Billionaires and Morality

[Jub]

To avoid cluttering the Twitter thread I thought I'd start a new topic for this discussion.

As it seems to be the point of contention I'll start by clarifying the statement:

"Billionaires are the worst of humanity. Even the 'good' ones have gallons of blood on their hands if only because they wouldn't accept less to give humanity more."

This blood doesn't have to literally be injuries and working people to death (Jeff Bezos - Amazon) it can be the cost of running a profitable business in the current global climate. The blood could come from sourcing materials or labor from a market that treats its workers poorly (See Mineral exploitation in Africa, Labor conditions in China and India, or even further back to railway workers and imported Indian labor across the commonwealth), it could also come from the toll it takes on workers more directly (The harm caused to exploited workers in fields from video game development to retail), it could come from deaths caused by lack of tax revenue due to exploiting loopholes (See General Electric for a prime example), it could come from manipulating laws in ways that benefit profits over human lives (Lobbyists for corporate interests, corporate personhood), or it could come from the climate change that manufacturing widgets with the sole motive of profit causes (Do I even need a specific example here). Blood is inherent at every step of the climb up the capitalist ladder.

When a small business owner hires their first employee and justifies a poor wage with how hard they worked to get their business off the ground. When a landlord raises rent not because they need to but simply because it is profitable to do so. When a property speculator buys a house they never intend to have occupied. These things cause harm by degrees and snowball into a web of human suffering. Billionaires do all of these things on a scale so grand and impersonal, filtered through various lettered positions and managers, sometimes through dozens of different corporations but the system that generates excess profit always does so at a cost to those it profits from. Capitalism, by its very nature, seeks to avoid any costs and responsibilities in the quest to generate this value.

To end, let me ask these questions, how many companies would still turn a profit if they were forced to pay the costs for the environmental damage their business causes? Can a company, or an economic system, that factors in the harm of their products at each step, from mineral extraction to product sale to end-of-life product recycling, be profitable?

[J]

To end, let me ask these questions, how many companies would still turn a profit if they were forced to pay the costs for the environmental damage their business causes? Can a company, or an economic system, that factors in the harm of their products at each step, from mineral extraction to product sale to end-of-life product recycling, be profitable?

All of them. At least, all the ones who are smart enough to monetize their externalities into tradable credits & structured finance products.

[Jub]

To end, let me ask these questions, how many companies would still turn a profit if they were forced to pay the costs for the environmental damage their business causes? Can a company, or an economic system, that factors in the harm of their products at each step, from mineral extraction to product sale to end-of-life product recycling, be profitable?

All of them. At least, all the ones who are smart enough to monetize their externalities into tradable credits & structured finance products.

Do you have examples of companies that actually do this at every step of their products' lifespan?

[Solauren]

From the previous thread....

Those who had the right widget at the right time ought to have given it to the world for free. Insulin could have made a billionaire but the only moral choice was to give away that fortune.

Really depends on the 'widget'. Something that is needed for life (i.e medical), I can see making it as cheap as possible, but there are costs that have to be recovered. Nothing is free, and it's unlikely to ever be.

I totally agree, however, price gouging over 'needed to live' stuff is absolutely wrong.

However, for stuff that is not absolutely needed for life (which is basically most consumerism), then they have the right to charge whatever they want. Just like people have the right to say 'fuck that price'.

The problem is, most people won't do that. There are idiots out there that keep paying for new Apple iPhones, despite all the shit that's been revealed (i.e updates that deliberately slow them down).

Billionaires are the worst of humanity. Even the 'good' ones have gallons of blood on their hands if only because they wouldn't accept less to give humanity more.

That's largely situational. Some industries have an absolutely bloody history to them. No question.

Others, not so much, to none at all.
Case in point - what blood does the guy that came up with Minecraft have on his hands?
I'm also not really seeing any blood on Musks hands. He started with software development, and has moved on to SpaceX, and trying to make environmentally sustainable vehicles. He's an idiot otherwise, but I'm not seeing any blood on his hands.

Musk’s dad was involved in South African mining, which is bloody.

If we are going to start going 'but his ancestors'.... then the entire fucking world is guilty of so much, we should hope Putin starts a nuclear exchange and wipes us all out.

If we are going to discuss individual billionaire responsibility and similar, we should focus on just what they did or caused, not what an ancestor did.

[LadyTevar]

From the previous thread....


If we are going to start going 'but his ancestors'.... then the entire fucking world is guilty of so much, we should hope Putin starts a nuclear exchange and wipes us all out.

