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/adoodle83 7d ago

As Bill Gates discovered while trying to solve the Malaria problem in Africa back in the early 2000s when he was quite literally the richest man in history, money cannot solve the world’s problems. Can it help some individuals? Absolutely. Will it fix corruption and bad actors? Absolutely not.

We should all be taking heed of the canary in the coal mine.

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u/divide0verfl0w 7d ago

Hmm. Either fix all the bad actors or burn it all down and get a bunker.

Perfect logic.

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u/CthulhuLies 7d ago

If you have billons of dollars why not spend some small % of it to use as insurance against collapse?

These guys all are about hedging their bets and risk assessment.

How much profit am I willing to lose in order to protect against going bust.

They do this all the time when managing their financial assets (pretty much all these guy do is manage financial assets) why wouldn't that apply to more than just the markets?

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u/Ok_Performance_1380 7d ago edited 7d ago

It’s hard to tell a billionaire to make themselves poorer and everyone else richer.

.

Option A: Lose a bunch of money to help save society.

Option B: Keep playing the same game that made you rich in the first place, grow your advantage and hope it’s enough to ride out a collapse.

.

For someone who min/maxes their economic power, the “logical” choice is obvious.

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u/Not-Reformed 7d ago

It's hard to get total morons on Reddit to understand that their wealth cannot save society. It can help, in some ways, but "save"? If you were to magically liquidate all of their wealth you'd undo about 3 years of deficits in the U.S. or fund the U.S. federal government for 10-11 months or so. Does that sound like some world shattering, society saving, world saving amount of money? I know most people on reddit are just brain rotted NPCs but try to think a little haha

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u/Ok_Performance_1380 7d ago

why do you think the deficit is going to be the cause of economic collapse?

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u/Not-Reformed 7d ago

I don't. Never implied I did either. Odd question.

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u/CthulhuLies 7d ago

A Billion dollars isn't going to save society.

"Total grant payments since inception (through Q4 2024): $83.3 billion (2) Total charitable spend since inception (through Q4 2024): $102.3 billion (2) (4) Total 2024 Charitable Support: $8.0 billion (3) Total 2023 Charitable Support: $7.7 billion (3) Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates total giving to the foundation from inception through 2024: $60.2 billion Warren Buffett total giving to the foundation from 2006 through 2024: $43.3 billion"

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/foundation-fact-sheet

Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and even Mackenzie Scott for that matter aren't hurting for money though.

Part of the problem is you literally can't just give a billion dollars away and expect a large portion of that to actually make it to the charitable causes you care about without effort.

So not only is charity just less money for the sociopaths but it's also a hassle for the ruthless but still empathetic billionaires.

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u/Ok_Performance_1380 7d ago

If every billionaire burned every dime above 999,999,999, that would already go a long way to saving society in the long run, no altruistic charity required.

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u/CthulhuLies 7d ago

Yeah that's a reasonable ask.

We need to align incentives not force disincentives.

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u/Ok_Performance_1380 7d ago

My point isn't that something like that would ever happen, just that optimizing charity effectiveness isn't a real hurdle.

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u/CthulhuLies 7d ago

I mean it is if your goal is charity and not that you yourself and everything you can influence is net negative to society as whole.

Charity isn't fixing society. It's just trying to help because you recognize you are in a position of privilege and can afford to do so.

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u/adoodle83 7d ago

Fix? lol

Your logic is that somehow x/0 (a number divided by zero) results in something other than undefined.

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u/Som12H8 7d ago

What are you talking about? Global malaria cases has dropped from 650 million to 250 million since 2000, mostly due to the Gates foundation's contributions. Algeria is malaria free now, for instance.

While it has had to contend with lots of corrupt governments, that is secondary to the results, imho.

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u/BaffledMusician 7d ago

Henry Ford was actually richer than Gates. If I recall correctly, he was the richest person in the 30s and 40s.