this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
85 points (63.3% liked)

Asklemmy

43945 readers
574 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
(page 4) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

My two cents:

  1. The current problem is rather that relatively many rich people are trying to do good things. The vast amount of private donations and privately funded NGOs, etc., have a strong influence within traditional, often national, political and governmental processes. This has had good and bad consequences and has been done with good and not so good intentions. Even if all consequences were good, the question remains to what extent we object to the fact that the choices of where to put money have been made by individuals and not arrived at through democratic processes, which can also lead to good or bad consequences.

  2. It is unfortunate that "effective altruism" has become the trendy moral framework for many wealthy individuals, especially within Silicon Valley, to make decisions about where they put their money and how. Effective altruism is a questionable moral theory because it is primarily about the question of "how" to act and less about why. The theory suggests no underlying value system. As a result, it remains a values-free form of consequentialism, unlike, say, utilitarianism, a form of consequentialism that does propose an underlying value, namely happiness - and thus happiness maximization as a goal. Moreover, "effective" is a vague term, which also remains relatively free to fill in.

The free-fillability of effective altruism combined with the inherently individual choices of, well, individuals, currently creates friction between wealthy individuals and democratically elected bodies.

This is imho the current issue we need to think about, regardless of any "goodness" of consequences. Where do the responsibilities, rights, duties, freedoms and liabilities of wealthy individuals start, lie and end with respect to those of democratically elected governments, other representatives of the people, and, of course, 'regular' citizens.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Anything? That seems like an easy goal to score on. Maybe you mean "done good overall"?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Double dog dare me?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

A better question might be “name a billionaire that does more good than harm to the world”? Although personally I think that’s an impossibility.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

A single good act does not a good man make.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Current Agha Khan founded the Agha Khan Development Network which has done a fair amount of good in the developing world.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Bill Gates. (Has donated money to charity and founded one himself).

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Crassus invented the fire brigade and his head became a stage prop for the Parthians.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The dead ones

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

J.K. Rowling, amongst others, have given away so much money that they've lost their billionaire status.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That one brought a couple friends and his billionaire son down and unalived together.

Probably unintentional, but that one moment saved the planet a lot of hurt down the line I'm sure.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›