If we are going to discuss individual billionaire responsibility and similar, we should focus on just what they did or caused, not what an ancestor did.

Ah, there is the question. Musk is a billionaire because of Inheritance. Same with the Rockefellers, the Murdocks, the British Royal Family, etc. Their money came from their ancestors, who did questionable things to make that money, and may or may not still be profiting from the activities that gained them that money in the first place.

So, knowing where the money came from is a valid line of discussion, as it would have shaped the current Billionaire's views on what is/is not acceptable Business Practices amongst their peers.

[Solauren]

In that case, we also need to consider ancestral action in context with the time they lived in, as well as modern standards and morals.

We also need to consider the modern individual (i.e Musk), and if they have moved away from the source of the bloody wealth, and what they are doing with it.

In some cases, we might even need to consider if the current use of ancestral wealth is actually doing more harm then the original source.

[Adam Reynolds]

The problem with billionaires is that they downplay the inherent survivorship bias in what they do.

One relevant point specific to Space X is that the agency wouldn't have done anything if NASA hadn't decided to privatize at exactly the right time after sort of literally being burned on the Space Shuttle. Musk was far from the first to attempt to create a private rocket company like that, nor was he the first to attempt reusable stages that land on their tails(DC-X was a thing). Space X also cuts costs at least partially by massively overworking and underpaying their engineers, which is why they have a far worse turnover rate than anyone else.

I'm also not actually sure that the reusability makes much of a difference in practice. While the argument is that reusability is necessary because it is otherwise the equivalent of throwing away a 747 every time you want to fly across the Pacific, the alternative of needing to carry enough fuel to fly all the way back may not actually be cheaper because you would be so much more limited in cargo in this case. We see this problem in that the Falcon Heavy center stage is almost always expended.

[Solauren]

I'm also not actually sure that the reusability makes much of a difference in practice. While the argument is that reusability is necessary because it is otherwise the equivalent of throwing away a 747 every time you want to fly across the Pacific, the alternative of needing to carry enough fuel to fly all the way back may not actually be cheaper because you would be so much more limited in cargo in this case. We see this problem in that the Falcon Heavy center stage is almost always expended.

Without side tracking too far.

The goal is to get the reusable landing rocket as cheap and fuel efficient as possible. Right now, yeah, not overly cost effective, but prototype technology rarely is. Once they get the landing reliable, they can start on fuel efficiency, other ways to assist in the landing to lower fuel costs, and the like.

Also, once you can reliable land a rocket safely, you can look at alternative engines. Right now, say you put an ion drive in a standard rocket (i.e not reusable). You now have a nuclear battery crashing down somewhere. With a landable rocket, you know exactly where it is.

[Adam Reynolds]

Without side tracking too far.

The goal is to get the reusable landing rocket as cheap and fuel efficient as possible. Right now, yeah, not overly cost effective, but prototype technology rarely is. Once they get the landing reliable, they can start on fuel efficiency, other ways to assist in the landing to lower fuel costs, and the like.

Also, once you can reliable land a rocket safely, you can look at alternative engines. Right now, say you put an ion drive in a standard rocket (i.e not reusable). You now have a nuclear battery crashing down somewhere. With a landable rocket, you know exactly where it is.

Why in the world would you ever put a nuclear powered ion drive on something intended to land back on earth? They are for deep space and deep space alone. Leave them in space where they belong and you don't have this problem. Putting it on a rocket that might explode during landing seems like a worse idea.

I think there is actually something more insidious behind ideas like this. The bullshit in most "tech" companies that are really working in other industries is all about disguising the fact that few of them are actually making a profit in the ways they claim to when the actual methods are often harmful.

Amazon(actually a retailer) had a drone delivery program and robot warehouses, to disguise from the fact that their real success is due to overworking their delivery drivers and warehouse mules. Uber(actually a taxi company) has never really been profitable and is only kept alive by ripping off drivers and massive influxes of cash because they claimed that they might one day have self driving taxis.

Space X claims that their reusable rockets are bringing down costs, when they are mostly just doing more vertical integration and underpaying and overworking their engineers compared to competitors, leading to much higher turnover and a slightly lower safety rate. Space X also claims that it is fine that their satellites are ruining astronomy because Starship can just replace all ground based telescopes with space based ones after they lower launch costs enough.

Cory Doctorow referred to this effect as “jingling keys — a distraction for the technologically unsophisticated (and techies who have dipped into their own product) while everyday corporate crimes are committed under our noses. [He points out that] tech companies promise to deliver impossible things in order to cultivate an air of mystical capability that's invoked to mask real-world awfulness."


