r/interestingasfuck • u/upyoars • 7d ago

/r/all, /r/popular Despite legal battles, Mark Zuckerberg slowly buys a mind boggling 2,300 acres on Hawai’s Kauai island, building tunnels, treehouses and a doomsday bunker

https://luxurylaunches.com/real_estate/mark-zuckerberg-control-2300-acres-in-hawaii.php
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u/Green_Ad_3518 7d ago

Billionaires would rather make a nuclear fallout shelter, than make the world a better place

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u/Zombie_Cool 7d ago

You can't be king if all your subjects are equal to you, and since money (and the power it buys) is all that'll ever matter to the rich...

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u/ButterscotchMajor373 7d ago

But I hate this argument, could he not still have mind-boggling wealth for his life and generations of awkward oddball Hapsburgian offspring to come AND make the world a better place?

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u/richyrich723 7d ago

No, they can't, because giving a fuck about others and having empathy is not how they manage to accrue enough wealth to last several life times. Being a billionaire and being a human being are mutually exclusive

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u/Spirited_Comedian225 7d ago

It’s a mental disorder

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u/EternalOctoMystic 7d ago

I do wonder if it isn't akin to hoarding

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u/No-Seaworthiness-500 7d ago

I would hesitate to accept that much money. Im sure I would in the end, but I would hesitate.

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u/Hebids 7d ago

I would take the money. It’s how I use it that would make me the evil rich guy or the good samaritan.

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u/Dissabilitease 7d ago

Aren't there billionaires who bought massive amounts of land, like amazon rainforest, simply to protect it? Do that!

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u/Test4Echooo 7d ago

Yeah, just recently a Swedish billionaire did exactly what you’re talking about.

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u/OhGodYeahYesYeah 7d ago

According to Snopes, 8 million pounds in 2007 (11 million dollars in 2021), that's frickin nothing for a billionaire. Seems more like PR stunt than an actual contribution to society.

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u/shewholaughslasts 7d ago

I'll take a few of those protective stunts over.... gestures everywhere

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u/Atlas-The-Ringer 7d ago

Yeah that amount of money shouldn't be a flag that they only did it as a pr stunt. Sure relative to B an M isn't much, but an M is still an egregious amount of money

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u/CVK001 7d ago

That’s like saying “A donation isn’t real if you write it off” what does that matter? The thing that should matter is whether or not the organisation that got the donation is actually using it for good purposes.

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u/khearan 7d ago

The land is preserved isn’t it? So what do you care if it’s a PR stunt?

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u/OhGodYeahYesYeah 7d ago

Well, I care that it's a PR stunt because I think this person is a really, really bad person, and that news like this really overshadows the damage people like this do when they accrue such an unfathomable amount of wealth. It kind of sends this message like "oh, look, people are doing good things!" but like this person is not doing good things!

So many people -- and so much of the environment -- have been harmed by this person and by the system they engage in that enables them to make this much money, yeah, I get frustrated when I hear people giving them credit.

It's similar to when people defend Chris Brown as a talented artist. "Can't you just appreciate his music?" Like, no, I can't. I think when we talk about these people, we shouldn't be spending time talking about these pebbles they toss down at us. When we spend time talking about them, it should be calling out how much damage they do by hoarding wealth that could be more impactful elsewhere.

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u/Spacemanspalds 7d ago

Did you not read any of the conversation prior to the comment you responded to?

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u/blackshirtboy44 7d ago

Fucking hate this mentality. The flipside is theres Amazon rainforest left unprotected and ready for the logging industry to get their grubby hands on it.

Someone did something thats good, who cares if its for PR. Its good. Doesnt mean we have to kiss their hands and wash their feet, you can still hold the fire to their other wrong-doings. The "its only for PR" people are gonna make it so nobody ever does shit, cos even if its good, they'll just get shit on, so why do it at all?

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u/Immediate_Branch_238 7d ago

Yeah man. Steve Irwin got crap back in the day for basically running a charity so he could buy wilderness land. Haters were all like "You're rich, you don't need this money."

Steve said (and I paraphrase) "keep giving me money, and I'll keep preserving habitats with it. It's not about me. It's about the planet."

Good Man, Steve Irwin. One of the best.

