential workers" during the pandemic. But I'm afraid I'm digressing here.
The wealthy work for power and control.
It would be sad if it were just that, but the fallout effects so many.
I like the idea someone had that beyond a certain point you get a big party to say you won capitalism then the rest of the money you earn goes back into society.
I consider such a position to be rather strange.