Now in a slight defense of Space X, they did accomplish genuine cost cutting when the rest of the space industry in America has never had to do so. The historical problem is that the space industry and NASA were always seen more as a jobs program than they were actually meant as a real attempt to do anything in a reasonably efficient manner. Just like the defense industry, this all needs to be overhauled. But then Space X isn't really helping to solve the fundamental problem because they also massively overcharge NASA and Space Force if you believe their official launch costs, while Musk moved to Texas and is happily supporting all of the Southern Republicans that screwed up programs like Constellation and SLS to begin with.He really just wants a piece of the action, not a real solution.

[Solauren]

Why in the world would you ever put a nuclear powered ion drive on something intended to land back on earth? They are for deep space and deep space alone. Leave them in space where they belong and you don't have this problem. Putting it on a rocket that might explode during landing seems like a worse idea.

That was an example meant to clarify a purpose. I have no idea what type of drives besides liquid fuel based are feasible for rockets.

I'm more in favor of a space elevator or orbital wench system anyway.

I think there is actually something more insidious behind ideas like this. The bullshit in most "tech" companies that are really working in other industries is all about disguising the fact that few of them are actually making a profit in the ways they claim to when the actual methods are often harmful.

Debatable.

Amazon(actually a retailer) had a drone delivery program and robot warehouses, to disguise from the fact that their real success is due to overworking their delivery drivers and warehouse mules.

Amazon work conditions are becoming increasingly well known. I agree, some of the stories depict bad conditions.
Question is - how many of them are true? I've been in places some people have said were horrible work places.
Some of them unquestionably were. Some, one or two of the workers were the problem. Others, the stories proved to be unfounded.

Both within 'single location' places, and as parts of larger organizations. Some were just company policies, others were crappy local management.

Honestly, I want to see a nice undercover investigation into multiple Amazon locations before I accept any sweeping statements about them.

Uber(actually a taxi company) has never really been profitable and is only kept alive by ripping off drivers and massive influxes of cash because they claimed that they might one day have self driving taxis.

Since Uber's very nature is an attempt to side-step all regulation regarding Taxi's, and are evasive little shits when investigated, I completely believe that already.

Space X claims that their reusable rockets are bringing down costs, when they are mostly just doing more vertical integration and underpaying and overworking their engineers compared to competitors, leading to much higher turnover and a slightly lower safety rate. Space X also claims that it is fine that their satellites are ruining astronomy because Starship can just replace all ground based telescopes with space based ones after they lower launch costs enough.

Then Space X's employees need to Unionize. Simple as that. (Actually, alot of company problems at the worker level are usually cured by unionization).

I'm not touching satelite vs astronomy.

Cory Doctorow referred to this effect as “jingling keys — a distraction for the technologically unsophisticated (and techies who have dipped into their own product) while everyday corporate crimes are committed under our noses. [He points out that] tech companies promise to deliver impossible things in order to cultivate an air of mystical capability that's invoked to mask real-world awfulness."

In other words, standard corporate stuff.

Now in a slight defense of Space X, they did accomplish genuine cost cutting when the rest of the space industry in America has never had to do so. The historical problem is that the space industry and NASA were always seen more as a jobs program than they were actually meant as a real attempt to do anything in a reasonably efficient manner. Just like the defense industry, this all needs to be overhauled. But then Space X isn't really helping to solve the fundamental problem because they also massively overcharge NASA and Space Force if you believe their official launch costs, while Musk moved to Texas and is happily supporting all of the Southern Republicans that screwed up programs like Constellation and SLS to begin with.He really just wants a piece of the action, not a real solution.

You do realize that coming up with a solution is worth way more money then just a piece of the action right?

Basic mathematics -
Right now, a little googling shows that a space launch costs about $150 - $152M (depending on payload).
For the sake or argument, let's say that Space-X launches cost about $145M. That's about $5M profit off operating costs of $145M.

Now, someone comes up with a way to do one safely, reliably, and more environmentally friendly for $20 million, that's big.
And that company can go "instead of charging $150M for a space launch, we can now charge only $30M'.

Everyone will be thrilled that the cost of space flights have dropped down that much, and the company would still make $10M per launch.

7 launches later ($140M), instead of $5M, that company has made $70M in profit. Of gone from less then 4 percent profit, to 50 percent profit.

Yeah, his politics are scummy, but the business idea is actually a good one.