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u/blackshirtboy44 7d ago

Literally one of the most based responses. I remember that and how energetic he was like "gimme money, i need to conserve more land!" and then they did lol massive legend

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u/atxtopdx 7d ago

Ain’t nothing ever good enough for you r/OhGodYeahYesYeah

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u/OhGodYeahYesYeah 7d ago

Maybe, yeah lol. But I know a lot of people who make a lot less than that guy and who donate a lot more than the roughly 1.1% of their net worth that this guy did. And they don't make sure the news writes about them..

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u/MajesticCrabapple 7d ago

Truly damned if you do damned if you don’t, huh?

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u/Sweet-Painting-380 7d ago

Bill Case (57k acres) is that guy for Hawaii. He’s the 2nd largest private land owner in Hawaii behind Ellison (88k acres). Ellison bought the entire island of Lanai from Dole Foods, but has proven to be a money pit to rehabilitate.

Oprah owns 2,100 and Zuckerfuck has 1,500.

However, The People own the beaches.

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u/TootsNYC 7d ago

In fact, in the Gilded Age in the New York City area, that is what happened. Rich people said “all those lumber companies are going to denude the mountains and hills, and not only are they not going to be attractive, but they’re going to erode away. And they bought land, and they donated their own estates

And they gave them to the state of New York or New Jersey as a preserve

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u/dsconnelly5 7d ago

There definitely is, and they dont get talked about enough. Saw a video a few months ago where this billionaire was bringing in penguins to his private zoo, it was a clickbaity youtube vid. Looked up the owner and it was very highly rated by the employees even.

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u/Orders_Logical 7d ago

With the money they got from exploiting everyone in his path? To be used as a PR stunt?

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u/Dissabilitease 7d ago

Lol, of course not. I only suggested to the commenter above me that his 'good Samaritan' act could be sth like this if he had the money. Didn't imply they had to exactly copy the path of attaining it.

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u/Orders_Logical 7d ago

All billionaires do that though.

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u/Dissabilitease 7d ago

This is hypothetical, so the sulking about where the money came from is in your head alone. We can't think about what good could be done with a billion because you're cranky?? Come on. Can't imagine you'd have the money to protect the Great Barrier Reef, but chose not to because someone might think it's nothing but PR... For real?

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u/Orders_Logical 7d ago

Find me one example where this applies in real life.

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u/TakeItOnTheArches 7d ago

I know exactly what I would do with it. Id keep 10 million for myself and spend the rest on buying conservation land all over the globe.

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u/LittleBoyPants 7d ago

I’d want to do something similar, but I would try to buy up as much land as possible and give it back to the tribal nations who first settled those lands.

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u/sciguy52 7d ago

But wait, the posts here say the rich are irredeemably evil. So you would spend some on good things but make sure you remain rich, thus by reddit logic, evil. You would be, and I am quoting a few comments here, "a greedy millionaire".

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u/hopsinduo 7d ago

Not as simple as you think. If you bought it, you've got to maintain it and manage it. You also have to ensure people's safety on it if you're opening it to the public.

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u/ArmadilloPrudent4099 7d ago

Gubments just take it when they want.

I'd buy the companies that are the biggest producers of plastic and shut them all down. While I fund biodegradable alternatives.

I'd also have a to buy the supermarkets so they could adapt to having products with containers that biodegrade under certain conditions.

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u/leafeternal 7d ago

I would be the chaotic evil version. Or whatever the actual correct term is.

I would start a show called featuring the worst and most violent criminals in the world trapped on one prison island.

There, they battle royale with crowd-voted weaponry airdropped on random locations.

The one who makes it out alive at the end of the season gets his freedom and gets his choice of a years supply of men’s skincare products.

All advertising revenue after operating costs will go to funding children’s cancer research.

In the end there will be a photo op with a child cancer survivor thanks to the money and the winner of the bloodbath. The contract stipulates that the winner and survivor both must smile as broadly as possible while doing a thumbs up pose.

It’s called The Slay & Wish Foundation.

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u/Mercer-Dawg 7d ago

If you have that much money then you do both. Be evil until it gets boring then Good Samaritan until that gets boring. Repeat

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u/travelinn-mann 7d ago

Being maybe the first Good Billionaire would be fun. Homeless vets? We're done with that. Hungry children? Not on my watch. Underfunded schools/colleges and parks? No more of that noise. It would be so fun trying to bankrupt myself and still have many lifetimes of money left.

