> ...we should be actively goading more billionaires into spending on irrational, high-variance projects that might actually advance civilization. I feel genuine secondhand embarrassment watching people torch their fortunes on yachts and status cosplay. No one cares about your Loro Piana.

I 100% agree with this. There are ~2,600 billionaires in the world and we should encourage all of them to spend their money. Even buying a superyacht is a benefit to the economy. But the best billionaires, like Bill Gates and Elon Musk, are actually trying to advance the tech tree.

We are honestly lucky that Musk is wired funny. Any normal human being would retire and hang out on the beach with supermodels after all the abuse he has taken. But he takes it all as a personal challenge and doubles down. That is both his worst quality and his best.

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mmooss a day ago | parent | next [-]

> Any normal human being would retire and hang out on the beach with supermodels after all the abuse he has taken.

First, he seeks and creates conflict. He isn't 'taking' abuse, except in the sense that he is reaching out and grasping at it.

Everyone in that position takes lots of abuse. If they built their own fortune, they generally don't retire to the beach or they would have long ago.

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GMoromisato a day ago | parent [-]

I will agree that if he hadn't aligned himself with Trump/MAGA he would have a much lower profile.

But I think we'd be better off if taking a political position did not automatically piss off half the country. I think a lot of competent but normal people refuse the get involved in politics because of how toxic it is.

I wish Musk had stayed out of politics, but I'm glad he hasn't given up on Tesla/SpaceX just because of the enemies he's made. I think any normal person would have.

	▲	mmooss a day ago \| parent [-]
		> if he hadn't aligned himself with Trump/MAGA he would have a much lower profile He's been possibly the world's leading troll since long before his MAGA phase. Let's be serious.

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narrator a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You should read F.A Hayek's essay on The Paradox of Savings [1]. Creation of capital like factories, education creating new specialists, or new processes lowers the cost of production and leads to real economic progress. Excessive spending without capital creation does nothing except keeping factors of production wastefully employed when they could be put to other uses and always ends in inflation.

[1] https://mises.org/mises-daily/hayek-paradox-saving

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nickff a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>”we should encourage all of them to spend their money. Even buying a superyacht is a benefit to the economy.”

You’re falling victim to the ‘broken windows fallacy’ here; money which is invested is actually more productive in improving medium and long term economic productivity than ‘consumption’ goods. Even ‘retained’ money (under one’s mattress) is not net-negative, as it increases the value of its circulating counterparts.

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GMoromisato a day ago | parent [-]

Scenario A: Someone breaks a window and the homeowner buys a replacement.

Scenario B: A homeowner adds a new window to their home.

Scenario C: A homeowner buys an online-course to learn how to make windows and then adds one to their home.

Scenario A has approximately no benefit to the economy. The homeowner is no better off (same number of windows) but had to spend money. The window maker might be better off, but only to the same extent that the homeowner is worse off.

I totally agree that Scenario A is not a benefit to the economy. That's the "broken window fallacy".

But Scenario B is definitely better for the economy. The homeowner has decided that having a new window is better than having the money. So the homeowner is better off. The window maker is also better off because they get the money. This is what happens when a billionaire buys a yacht.

Scenario C is the best. The homeowner has a new skill, which they can use to add more windows to their house or maybe their neighbors' houses. Over time, the amount of money spent on window-making will decrease, but the number of windows will stay constant or increase. That's a net benefit. And the online-course creator still made money.

This is what Musk is doing. He is developing new technologies that enable new capabilities and/or make existing things cheaper (e.g., electric cars, access to space, rural internet connectivity).

There is also Scenario D: The homeowner doesn't buy a new window but just keeps his money under his mattress. This is clearly the worst for the economy. Hording money like that means that there is less money circulating and lowered economic activity. The window maker is worse off, and even the homeowner is worse off if they would like to have a new window.

Billionaires who don't spend their money are the real danger, not the ones who tweet too much.

Investing their money is slightly better in that it makes the price of borrowing cheaper. But that only helps up to a point. Someone has to spend money or else there's no point in being able to borrow some. So I wish more billionaires were following Scenario C.

	▲	jaccola a day ago \| parent [-]
		In your original comment, it sounded like you would encourage billionaires to buy yachts, solely "for the good of the economy". Scenario D: A homeowner adds 10 window to their home because the populous think he is stingy and will send him to the guillotine if he does not start spending his money on new windows! Scenario D provides no benefit to society. If the billionaire does want the yacht, then no encouragement is needed.

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markus_zhang a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Any normal human being may hang out with models for a while but I guess they will promote their own ideas very soon. $$$ brings power.

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piskov a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am still waiting for someone to fund some open-source github projects instead of some new library or museum in their name.

	▲	GMoromisato a day ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, absolutely! I think this will happen as more billionaires come from the tech world.

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m_fayer a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Your description of Elmo applies to several other billionaires who have somehow avoided quixotic hyper-destructive rampages through American politics. I’m all for wired funny, but not when it comes with this much carnage.

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SauntSolaire a day ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure who the whole 'Elmo' thing is for -- more than anything I cringe at the person saying it, rather than thinking less of Elon or whatever the hope is. Like 'drumpf', or the whole small hands thing, it just comes across like a redditism that escaped confinement.

Is the hope that Elon or fans of his read it and get offended? I doubt they care much, and I fail to see the point of it.

	▲	m_fayer 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I use it to indicate my derision, and that I refuse to take this person seriously. That's the point. How the reader reacts is beside the point, to me. Diminishing names used for delegitimization are not something reddit invented. Calling George W. Bush "dubya", Barack Obama "barry", or Richard Nixon "look it up" are all great examples of a time-honored tradition. Hope I cleared that up for you.

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bgwalter a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

He plans to IPO SpaceX and xAI, so this space data center fantasy benefits both:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/musks-net-worth-hits-600-2022...

He is a walking billboard.

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waterTanuki a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Elmo already cancelled out any progress made by buying a social media platform and getting the most anti-science anti-NASA admin in history elected. He's done a net negative on the world at this point, even if the scale is vastly larger than most people.

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cindyllm a day ago | parent | prev [-]

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