[madd0c0t0r2]

...
You do realize that coming up with a solution is worth way more money then just a piece of the action right?
...
Yeah, his politics are scummy, but the business idea is actually a good one.

'worth' is an interesting word here. I know you're using it in the limited transactional value case, but it still carries implications of merit, and social good. That's something we can't really step away from when discussing Billionaires and morality. Does the 'ownership' of such solutions provide the greatest good? Is not providing the greatest good a moral failure?

[Broomstick]

Amazon(actually a retailer) had a drone delivery program and robot warehouses, to disguise from the fact that their real success is due to overworking their delivery drivers and warehouse mules.

Amazon work conditions are becoming increasingly well known. I agree, some of the stories depict bad conditions.
Question is - how many of them are true? I've been in places some people have said were horrible work places.
Some of them unquestionably were. Some, one or two of the workers were the problem. Others, the stories proved to be unfounded.

Both within 'single location' places, and as parts of larger organizations. Some were just company policies, others were crappy local management.

As someone who has worked in conditions so poor I decided to quit rather than risk my health and/or safety, and once successfully sued a former employer for maltreatment and won, in other words, I know something of the topic...

I think reports of mistreatment should be treated seriously but actually verified.

As an example, I hear a lot of complaints about how horrible my current employer is, but it's actually not a bad place. There are, however, some stores and some managers that are terrible within a system otherwise pretty decent. My company does some work to root these out and either fix or eliminate them. Does it do the best job possible? I honestly don't know. Probably it could do better, because businesses usually can improve in that area.

In other instances, it's a bad fit between worker and job. There are some jobs I just should no longer do from the standpoint of physical ability and/or stamina - that's why I no longer work in construction. That leads to other issues around finding employment (or a means to survive) for people who can't manage jobs with a physical component anymore for whatever reason, but it's not necessarily the fault of the employer.

Where I live, where there are -very important! - alternatives to warehouse/fulfillment employment most of the people I know working for Amazon are happy to have those jobs. I'll also note they are all young, fit, and healthy. They didn't get hired with pre-existing back/shoulder/whatever problems. They aren't middle-aged. The people sticking with Amazon are self-selected, those not liking or not suited to the work can go elsewhere. The worst problems are where there are no or few alternatives, but that's always been an issue for a one-industry town.

I don't doubt there are exploitative situations. The fewer alternatives people have and the more desperate they are the more likely exploitation is to happen. Exploitation doesn't have to happen equally across an industry, though, or even equally across a company. The more alternatives workers have the more employers have to work at keeping them happy, because if they don't they'll leave. That's also why capitalistic "barons" have incentive to hold people down and make them desperate, because then they don't have to keep workers happy, just working.

[bilateralrope]

On the subject of conditions at Amazon, this article from June seems relevant:

Amazon could run out of workers in US in two years, internal memo suggests

Michael Sainato
Wed 22 Jun 2022 09.00 BST

With exceptionally high turnover, the company risks churning though available labor pool by 2024

Is Amazon about to run out of workers? According to a leaked internal memo, the retail logistics company fears so.

“If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” the research, first reported by Recode, stated.

Amazon is right to be worried – its staff turnover rate is astronomical. Before the pandemic, Amazon was losing about 3% of its workforce weekly, or 150% annually. By contrast the annual average turnover in transportation, warehousing and utilities was 49% in 2021 and in retail it was 64.6%, less than half of Amazon’s turnover.

Even Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, is worried. Bezos originally welcomed high turnover, fearing long-term employees would slack off and cause a “march to mediocrity”. But in his final letter to shareholders as chief executive last year, Bezos said the company had to “do a better job” for its employees. Amazon will commit to being “earth’s best employer and earth’s safest place to work”, he wrote.

In part, Bezos’s change of heart is down to a wave of unionization efforts at the company’s warehouses. But Amazon also faces a problem of scale. As the US’s second largest private employer, it is now struggling to replace all the workers it loses.

Workers and labor groups have long decried Amazon’s working conditions and high employee turnover amid high injury rates.

Matt Littrell, 22, a picker at Amazon in Campbellsville, Kentucky, since early 2021, who is trying to organize a union at the warehouse, said Amazon’s hiring practices, productivity quotas, attendance policies and unequal enforcement of rules are contributors to the lack of job security that drives Amazon’s high turnover.

One issue is Amazon’s “time off task” metric, he said, where Amazon monitors employees’ productivity and issues write-ups, which can lead to termination if too much “time off task” is accrued.

