| ▲ | thomassmith65 10 hours ago |
| So you can imagine how astonished I was last month when an American politician said that it was impossible to earn a billion dollars [...] that it's impossible to get that rich without doing something bad — without cheating in some way.
What counts as 'doing something bad' and 'cheating' clearly is subjective. I suspect Graham's opinion on the behavior of a Zuckerberg or a Musk would be a little more flattering than mine. |
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| ▲ | pseudalopex 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > What counts as 'doing something bad' and 'cheating' clearly is subjective. I suspect Graham's opinion on the behavior of a Zuckerberg or a Musk would be a little more flattering than mine. Graham's admiration of scammer Austen Allred is evidence for this.[1] [1] https://xcancel.com/paulg/status/2019770359830949961 |
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| ▲ | doctorpangloss 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Well there are plenty of massively successful companies that Paul famously said no to investing in, for stylistic and opinionated and not greedy reasons, like Palantir. I'm sure in Paul's opinion they are doing something bad. Maybe not in Gary Tan's opinion. That is to say, not only is this stuff subjective, but it's complicated. Palantir and Flock, their main customer is the government, which complicates the story even further. |
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| ▲ | AnimalMuppet 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Conversely, I suspect the politician is defining that "all things that earn a billion dollars" are in the "bad" category. LeBron James has, between playing basketball and endorsing things, earned a billion dollars. What bad thing did he do, other than losing the finals a few times? |
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| ▲ | thomassmith65 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If she meant "impossible" as hyperbole (as one might use "nobody wants a stylus!" to mean "very few people want a stylus!") then I agree with her. If she meant "impossible" completely literally, then she is wrong. | | |
| ▲ | graeme 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | This then that makes the argument very hard to respond to. "No I didn't mean this [virtuous example]. I meant the vast majority of [unnamed nefarious actors] which I don't need to elaborate about as their existence is obvious." Once you say it's just hyperbole and you don't mean it literally, then the only way to prove it is a statistical argument. "The overwhelmingly share of company founders and companies are bad and don't earn their money." is a big claim that requires more than vibes. | | |
| ▲ | thomassmith65 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Would anyone take literally the claim that it is impossible to attain a billion dollars without 'doing something bad' or 'cheating'? Someone with $100 billion, who wanted to disprove it, could do so in five minutes, by cutting a $1 billion bonus check to his nanny. | | |
| ▲ | graeme an hour ago | parent [-] | | Sure but then what is the point of such a statement other than vibes? You're withdrawing from all argument of the underlying claim. | | |
| ▲ | thomassmith65 an hour ago | parent [-] | | I notice your reply is not so far removed from original point: What counts as 'doing something bad' and 'cheating' clearly is subjective. I suspect Graham's opinion on the behaviour of a Zuckerberg or a Musk would be a little more flattering than mine.
Paul Graham feels the sorts of decisions one must make to wind up with a billion dollars are morally unobjectionable - but that's a 'vibes' issue, not an empirical matter. This is because any two people can judge the morality of business and product decisions differently.I see large companies selling things they ought not sell (eg: Meta glasses, Tesla FSD) and making malevolent decisions (eg: Google deprioritising search content, Amazon hijacking product searches). Those things probably bother Graham too, but I reckon I consider them more evil than he, since I have less reverence for the 'invisible hand of the market' |
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| ▲ | eltrain 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | A classic Motte-and-bailey argument | | |
| ▲ | thomassmith65 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | It Alice tells Bob "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse", Bob challenges her actually to eat one, and Alice says she wasn't being literal, a reasonable person would not consider Alice to have made a motte-and-bailey argument. Whether my comments constitute a motte-and-bailey depends on whether a reasonable person would assume the "impossible to earn a billion dollars" statement to be hyperbole. |
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| ▲ | layer8 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | He probably signed advertising contracts. | | |
| ▲ | steve_adams_86 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | A tremendous amount of advertising towards kids which very explicitly uses tactics to exploit their insecurities and get them to pressure their parents (many whom can’t really afford it) to buy them gratuitously overpriced shoes or other products which the kids don’t actually need at all. It’s an industry of low-grade exploitation, generating products that people mostly don’t need. It’s bizarre. It fits squarely into the category AOC is trying to define here. |
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| ▲ | boomboomsubban 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Aren't shoe companies notoriously scummy in regards to human rights? Nike has quite a lengthy controversies section on Wikipedia, and they're where a lot of his money came from. | | |
| ▲ | holistio 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah, you can choose between two worlds: in the current one, Nike is producing shoes in you don't want to really know circumstances and is paying LeBron ~$40M a year. In another world, LeBron is still a millionaire, getting a nice $1M a year. The rest, a mere $39M, which in Paul Graham terms is just a couple months from turning into a billion, goes to the hopeless kids actually churning out the god damn shoes. LeBron did nothing wrong. The system is this corrupt. | | |
| ▲ | arh5451 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you wish to live in a world of mediocrity then reward no one for merit. Look no further than to history to see the results of a merit less society. | | |
| ▲ | holistio 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Look around you. The stuff you wear, some of the stuff that surround you. The display you're reading this on. It was made by someone who cannot afford healthy food. Meritocracy my hairy ass. |
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| ▲ | cm2012 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Nike has some of the best labor policies of all the shoe companies now. Their controversies were in the 90s. | | |
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| ▲ | well_ackshually 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's true. After all, what's wrong with endorsing a company that uses slave labor to make shoes ? |
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