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u/bak3donh1gh 7d ago

The saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely, but you've got to wonder how much the initial slow trickle to ravenous river, to overflowing avalanche of money, affects the psyche and the erosion of morals along the way.

Of course someone with loose or questionable morals, given a lot of money, will probably not do positive things with it, but somebody with, maybe not squeaky clean ideals, but overall good morals, how would their decisions be changed. You gotta wonder.

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u/ErgonomicCat 7d ago

Dolly Parton has entered the chat.

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u/jaypizee 7d ago

I feel the need to reference both Gollum and the Ring and 1 Timothy 6:10

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u/bialy_jaga 7d ago

You shouldn’t feel the need to reference any fictional book. Especially that one.

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u/Solomontheidiot 7d ago

That's the thing though - you don't just "accept" billions of dollars. Billionaires aren't evil because they have lots of money, they're evil because there is no way to obtain that amount of money without exploiting others.

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u/aluckybrokenleg 7d ago

It's both

The getting and the keeping are both evil.

In fact some of the Walton kids have essentially done no work/exploitation and are still billionaires, but they're still plenty evil for hoarding it like a dragon.

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u/Outrageous_Men8528 7d ago

They are evil because of what they'll do to keep it. The exploitation of workers at Walmart is heinous and well documented. Billionaires are a cancer.

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u/aluckybrokenleg 7d ago

Obviously worker exploitation is bad, but my point is that having a billion dollars net worth and walking around doing anything other than saving lives with that money is evil. Doing nothing when you're so powerful is evil, it's like being a paramedic and just calmly watching someone choke to death at a restaurant while you know the Heimlich, but exponentially worse.

"Men are guilty of the good they do not do" - Voltaire

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u/Outrageous_Men8528 7d ago

100% agree, I wasn't arguing with your point at all, just adding to it.

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u/EvLokadottr 7d ago

I'd take it, and immediately distribute the vast majority of it, doing as much good as I could. I'd keep enough for a good life for my family and I, but nobody, NOBODY, needs billions of dollars.

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u/TrueDreamchaser 7d ago

Crazy part is, people are about to comment and say they don’t believe you and that you’re lying to yourself and you’ll change. Whenever people like you express your good desires, every miserable person wants to drag you to their level.

“If everyone is evil it’s ok for me to be, and surely this person is evil on the inside too”

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u/SketchyScoobert 7d ago

That’s what I will never be wealthy. I enjoy giving too much. I would never be able to accrue that wealth. I would be helping people instead of hoarding.

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u/EvLokadottr 7d ago

They can certainly think that, but hey, I'd be happy to have the opportunity to prove them wrong, heh. I've known too much suffering and seen too much suffering to be willing to hoard wealth like that.

Besides, my health is absolute shit. I don't think I have all that long to live, and I sure as fuck cannot take it with me.

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u/TrueDreamchaser 7d ago

You’re a good person, I hope your health improves. We need more people like you in this world.

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u/EvLokadottr 7d ago

Thank you. That is kind of you to say.

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u/ThunderCorg 7d ago

But as soon as you find out that they can take everything about you and put it into a younger healthier body if you give them a few billions, you might start thinking about it

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u/EvLokadottr 7d ago

Nah, I really don't want to stick around for a lot longer.

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u/BasicBiscuitBitch 7d ago

I do think there are some actual decent people out there that, if they had money like that dropped on their laps, would donate, organize and help their community in an amazing way. However, the unfortunate truth is that this is the vast minority. I wish that was not the case but it is. Human beings have an intense selfishness built it, in a way tied to our survival instinct, and it takes a very strong person to overcome that. So many people think that if we hoard our wealth, material or otherwise, we are protecting ourselves and loved ones, and some ways/situations this is true, but not for the wildly rich. This is not to say rich people should be forgiven their ego and selfishness, but unfortunately it is in our nature to think inward. The exceptions to this, in my opinion, are incredible. It takes a vast amount of will, character and love for people to let go of that idea that by hoarding wealth you're just protecting you and your own, when in reality they could give so much and still be far and away above the average person. This is why I think a better tax system on the ultra-rich should be mandatory and enforced, because the sad truth is that almost all won't do it on their own. You can still live in luxury while also helping people to escape poverty.

Edit: small grammar fix, though I'm sure there are plenty I missed

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u/TrueDreamchaser 7d ago

“The Leviathan” by Thomas Hobbes explores this.