“Each one of those instances where I was taking too long to find an item counted against me, and that is all added up, and then they count that as your total time off. And it doesn’t matter if you were doing your job – you were not meeting the expectation,” said Littrell.

Littrell said he walks 15 miles or more every shift as a picker because his warehouse does not have robotics technology where items are brought to pickers. He said the bins where items are stored are often overfilled, which can cause injury or make it more difficult to find items – making it more difficult to meet productivity quotas.

If an Amazon worker receives so many attendance penalties that they go negative in their allotted time off, they face automatic termination if they cannot get the absence excused by the correct department.

“You have to go through a big corporate bureaucracy to even get an accommodation,” Littrell said. “Even though they have all of these dystopian metrics for tracking you, what it boils down to is that if you actually want Amazon to go and find proof, you have to fight for it like your own union shop steward, you have to fight them every step of the way. And for a lot of people that contributes to burnout.”

Zaki Kaddoura, a stower at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, and a member of the Amazon Labor Union, said productivity quotas were a driving factor in Amazon’s high employee turnover. He also cited having to handle heavy items, not being able to find space in stow bins, and workers being denied accommodations.

“Imagine doing that for 10 hours a day, every working day, while someone is pressuring you to hit these targets,” said Kaddoura. “I think that these quotas should be recommended, not required.”

A report based on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) data released by the Strategic Organizing Center in April found Amazon’s serious injury rate in 2021 was 6.8 per 100 workers, more than twice the average of 3.3 per 100 workers in the warehousing industry and a 20% increase from a year prior.

With the unemployment rate close to a 50-year low, Amazon is struggling to fill all the positions it needs. According to the memo, written in mid-2021, the company was in danger of exhausting its entire available labor pool in the Phoenix, Arizona, metro area by the end of that year, and in the Inland Empire region of California by the end of this year.

A spokesperson for Amazon said in regards to the research memos: “There are many draft documents written on many subjects across the company that are used to test assumptions and look at different possible scenarios, but aren’t then escalated or used to make decisions. This was one of them.

“It doesn’t represent the actual situation, and we are continuing to hire well in Phoenix, the Inland Empire, and across the country.”

How often can you recall a company that's churning through the labor pool so quickly that it's worried about running out of available workers ?

Also, Bezos is being sued by a former housekeeper over working conditions at his home: '14-hour days with no break and no bathroom': Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sued by his former housekeeper.

[Solauren]

On the subject of conditions at Amazon, this article from June seems relevant:

Amazon could run out of workers in US in two years, internal memo suggests

If that was verified as an authentic internal memo, then that is pretty damning for Amazon. They themselves know there is a problem, but do not appear to be working to correct it.

Actually, it's probably they are working to correct it, just have no idea how to do it.

Really, how hard is it to try something like -
Increase wages to 25% over minimal wage (or by 25% if already above minimum wage) to keep current staff
Fixed work hours on a 40 hour work week (makes personal life easier for all staff)
Three or more shifts at all facilities (each with double the current work force) to make the jobs easier for all staff
Frequent safety inspections by an outside party on all facilities until the problems are eliminated and the quarterly inspections to prevent problems from coming back up, as well as random ones within the quarter to keep management from getting lazy on safety, and giving people a way to report problems without fearing their jobs.

[Solauren]

...
You do realize that coming up with a solution is worth way more money then just a piece of the action right?
...
Yeah, his politics are scummy, but the business idea is actually a good one.

'worth' is an interesting word here. I know you're using it in the limited transactional value case, but it still carries implications of merit, and social good. That's something we can't really step away from when discussing Billionaires and morality. Does the 'ownership' of such solutions provide the greatest good? Is not providing the greatest good a moral failure?

First, no one is going to do anything if there is not transactional value in the form of profit. If you can't accept that 'social good' isn't sufficient reason for something, I suggest giving up all trappings of society after moving to a forest somewhere.

Now, that being said, it depends on how you define social good, and how it applies to a given industry or situation.

In the case of Space Exploration (et all Space related), getting costs lows is actually in the interest of social good.

Cheaper space launches means cheaper infrastructure creation costs. i.e putting satelites into orbit, for things like telecommunications, weather monitoring, gps, etc. That means faster and more stable internet, more coverage for cellular communication, more accurate weather forecasting, redundancies in the systems and the like.

In theory, it also means savings that could be passed onto the consumer. I acknowledge that it likely just means higher profits for investors.
And I doubt anti-competition laws would allow the blocking of use of cheap space launching because a company is not willing to lower costs to their customers, so there is no way to prevent that abuse.

