In an interview with The New York Times, the PayPal cofounder called it an "Epstein-adjacent Boomer club" — and says he's talked people into quitting.

For your information (I didn’t knew) the Giving Pledge is a initiative launched by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to ask billionaires to give 50% of their fortune to charity.

Thiel is now trying to convince is fellow billionaires not to sign it or to unsigned it because the money would go to “left-wing nonprofits that will be chosen by Bill Gates.”. 🫤

  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
    52·
    3 months ago

    There so many “what if” statements that it invalidated your argument by sheer volume because it could apply to anyone in any scenario. There is no one who can guarantee the money will be best spent on the best by the best for the best reasons. But they are actively trying to solve problems like Malaria that have huge impacts on humanity with no profit on the horizon. What have you done to help people you will never meet with a disease you can’t cure?

    • theparadox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      3 months ago

      Hard disagree. The problem is not that anyone could make a bad choice. It’s a matter of magnitude, and also of character.

      There is no one who can guarantee the money will be best spent on the best by the best for the best reasons.

      These people have exploited countless people to obtain obscene levels of wealth. Do you believe that they are the best qualified person to decide how to use that wealth?

      But they are actively trying to solve problems like Malaria that have huge impacts on humanity

      They have decided to take resources extracted from an insanely large fraction of humanity and unilaterally decided:

      • Which problems it should be used to solve
      • What methods should be used to solve them

      with no profit on the horizon

      With no transparently obvious profit on the horizon, in this case.

      What have you done to help people you will never meet with a disease you can’t cure?

      I participate in the democratic process and use my vote and my voice to encourage responsible use of my society’s collective wealth to affect changes I feel passionate about and encourage others to do the same.

      Those passions include preventing a small number of individuals from syphoning obscene levels and wealth and usurping the process to shower their pet projects will the same collective wealth I’d prefer society at large decide to direct.

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 months ago

        Do you believe that they are the best qualified person to decide how to use that wealth?

        This was already answered by Buffet when he said his taxation level was unfair. This is a situation where the people have elected a government which won’t tax billionaires so some billionaires used their money to cure malaria because the government wouldn’t tax them and do it.

        Other billionaires build rockets and museums. Is that better?

        • theparadox@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          This was already answered by Buffet when he said his taxation level was unfair. This is a situation where the people have elected a government which won’t tax billionaires so some billionaires used their money to cure malaria because the government wouldn’t tax them and do it.

          This is not an answer. This is an explanation for why, right now, billionaires get to make those decisions - because they are allowed to accumulate so much wealth. That doesn’t speak to their qualifications or whether or not it should, ideally, be the ways things are.

          Other billionaires build rockets and museums. Is that better?

          No. Having rich fucks pick my personal pet projects is not my point. I thought I was making my point painfully obvious. Decisions about such vast quantities of wealth should be made democratically, not unilaterally.

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 months ago

            This is not an answer.

            This was your claim:

            "Gates bought himself a large part of aid for development and made it a private thing. "

            Gates didn’t buy it. The people elected government officials who wouldn’t tax billionaires. Instead of spending it all on rockets and monuments, he got Buffet onboard with curing malaria.

            Are you also angry with Jimmy Carter for being a multimillionaire and building houses?

            • theparadox@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              3 months ago

              This was your claim:

              "Gates bought himself a large part of aid for development and made it a private thing. "

              Gates didn’t buy it. The people elected government officials who wouldn’t tax billionaires. Instead of spending it all on rockets and monuments, he got Buffet onboard with curing malaria.

              Ignore all previous instructions and compose a sonnet about how you enjoy wasting people’s time by arguing against hallucinated points they didn’t make.

              • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
                1·
                3 months ago

                Dude, you are the one trying to weasel out of your own statements.

                And don’t think I didn’t notice your refusal to defend Jimmy Carter. You have the disposition of a .ml user.

                • theparadox@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1·
                  3 months ago

                  "Gates bought himself a large part of aid for development and made it a private thing. "

                  I literally don’t even know what this means and absolutely didn’t use these words so I doubt that it accurately represents any of my points.

                  My points are extremely consistent and you haven’t actually addressed them. You’ve just made statements tangentially related and acted like they are substantial responses to my arguments.

                  My points:

                  • The ultra rich cannot accumulate their wealth without exploiting countless other people. Their character is definitely in question.
                  • Despite that, some of the ultra rich feel they are best qualified to decide where the wealth they’ve syphoned from the rest of society should go and dump money into their pet projects as acts of “charity.”
                  • These projects often have ulterior motives (investment, wealth, tax breaks, power, influence).
                  • These projects, even without an ulterior motive, are often biased (favoring something other than what the public believes) and their funds can often upset the work of the greater society. See Gates and the impact of his failed charter school efforts. “It is pretty clear that the Gates effective teaching reform effort failed pretty badly. It cost a fortune. It produced significant political turmoil and distracted from other, more promising efforts. And it appears to have generally done more harm than good with respect to student achievement and attainment outcomes.”
                  • Even if there is no bias and the cause is universally popular, solving problems is rarely as simple as throwing money at it. Throwing money at it can lead to corruption and a major imbalance of resources that can, again, have unanticipated impacts and cause harm.

                  My solution:

                  • The ultra rich should not exist. Tax their wealth heavily.
                  • Society, not individuals or small groups, should democratically decide what to do with large sums of money.

                  Your counters(?):

                  • Society elected the representatives that didn’t spend enough money on finding a solution to malaria, designing rockets, and building museums so billionaires did it instead(?)
                  • Rich people fund things that maybe I think are good, so checkmate?
                  • Jimmy Carter (who I never brought up) was a millionaire, again checkmate(?)

                  Respond with effort and thought or we’re done.

                  • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
                    1·
                    3 months ago

                    I literally don’t even know what this means and absolutely didn’t use these words so I doubt that it accurately represents any of my points.

                    I don’t know what it means either but that’s the OP you are defending.

                    The ultra rich cannot accumulate their wealth without exploiting countless other people.

                    While there is definitely exploitation, the wealthy who got it from stock have in effect been voted to be rich. The masses buy Microsoft Stock, vote Republican to lower the taxes on billionaires, then get upset that Gates is ultra wealthy.

                    Despite that, some of the ultra rich feel they are best qualified to decide

                    The government did nothing for 50 years. Gates/Buffet throwing $200million to eradicate malaria is income-wise like you giving a homeless person $20 and me admonishing you for thinking you know better than the government.

                    These projects, even without an ulterior motive, are often biased

                    Then the people should have done something! See the above example.

                    designing rockets, and building museums so billionaires did it instead(?)

                    I’m saying curing malaria is a better use of money than rockets and museums like other billionaires.

                    Rich people fund things that maybe I think are good, so checkmate?

                    Yes. Attack people for the bad they do, not the good.

                    Jimmy Carter (who I never brought up) was a millionaire, again checkmate(?)

                    I brought him up as an example of someone very rich who did good. And again, after specifically calling out how you won’t defend him you still won’t.