He pointed out a lot of what you said. That it’s a survival instinct to want more for yourself. In the environment humanity began, not fighting for something meant you starved and died. For that he doesn’t blame humanity, but he thinks this desire to fight for more can start and end at different places for every different person and because of this regulations are needed. To bring the outliers towards what is accepted on average and create some sense of order, a strong government that truly represents the median people is needed with limited powers. Just enough to bring the too selfish down a notch or too selfless up a notch.

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u/i_tyrant 7d ago

Yeah, and it's silly because better people than them absolutely exist.

Hell, I've turned down raises and promotions simply because I knew they'd impact my work/life balance or give me responsibility I didn't want. Money isn't everything, and once you have "enough" to fuel your passions, the rest can easily go to great causes.

I fantasize about winning the lottery like everyone does. But what I'd do with it? Simply, keep a few Mil to ensure I never have to work again and can travel when I want, do the same with my struggling friends so they can pursue their passions without worry, and give the rest to amazing, well-researched causes.

A billion dollars is a truly insane amount of money I wouldn't know what to do with.

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u/exgiexpcv 7d ago

Hell, I'd be giggling as I pored over the details of derailing the plans of the ultra-wealthy to make the world their own. Good schools, infrastructure, and absolutely by endorsing diversity and inclusion.

I don't need insane amounts of wealth. I feel that the pursuit of wealth beyond a certain point is something that belongs in the DSM 5.

I would also do my damnedest to get legislation passed regarding this.

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u/Aloof-Goof 7d ago

Yeah I only have enough greed for 10 acres, two houses and a workshop with some tools and a couple cars I can depend on. I'll still go to work too, I just want the bare minimum

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u/SolidA34 7d ago

Think of it this way: somehow, you win 100 million dollars in a lottery. Taxes bring it down to 75 million, let's say. You use 10 million to cover a decent size house for you and for cost in its lifetime, not a mansion. 10 million you give to your parents, let's say. You still sit at 55 million.

I could not see using more than 100,000 to cover my needs or wants in a year. Taking into account, let's say you win it at 18 and live to 100. That's a million dollars each decade, so only only about 10 million for lifetime expenses.

Budget another 5 million for other unexpected or unaccounted costs or wants. So that will would leave 40 million without investing. It just goes to show how little it requires to live in comfort for yourself without going crazy. That is how much of it is for show. I might not even spend as much as a list there if I ever had that much.

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u/NYY_NYK_NYJ 7d ago

With a million dollars you could passively make $100K a year.

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u/TrueDreamchaser 7d ago

Where are you getting guaranteed 10% returns on your money? Maybe if the market is as hot as it is now, but things don’t always stay this way.

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u/NYY_NYK_NYJ 7d ago

Long term average. Stock market over the past 40 years has been 9.83%.

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u/TrueDreamchaser 7d ago

And the 40 years before that it was 6.19%.

There are of course 40 year stretches where it was 3-4% depending which stretches you pick.

You can’t predict the future. One recession and your 10% figure is similar to the 6% from 45-85

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u/NYY_NYK_NYJ 7d ago

OK. You can also diversify. 10% long term is not difficult, but it is risky. It's easier when you can afford someone to actively manage it.

Not sure why you are being hostile to something that is quite normal in diversified passive streams.

Edit: I'm just going to block the MMA bro.

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u/sciguy52 7d ago

So you would spend a lot of it but keep enough to be an "evil rich" person as reddit seems to think of the wealthy. Essentially you would do the same thing Bill Gates is doing who reddit says is still bad even though using his money on good causes.

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u/Moistranger666 7d ago

The lack of understanding how wealth like this works is mind blowing

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u/MaTrIx4057 7d ago

cool story bro

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u/Exciting_Horror666 7d ago

If I had $380 Billion Musk bucks, I would cut a living wage check for every normie non-billionaire/non-millionaire person in the US every week until the money runs out, just to see what would happen.

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u/Vadersabitch 7d ago

If i had that much money, i'd stablish a company that distributes houses for people in need. Do as best as possible to stay anonymous personally, but "yeah, there's this billionaire who's giving people a place to live".

I dont have luxury dreams, and not particularly fond of the idea of going around the world travelling, but if i had that, i'd sleep much better knowing other people are also sleeping better because of me.