Cheaper space launches also means more development chances. We can already get to the Moon, but it's fucking expensive for little gain at this point. Cheaper space launches, we can go back to the moon more economically, and start building things like moon-bases, moon-based infrastructure and the like. We can harvest resources from the moon instead of from Earth. That has the benetfit of relocating harmful mining offworld, which is a major environmental benefit. (To say nothing of potential asteroid mining).

Further, we could start setting up green-houses on the moon to grow crops. NASA has previously brought back soil from the moon, and just add air and water, and a little soil for bacteria, and plants grew in it, and eventually turned it into standard dirt. You'd have to send up soil to start the process in the green house, but afterwards, once you had enough, you could just use lunar 'grown' topsoil.

And you could import that topsoil back to earth to offset soil erosion, overuse of farmland.

Lunar Greenhouse farming would also take a lot of strain off earth based food production.

That's to say nothing of potential lunar colonization.
Further colonization and expansion past the moon would require faster vehicles.

So, lots of potential social good (if realized).

So, on person, or a small group owning it? I have no problem with that. Mostly because all known attempts at 'mass ownership by the people' that of any vital or important infrastructure, by people that had no idea what the hell they were doing, has always had alot of problems (qv Russia after the Communists took over comes to mind...)

I would prefer it be owned by the government, and therefore 'the people' controlled space development?
Maybe not own it exclusively, but certainly be a partner in it, and regulate it and hold people accountable for it.


Now, as for providing the greatest good.
Generally speaking, I would agree, not providing the greatest good could be considered a moral failure.
(Even if morality and 'the greatest good' can be largely subjective, I still agree with that as a general statement).

It could also just be a general failure for attempts to provide as much good as possible and not succeeding.
Attempts to provide for the greatest good must also be considered (with a lack of attempt being the greatest moral failure).

That all said, there is one quote I remember, attributed to Henry Ford (it's in Civilizations IV, as read by Leonard Nimoy, but it's still a good qoute), that I wish all billionaires and businesspeople followed, or that the law made them follow.

"There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wage possible." I would consider wages to include benefits, safety the like the like.

That is probably the greatest social good.

[J]

Really, how hard is it to try something like -
Increase wages to 25% over minimal wage (or by 25% if already above minimum wage) to keep current staff
Fixed work hours on a 40 hour work week (makes personal life easier for all staff)
Three or more shifts at all facilities (each with double the current work force) to make the jobs easier for all staff
Frequent safety inspections by an outside party on all facilities until the problems are eliminated and the quarterly inspections to prevent problems from coming back up, as well as random ones within the quarter to keep management from getting lazy on safety, and giving people a way to report problems without fearing their jobs.

Amazon's net profit margin is around 2-3%, they'd go bankrupt if they implemented any of the above measures.
They'd probably go bankrupt if we simply stopped letting them cheat on their taxes.

[Broomstick]

Or, you know, they could adjust compensation levels, but that might mean Jeff Bezos is no longer a billionaire, right?

[Crazedwraith]

Or, you know, they could adjust compensation levels, but that might mean Jeff Bezos is no longer a billionaire, right?

Bezos announced today he wants to give his billions away to charity and my immediate reaction was 'does that mean he's going to be paid less and start treating his employees right?'

[Broomstick]

Yeah, just once I'd like to hear one of these guys say "I'm going to increase wages" before they donate to charity.

[Adam Reynolds]

There is an interesting and highly problematic ideology that many current billionaires subscribe to, the hybrid of longtermism and effective altruism advocated by people like Will MacAskill. Unsurprisingly it tells them that it is fine to hoard money as long as they donate it in the most effective way possible, which doesn't include paying taxes. Unsurprisingly Elon Musk is a major fan, tweeting a recommendation of MacAskill's recent book. Another fan is Sam Bankman-Fried, who ran the crytopcurrency exchange FTX into the ground in an attempt to make more money so that he could donate to causes he believes in. Unfortunately he lost all of the money before he got the chance, and the cryptocurrency involved was a massive source of carbon emissions.

MacAskill aruges in favor of incrementalism rather than radical change, using the several hundred year history of the abolition movement against slavery as an example. Somehow the fact that this ultimately required multiple extremely violent revolutions is lost on him.

