Is a person who invests that money for-profit but makes giant advancements in maths/science while doing it an equally big giver?
Take for example, Elon musk. Even though he hasn't given monet away to charities like Chuck, his for-profit enterprises like electric cars, solar farms, spacex and possibly neuralink might just have been things that end up equally great for humanity.
He started out with a lot of money from his family's South African mining operations.
Your mockery is ill-directed, and in the context of a post about someone whose corporate wealth was able to be donated to charity, in really poor taste.
Now you've added personal insults to your class mockery. Please, this sort of casual disregard of other people is not appropriate on HN.
Your initial claim was that he had no money apart from company stock, and lives entirely on debt. This is factually incorrect, as I pointed out: his family money predates all of his companies.
Attached to your factually-incorrect claim was a casual denigration of a group of people with whose beliefs you disagree. This was both misguided and unnecessary.
My factual statement in response was simply:
> He started out with a lot of money from his family's South African mining operations.
Based solely on that true statement of fact, you derided me, responding to claims I never made and labeling me and my "thinking" in inaccurate and insulting ways.
If you are so good on facts, please point to some (other than speculation) that confirm your theory that Elon somehow benefitted from family money, or is currently living off family money not Tesla and SpaceX.
Your statement was extremely loaded, suggesting Elon's family somehow is part of his success. While our past is certainly part of us always, it is very loaded and complex. As is well known Elon's father was very abusive, committed crimes, and has just married his stepdaughter. Ask any psychologist and I think that is more a hindrance than an advantage in terms of family background.
I stand by the fact that anything implying Elon is successful because of his family money is a hugely far-left opinion, if not communist, and has its roots in your resentment for Elon's success.
> I stand by the fact that anything implying Elon is successful because of his family money is a hugely far-left opinion, if not communist, and has its roots in your resentment for Elon's success.
Farmers working under communist rule in China who started private farming caused agricultural productivity to skyrocket and the number of starving people to drop [1]. Say what you will about human greed, but aligning a behavior you want with a natural economic incentive is a powerful tool.
On the flipside, some industries like healthcare don't belong in such a ruthless system, because "voting with your wallet" is sometimes equivalent to "voting with your life". Other industries like scientific research have too long a lag time for the the companies to stay afloat, or for the decision makers to benefit from the decision. These industries are the ones that frequently need help from government, nonprofit, donors, etc.
I'd say spacex is a pretty big leap forward in terms of advancements in science, maybe even maths. Same with neuralink that will help handicapped people to walk one day. Hopefully that knowledge will drive our whole human race forward
As long as the intention is to actually create wealth for the society as a whole as opposed to just making yourself rich, I don't see a problem to what Elon does.
Take for example, Elon musk. Even though he hasn't given monet away to charities like Chuck, his for-profit enterprises like electric cars, solar farms, spacex and possibly neuralink might just have been things that end up equally great for humanity.
So if you have billions I guess timtowtdi.