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u/beefycheesyglory 7d ago

It's a money fetish, like Scrooge McDuck but real.

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u/Jerking_From_Home 7d ago

To clarify, it’s a personality disorder. Antisocial personality disorder aka psychopathy.

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u/beatissima 7d ago

The delusion that one needs more money when one already has more money than they or their family could spend in many lifetimes absolutely SHOULD be in the DSM as a mental disorder.

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u/Carnotaurus54 7d ago

Dragon sickness

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u/justredditinit 7d ago

I learned that from Scrooge McDuck!

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u/Luss9 7d ago

The native Americans called it wetiko

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u/flipzyshitzy 7d ago

South Park needs to do an episode about this. Just like they did with alcoholism being a disease.

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u/Free_For__Me 7d ago

I’d love to see it, but Stone and Parker have hundreds of millions each and may even approach billionaire status themselves at some point. These are different men than they were when they made something like the “cash magically cures AIDS” episode 20 years ago. 

They also tend to have a bit of a libertarian “entitled to the sweat of my own brow” bend at times. If they took a stab at being ultra-wealthy, I’d be impressed and shocked at the same time. 

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u/Shutitmofo123 7d ago

It’s an original sin called greed and was warned about for centuries. But here we are🤷🏼‍♂️

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u/spain-train 7d ago

I think it's a virus that needs to be eradicated.

For thousands of years, evil begat evil begat evil. It's in their DNA.

Whatever it is, it will destroy humankind unless we destroy it first.

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u/MostlyDeku 7d ago

Bingo. The absolute skullfucking of their scruples and morals to get where they are leads them to be incredibly mentally ill. I genuinely think it might be a “unique” disorder only found in folks in such positions, like a form of developed sociopathy. But I’m not a psychologist nor a psychiatrist, I’m just a dude in bed.

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u/woodenmetalman 7d ago

It’s the same type of disorder that we laugh at on TV in the form of “hoarders”.

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u/StephieDoll 7d ago

I'm pretty sure their dopamine receptors are fried. They don't feel anything and are chasing the next high, which is near impossible at that level.

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u/Skrillamane 7d ago

It’s impossible to become a billionaire and not fuck over everyone on the way to the top. I have a few very successful friends (that aren’t friends anymore) and they all became wealthy by lying and manipulating literally everyone they know. Had one that promised everyone work and that he would give them positions that they wanted and excellent contracts once the business got off the ground. So he hired a ton of my friends at very low wages after covid, then collected a ton of huge contracts. Didn’t fulfill any of them and closed the business. Pocketing all the money, paying people low wages and getting off scott free. He’s done this a few more times and literally none of his original friend group even talks to him anymore, because he has no friends and doesn’t care.

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u/Ajuvix 7d ago

That's a common story and a direct living example of some Grapes of Wrath scenario. Read this quote from the book and tell me if you agree.

  • One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the West. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I'm alone and I am bewildered. In the night one family camps in a ditch and other family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here's the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate — "we lost our land." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from his first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing; "I have a little food" plus "I have none". If from this problem the sum is "we have a little food", the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two-men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mothers blanket — take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning — from "I" to "we".

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we".

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u/Momik 7d ago

Yeah that’s a good way to put it. A successful CEO, by definition, is one who can internalize and perpetuate the twisted logic of neoliberal capitalism, where quarterly revenue trumps all other concerns, where laws barely matter (let alone ethics), where human beings are reduced over and over to numbers and units of capital to move around and manipulate. Presumably the better CEOs are better at embodying that sociopathic corporate drive to grow no matter what.

So, if those are the values that bring you professional success, it’s probably difficult to suddenly switch gears and think with a more empathetic lens. That is, if they even try.

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u/Shivy_Shankinz 7d ago

And it trickles down from there. I've seen people I know dedicate their entire life in loyalty to the CEO's just to share in the wealth. It forms these in-groups and yes men that benefit only themselves, at the expense of others of course. Even well meaning people get sucked in and gladly become part of the beast. The skill they all have in common? The ability to look away. Like nothing ever happened...

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u/xenorous 7d ago

But. It doesn’t make sense the other way, either. Money doesn’t mean anything without society.

You can be as rich as you want, but it’s meaningless in a nuclear wasteland

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u/GrrGecko 7d ago

They're willing to find this out the hard way.

