>The point is a rising standard of life.

You or the farmer you buy food from competes for farmland with Bil Gates. You or the one providing your house builder with wood competes for lumber forest with Alex Karp.

The list goes on and on.

It appears trough technological innovation the standards of life rise in many ways but trough innequality it can affect the standards/ affordability of our basic needs.

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arjie an hour ago | parent | next [-]

EMA food prices in number of hours of work required to sustain oneself and they have fallen for half a century. Bill Gates has not only been alive for the entirety of that period but he has been leading Microsoft for the majority of it. If this is how the list is (and I’m simply going to judge it by its first element) then it seems to provide stronger evidence against equality being a prime goal, considering wealth equality has dropped during that period.

	▲	modo_mario 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes and yields have gone up, etc. I'm not going to point at bill gates buying and leasing out loads farmland and attribute to it new corn strains, better pesticides and higher feed conversion chicken breeds. You may as well be calling for soviet style state controll the way consolidation, top down ownership is and competition mechanics are dismissed or praised depending on the standpoint.

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dukeyukey an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If Bill Gates offers megamoney for farmland, and Alex Karp offers megamoney for lumber, then it encourages the creation of more farmland and lumber.

	▲	haizhung an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You got it backwards. Bill Gates and Alex Karp don’t pay megamoney for lumber or farm land. They consume a bit more than the average person, but not by the same %age as they are richer. But everyone else can’t afford basic necessities or furniture anymore. And so being a farmer or a woodworker or whatever becomes a less attractive job, less people will do it, and you will have a harder time finding someone fixing your plumbing. Or pay a premium. Instead, the ultra-wealthy are demanding extreme luxury, and so a would-be farmer is now a hotel page boy carrying around some rich dudes’ luggage, hoping for a tip.
	▲	modo_mario 37 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Just to be sure. Are you being sarcastic?

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eastbound an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Bill Gates buys huge amounts of land precisely for ecology: Beef meat causes global warming in a disproportionate way compared to chicken or even disproportionate per euros or per gram of protein compared to lentils. All ecologists agree that beef/red meat should disappear from our plates if we want to overcrowd the Earth with more equal people, and along with erradicating a hugely deathly disease that is malaria during his lifetime, Bill Gates will also have accomplished that dream too.

I find a lot of consistency of his audience in hating him for the very reason that he implements his audience's wishes. To this audience, there is no redeeming oneself.

	▲	modo_mario 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		>Bill Gates buys huge amounts of land precisely for ecology Yes and he was gonna give a vast share of his wealth away for the good of the many over 5 years and then tripled it. woops. Let us not pretend farmland has not been a good investment in those parts. Let us be honest. Almost every such good thing he does is a tax credit which polishes his image and legacy. He was a pretty cutroath businessman and there's no reason for me to now paint him with some saintly image. >Beef meat causes global warming in a disproportionate way compared to chicken or even disproportionate per euros or per gram of protein compared to lentils. I can get behind the idea that beef has a bigger carbon footprint due to the fossil fuel fertilisers used to grow their feed as compared to the conversion ratio freaks that modern meat chicken breeds are. The fact that the methane from their farts is somehow the long term issue I however reject. And I'd like to point out that without much of both that excrement and fossil fuel based fertiliser we have a famine on our hands so 'overcrowd the Earth with more equal people' doesn't seem like such a fine goal. >I find a lot of consistency of his audience in hating him for the very reason that he implements his audience's wishes. To this audience, there is no redeeming oneself Explain to me why do you presume I am "his audience".