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Comment by imdsm | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people seem to be in the mindset that it'll never be them so it should never be anyone else. It's not just in the US, here in the Uk we have the same mindset too.

A lot of people dislike/hate Elon Musk for example, and usually they focus on two things: his tweets, and his wealth. Conveniently forgetting that prior to his work at SpaceX and Tesla (which he's driven) reusable rockets weren't a thing and EVs were restricted to oddities laughed at on Top Gear.

It seems to be the way, people look at the wealth and think "well that shouldn't happen". But it doesn't come from no where, it doesn't just appear.

For anyone who thinks this wealth shouldn't appear, let me ask this: if someone could discover a cure for all cancers — how much should they be allowed to earn for it? I.E. What price would you put on the cure for all cancers?

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Ive done basic research, even worked in a lab that was doing cancer related research.

Whatever you do now, anything, is not just your own genius but its the accumulated genius of society. It would be quite literally impossible for anyone that "cures cancer" to have done it on their own. Not only it is extremely unlikely that they could do all work just by themselves (though possible) but they will have to rely on the work others have put through out the years... Work that in most cases has been funded through tax money!

So why would one person at the end of the line get to benefit so much from the collective work put by all of humanity to that point?

>So why would one person at the end of the line get to benefit so much from the collective work put by all of humanity to that point?

because the possibility of being the one to finally crack would be what motivates every preceding researcher as well.

I think most of this sentiment comes not because of wealth in itself but how it was achieved.

majority of billion dollar companies are associated with bad behaviour : anticompetitive practices, shady deals, government subsidies etc. amazon got billions in subsidies just for opening second headquarters. amazon is selling ripoffs of big brands. worker rights abuses. microsoft did many things to eliminate competition. list goes on and on. and I’m not even talking about uber’s shady projects to avoid government agencies.

so when success gets achieved by scams and shady behaviour, probably it’s not much to celebrate and reward.

> amazon got billions in subsidies just for opening second headquarters

Because it’s going to spend far more there. Nearly all large commercial builds get similar deals in tax deferrals because having employment is still a big net win for the locality.

You're right that it doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from the people who are actually doing those amazing things: the workers.

> For anyone who thinks this wealth shouldn't appear, let me ask this: if someone could discover a cure for all cancers — how much should they be allowed to earn for it?

Say 50 million?

> I.E. What price would you put on the cure for all cancers?

100 billion?

You've asked two separate questions there, but you're implying that the answer to one is the same as the other.

Just because you are capable of extracting a certain amount of wealth in exchange for something, does not mean that you should be able to.

So if I make a pill that cures cancer, _it_ is worth 100bn, but I am only worth 50m?

how does that make any sense?

It can makes sense if you take the position that medicine patents should be heavily reformed.

Shoulders and giants - there's no way you actually fully independently discover a cancer-curing pill. And even if you did, its existence would not and should not belong fully to you.

that still doesn't make sense. if I make $50bn I am worth a significant amount of that, if not most of it.

> its existence would not and should not belong fully to you

...if I didn't make it, it doesn't exist, so it fully belongs to me ..................

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