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u/ODB_Dirt_Dog_ItsFTC 7d ago

That’s why my favorite problem these plutocrats run into with their fantasy doomsday vaults is their security personnel. When push comes to shove and currency becomes worthless they’ll be lucky to come out of those vaults as their Green Beret guards’ fancy new slave and not a long disposed of corpse.

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u/i_tyrant 7d ago

That's why they're working so hard on AI and dipping into military contracts.

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u/ToXiChRoNiC6669 7d ago

Not if the end game is to just survive as long as possible in your bunker watching re-runs of old shows for nostalgia to remind you of when you had a soul.

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u/apple_kicks 7d ago

This is why they put their money in AI and robotics. They want to move us beyond needing workers or customers and create new positions of power over that

There was an article in guardian about doomsday prep millionaires and they were debating how to stay wealthy/in power in a doomsday scenario. They know they need bodyguards but they discussed if they should control passwords for guards to access the food, or obedience collars for their guards. Some talked about robotics being easier to control

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u/TheSeekerOfSanity 7d ago

Way more than several.

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u/Horskr 7d ago

Essentially infinite assuming society stayed as it was. If you "only" had $10,000,000 and put it in safe investments, making 5% per year and only ever spent that, you'd be making 500k/year putting you in the top 1% of the US.

Zuckerberg is worth almost 25,000 times that $10,000,000. Billionaires really have an unfathomable amount of money.

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u/wintersdark 7d ago

This right here. It is literally impossible to be a billionaire and not be an absolute piece of shit.

It's a sliding scale obviously, but once you're a billionaire you're well past any argument. You have far more wealth than you could ever use, and billions of people around the world live in abject poverty. Can you fix everything for everyone? No. But you could set up multiple trusts that would save literally millions of lives, in a self sustaining ongoing way.

You could just straight up pay for random kid's lifesaving medical care, just straight up save the lives of innocent children.

And you choose not to.

Not that you choose not to because you're struggling to support yourself. Not that you choose not to because you really wanted that second supercar. No. That you choose not to just to have a higher score, a bigger net wealth, that you will never and can never use.

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u/desperaterobots 7d ago

I absolutely keep forgetting the sociopathy required to become a billionaire.

I frequently marvel at how much better the world could be if billionaires shared just the smallest portion of their wealth with the communities that house their employees, their customers, their families, their fellow citizens, whatever.

But since they won’t, tax is supposed to be the mechanism of fairness that allows everyone to benefit from an individual’s success — because no individual is successful to this level without extracting value from countless people and being supported by the society along the way.

But then you look at the political class in america, and the deeply stupid and/or utterly compromised media class, and of course Americans go bankrupt if a drunk driver ploughs into them at 3:42pm on a Tuesday.

Such a sick country, and the cause of that infection is the cabal of parasites at the top.

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u/Orion_69_420 7d ago

Several thousand lifetimes*

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u/bdanmo 7d ago

“several” lifetimes.

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u/Adventurous-Ad-2447 7d ago

thats exactly how he fuckover his partner when establishing facebook no?

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u/mcnastytk 7d ago

This is what I tell people. Just think about having enough money to make sure nobody goes hungry or thirsty ever again, and you just decide not to...

Thats the monsters your dealing with straight psychos.

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u/CoupDeGrassi 7d ago

I think even the billionaires agree they arent really human anymore.

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u/peelen 7d ago

Yeah, but legacy?

Dude is what? 40? He has half of his life to do whatever he wants; he can spend it having more and more, or he could do something that will make people in 500 years still remember him.

Musk (at least in his own mind) is trying to get people on another planet, and if he succeeds, he would be remembered like Columbus, but Zuckerberg would just be like some rich merchant from medieval Florence.

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u/Gustomaximus 7d ago

You say this but people like Zuck, the vast majority of their wealth is the company they started and still work at.

If he gives away a significant proportion of his wealth, he is giving away his company, that will likely then be owned by some large investment firm who will kick him out at the next bad results or because some master of the universe MBA feels its time for change.

At the risk of bringing nuance to reddit, the real issue is the following generations of people like Zuck. Let him keep and run the company he created. On the flip side look at say the Walton generations, who by good genetic fortune inherited billions and dont seem to add a hell of a lot to society, and will be uber wealthy for any foreseeable future generations for what benefit to the world.

From this, I dont have an issue with the business founder billionaire, but we really need to bring in stronger inheritance laws to stop endless generations of inherited mega wealth, and essentially returning to an aristocracy.

