> They build spaceships, fight disease, and finance science.

Businesses used to pay taxes so the public could do all that.

Nowadays Amazon competes with local stores, while not paying taxes, which that local stores can't avoid.

So these billionaires, evil or not, are concentrating wealth on themselves and shape the world to their liking. And their linking isn't the best for society as a whole.

That doesn't mean that SpaceX isn't cool, or that I didn'tove when Amazon shipped science fiction books to my home, which was far away from any bookstore. But it is very clear that some companies have large negative externalities and their tax invasion and policy influence is really, really, really bad for our society.

> And their linking isn't the best for society as a whole.

See, how can you judge whether it’s going to end up bad if we’re in the middle of it?

What kind of question is that? What are you arguing for?

Do you think extreme concentration of power and wealth is good? Do you want to be free? Do you want to elect your leaders?

Again, this is not about SpaceX and Amazon and other companies. These companies do cool and good stuff! The topic is the concentration of power and wealth and the negative externalities of that.

I think there's no way to tell right now whether there's going to be a net positive or negative outcome.

> Do you think extreme concentration of power and wealth is good?

I mean, it might move the humanity into the positive direction.

> Do you want to be free?

That's such an abstract concept, I don't even know what it means.

> Do you want to elect your leaders?

Whenever I go, people complain about the government, east and west alike. Maybe I don't want to.

I think your reasoning is ideologically charged, without any argumentation. I'm just pointing out that it's hard to judge how the things will turn out now.

If liking freedom and democracy is ideologically charged for you we might just not be able to find common ground for a discussion here.

Have a nice day.

"They build spaceships, fight disease, and finance science."

They do it not for humanity but to earn more money. Its always money, power, and fame at the end.

> They do it not for humanity but to earn more money. Its always money, power, and fame at the end.

I think that depends on how you see the world. I believe there’re people who aren’t driven only by desire to have more money.

There are those people, they are just a set of people that doesn't intersect the set of major tech CEOs.

Absolutely. I saw that website were Bezos’ wealth was measured out in pixels. He could easily eradicate a disease, wipe out all student debt or something else you can dream of, but afaik he isn’t doing that.

Maybe because his wealth is measured by the stock he owns and the price would drop should he decide to dump it.

So his wealth is illusory? He can't, say, buy a huge yacht or multiple homes or any other major expenditure?

Well, it's an illusion to a certain extent. However, it's an incredible amount of wealth. His net worth increased by 75 billion in 2020. Perhaps that's an illusion and he could only liquidate that stock into 20 billion in the short term. That means he could still buy a 50 million dollar home every day of the year.

To answer your question, he can certainly buy a yacht or multiple homes at any moment. However, if he wants to cash out 100 billion dollars in stock this year, he's not going to get full value, and he'd have to slowly pull it out over a matter of years or decades to do so.

Those billionaires don't have to liquidate stocks. They borrow against their stocks to the tune of dozens of billions.

The general consensus of HN seems to be _the action resulting in the most profit creates the most desirable outcome_ because of 'economics'