The fundamental thesis of this ideology is that the only thing that matters for humanity is the future potential for humanity or a transhumanist posthumanity to spread beyond Earth across the universe. They then use this as an argument to not worry all that much about climate change because it isn't really an existential risk in that it can't wipe out all of humanity. They generally say that it's less of a concern than artificial intelligence, as that has greater potential to wipe out all of humanity within the next few decades if we get it wrong. On one hand they are correct in that this could be true, but on the other they are using the risk of a future problem as an argument to do nothing about current problems today. A flood tomorrow might destroy your entire estate, but if your kitchen is currently on fire you might want to worry about both instead of just saying that the levee is more important even if it is.

The irony is that probably one of the best solutions to artificial intelligence safety as advocated by researchers like Stuart Russel is to make AI systems inherently humble, in which a fundamental lack of certainty is baked into systems. It's almost as if they could learn something from those actually working on the problems they worry about the most. The other thing that would seriously help AI safety would be sane regulations within the tech industry. But this would also do things like punish Tesla for the fact that their self driving mode has killed several motorcycle riders because it only relies on pure vision systems rather than lidar.

[Adam Reynolds]

I'm more in favor of a space elevator or orbital wench system anyway.

Those are each impossible and implausible respectively. Space elevators are at the absolute limits of theoretical materials and are are far too dangerous to build unless we have certainty that it will work.

Orbital tethers are less impossible and more of a general challenge to make workable. Several years ago there was a thread on this board that covered the issue.

Then Space X's employees need to Unionize. Simple as that. (Actually, alot of company problems at the worker level are usually cured by unionization).

Like with Amazon, this would quickly make them unprofitable. Much of their profitability is on the backs of underpaid and overworked engineers, to the point that they have supplied beds and fired people who go home. Because people like working in the space industry they can get away with it.

Which was my whole point, that they aren't really making things cheaper in the ways they appear to.

You do realize that coming up with a solution is worth way more money then just a piece of the action right?

Basic mathematics -
Right now, a little googling shows that a space launch costs about $150 - $152M (depending on payload).
For the sake or argument, let's say that Space-X launches cost about $145M. That's about $5M profit off operating costs of $145M.

Now, someone comes up with a way to do one safely, reliably, and more environmentally friendly for $20 million, that's big.
And that company can go "instead of charging $150M for a space launch, we can now charge only $30M'.

Everyone will be thrilled that the cost of space flights have dropped down that much, and the company would still make $10M per launch.

7 launches later ($140M), instead of $5M, that company has made $70M in profit. Of gone from less then 4 percent profit, to 50 percent profit.

Yeah, his politics are scummy, but the business idea is actually a good one.

I don't know if we can really say what Space X launch costs really are with any certainty, because they aren't a public company with publicly available records for things. My point about them overcharging NASA and Space Force is that they are actually charging more than their competitors on those launches, which makes me wonder if there is some creative accounting going on with respect to actual launch costs.

Launch costs like you're suggesting are also pure fantasy. There is nothing to suggest anyone is anywhere near that. Reusable rockets aren't actually reusable, they are refurbishable, which means it isn't as cheap as it appears. That was the whole problem with the space shuttle not actually working.

[Solauren]

Amazon's net profit margin is around 2-3%, they'd go bankrupt if they implemented any of the above measures.
They'd probably go bankrupt if we simply stopped letting them cheat on their taxes.

Ouch.

As I've told small businesses (and a few mid sized ones before) - if you can't pay your taxes, or only have razor thing profits, you don't have a viable business model.

[Solauren]

I don't know if we can really say what Space X launch costs really are with any certainty, because they aren't a public company with publicly available records for things. My point about them overcharging NASA and Space Force is that they are actually charging more than their competitors on those launches, which makes me wonder if there is some creative accounting going on with respect to actual launch costs.

Launch costs like you're suggesting are also pure fantasy. There is nothing to suggest anyone is anywhere near that. Reusable rockets aren't actually reusable, they are refurbishable, which means it isn't as cheap as it appears. That was the whole problem with the space shuttle not actually working.

For launch costs, I was going by what Musk claims they cost (and to the best of my knowledge, no one has never refuted that).
I read a quote that Musk once said he thought that 1% of current costs was achievable, and increased it to a bit more realistic.

For reusability vs refurbishablity, I know there is a difference. My mug is reusable after a cleaning (or even just a quick rinse - I primarily drink water or water with flavor mixed in). Space vehicle rockets need a bit more then a quick run under the facet. Refurbishable is still more economically and environmentally friendly then 'use it once, toss it on the scrap heap'.

[madd0c0t0r2]

...
You do realize that coming up with a solution is worth way more money then just a piece of the action right?
...
Yeah, his politics are scummy, but the business idea is actually a good one.