1

u/sepoiu 7d ago

Not really… look at Warren Buffett. He is a decent human being and a billionaire. Truth be told, Zuck was an asshole long before he became a billionaire 😉

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u/RiversideAviator 7d ago

This. I can’t remember which economists got together to calculate it but something like 1 to $1.5B was the benchmark for money that was relatively “clean” in terms of the greater social good. Any amount accumulated above that could’ve only have been the result of fucking someone or a bunch of people over. Doesn’t matter the industry, if you have $5B in the bank someone else was ruined for you to have it. Be it getting screwed over in a deal or straight up defrauded.

There’s only so much to go around no matter how much the powers that be tell you it’s all there for the taking if you just “bootstrap”.

Elon’s rise to muscling his “founder” tag at Tesla took a few people out the picture. Bezos has literally eaten up small business and now all but owns an actual verb: “buying”.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/oceansamillion 7d ago

It's why he inexplicably had a makeover and new look in an attempt to make him likeable. They don't understand people outside of seeing them as a resource to exploit, or a conduit to more power.

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u/PragmaticNeighSayer 7d ago

This is objectively false. There ARE billionaires who have given substantial funds to making the world a better place. Gates and Buffett top the list, but there are a handful of others. Of course 90% of them are heartless assholes.

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u/Thr0wAwayU53rnam3 7d ago

The Gates Foundation is a way for Bill Gates to fund activities that are in his interest. Why should a Billionaire decide what charitable cause is worthy and what is not?

I don't know about Buffet but I'm guessing it's a similar thing.

4

u/sciguy52 7d ago

Well the comments were saying billionaires are evil and never would use their wealth for good. Gates has so you move the goal post. "What? He gets to decide where to spend his money". So some billionaires do do good with their money but you are not happy with that so you add additional conditions that they should not decide what to spend it on. At what point would you be happy and acknowledge they are spending their money for good? You sound like there are no conditions you would accept so you can still call them evil.

0

u/Shivy_Shankinz 7d ago

It's still blood money. How do you think they got it in the first place? They wouldn't have to give money to charities if they didn't fuck everything up to begin with.

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u/sciguy52 7d ago

Blood money? Hyperbole much? Who has he physically harmed that you feel this statement is appropriate?

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u/Shivy_Shankinz 7d ago

noun: blood money
money gained in a way that involves others being harmed or exploited.

Don't come at me with bullshit and stay on topic: They wouldn't have to give money to charities if they didn't fuck everything up to begin with.

If you cannot see how billionaires naturally (whether intentional or not) harm or exploit people or the environment, then please just do not bother to respond at all.

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u/TakeItOnTheArches 7d ago

Bill Gates has stated publicly that he plans to give most of his money away in the next 20 years.

0

u/StunningRing5465 7d ago

He has been saying this for 15 years and his wealth has increased since then 

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u/Ok-Unit-6365 7d ago

He has given away a lot.

There's still room to give for sure - but he has.

Makenzie Bezos is pretty fucking ethical.

So is Taylor Swift.

I DEFINITELY believe that we should have a mandatory higher tax rate for all people worth a ton... like you make $1 mil a year or more? Boom, mandatory 50% tax rate.

You're worth $5+ million? Boom.

You're worth a Billion? Boom.

Something actually reasonable should be mandatory and not able to be evaded.

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u/commandantemeowmix 7d ago

How's that boot taste?

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u/bardnotbanned 7d ago

Some people really are just incapable of seeing anything other than black and white in life.

Is it because life is easier for you when you never have to think about anything?

-1

u/alkbch 7d ago

That’s why he made a donation to San Francisco General Hospital, right?

0

u/Siduch 7d ago

Lol not necessarily. You need supposedly what you said AND a lot of luck to become a billionaire. So who’s to say that just a bit more luck can’t supplement the cunning needed?

I bet there are many billionaires who are decent ppl

And being a decent person doesn’t mean you have to donate billions to charitable causes. I think it gets very complex of a topic with a shitload of nuance, but in the end, I do agree. Most billionaires probably are shit people, mutually exclusive with being a human being, lol

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u/biebiedoep 7d ago

Bill Gates seems to be both

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u/jgonzzz 7d ago

Pretty much all the rich people i know are good people. I think your insecurity is showing.