'worth' is an interesting word here. I know you're using it in the limited transactional value case, but it still carries implications of merit, and social good. That's something we can't really step away from when discussing Billionaires and morality. Does the 'ownership' of such solutions provide the greatest good? Is not providing the greatest good a moral failure?

First, no one is going to do anything if there is not transactional value in the form of profit. If you can't accept that 'social good' isn't sufficient reason for something, I suggest giving up all trappings of society after moving to a forest somewhere.
...

So, on person, or a small group owning it? I have no problem with that. Mostly because all known attempts at 'mass ownership by the people' that of any vital or important infrastructure, by people that had no idea what the hell they were doing, has always had alot of problems (qv Russia after the Communists took over comes to mind...)

I would prefer it be owned by the government, and therefore 'the people' controlled space development?
Maybe not own it exclusively, but certainly be a partner in it, and regulate it and hold people accountable for it.

...

This is a very shallow, quite American viewpoint. Ignoring the huge amount of volunteer work, hobbyist labour and open source development that power the modern world, it also suggests that insulin could not be invented, and that the Oxford vaccine was only retrospectively invented when gates interfered with them giving it away. There's more to life than the great American corporation and toy adverts.

You almost touch on a better idea when you acknowledge that government controlled organisations exist and perhaps motivated by things other than transaction? In reality, once an organisation is set up with some capital and a mission, it pursues it. I get my water from a not-for-profit national water company. I commute on a train operated by a national-not-for-profit, running on rails operated by a government owned organisation (because the private company fucked up and killed people trying to save money). I get my coffee at the local coop, and walk my dog along paths maintained by the local council. Non of these organisations are pursuing a profit, they are just doing what they've been programmed to do.

Amazon's net profit margin is around 2-3%, they'd go bankrupt if they implemented any of the above measures.
They'd probably go bankrupt if we simply stopped letting them cheat on their taxes.

Ouch.

As I've told small businesses (and a few mid sized ones before) - if you can't pay your taxes, or only have razor thing profits, you don't have a viable business model.

Amazon's net profit margin is around 2-3%, they'd go bankrupt if they implemented any of the above measures.
They'd probably go bankrupt if we simply stopped letting them cheat on their taxes.

Ouch.

As I've told small businesses (and a few mid sized ones before) - if you can't pay your taxes, or only have razor thing profits, you don't have a viable business model.

Then I think your expectation of what median net profits rates are in different industries is pretty skewed: https://www.readyratios.com/sec/ratio/profit-margin/

[Solauren]

First, no one is going to do anything if there is not transactional value in the form of profit. If you can't accept that 'social good' isn't sufficient reason for something, I suggest giving up all trappings of society after moving to a forest somewhere.

This is a very shallow, quite American viewpoint. Ignoring the huge amount of volunteer work, hobbyist labour and open source development that power the modern world, it also suggests that insulin could not be invented, and that the Oxford vaccine was only retrospectively invented when gates interfered with them giving it away. There's more to life than the great American corporation and toy adverts.

Bullshit.

You are assuming that profit is limited to money. (Now who has the shallow viewpoint?).

Volunteer work gives emotional satisfaction to the people that do it (or they stop doing it), no matter how minor. That's a form of profit.
Very few people continue to actually do Volunteer work when it's making them miserable.

Open Source Development gives emotional satisfaction on a job well done, and often the compliments of someones peers. That's a form of profit.
No one does anything public for development if it's not being acknowledged in someway. (Even if that is just someone downloading a design they posted on Thingiverse, or saying a custom they did on a Transformer toy is cool).

As for the guy that invented Insulin....
... from what I remember learning about him in school, he is one of the few people I can honestly say I believe his motives were entirely motivated by a desire to do good for others then of himself.

Anyway, that emotional profit might not have been the initial motivation for doing something, but it's what keep most people continuing doing things.

As I've told small businesses (and a few mid sized ones before) - if you can't pay your taxes, or only have razor thing profits, you don't have a viable business model.

Then I think your expectation of what median net profits rates are in different industries is pretty skewed: https://www.readyratios.com/sec/ratio/profit-margin/

First, I'm glad you didn't say anything about not being able to pay your taxes is not a viable business model.

Second, Razor-thin is a subjective term. I've never seen it actually defined in percentages. And I only say 'razor thin isn't viable' when they are making excuses for not paying being able to pay their taxes. Mia Copa on that.

Oh, and with that chart - do you have anything that covers more industries and more specific sectors? That would be fascinating to look over, and useful to have during an economic discussion.