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Billionaires

speaking of billionaires, I went to the Getty Museum today. That guy (or rather his estate/foundation) put up $1.3 billion to build that place in the 1990's.
 
https://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar-club/

interesting chart - I'll try to post the image

Too much to post the entire list / Gerry the first half
All Companies as of September 2015
Select a company to read a full profile.

CompanyLatest Valuation
Uber
$51.0 billion
Xiaomi
$46.0 billion
Airbnb
$25.5 billion
Palantir
$20.0 billion
Snapchat
$16.0 billion
Didi Kuaidi
$16.0 billion
Flipkart
$15.0 billion
SpaceX
$12.0 billion
Pinterest
$11.0 billion
Dropbox
$10.0 billion
WeWork
$10.0 billion
Lufax
$9.6 billion
Theranos
$9.0 billion
Spotify
$8.5 billion
DJI
$8.0 billion
Zhong An Online
$8.0 billion
Meituan
$7.0 billion
Square
$6.0 billion
Stripe
$5.0 billion
ANI Technologies (Ola Cabs)
$5.0 billion
Snapdeal
$5.0 billion
Stemcentrx
$5.0 billion
Zenefits
$4.5 billion
Cloudera
$4.1 billion
Dianping
$4.0 billion
Credit Karma
$3.5 billion
Tanium
$3.5 billion
Global Fashion Group
$3.4 billion
Jawbone
$3.3 billion
Fanatics
$3.1 billion
Delivery Hero
$3.1 billion
VANCL
$3.0 billion
Legendary Entertainment
$3.0 billion
Pure Storage
$3.0 billion
DocuSign
$3.0 billion
Moderna
$3.0 billion
ContextLogic (Wish)
$3.0 billion
Ele.me
$3.0 billion
HelloFresh
$2.9 billion
Bloom Energy
$2.9 billion
Slack
$2.8 billion
Powa
$2.7 billion
InMobi
$2.5 billion
Lyft
$2.5 billion
Garena Online
$2.5 billion
Social Finance (SoFi)
$2.3 billion
Houzz
 
Can we get back to the unstoppable march of human ingenuity, value creation, and progress?
 
NAOS said:
Can we get back to the unstoppable march of human ingenuity, value creation, and progress?
Click to expand...
I get that something like a pristine lake has value and no person gave it that value, but are you trying to make some sort of point that human progress is worthless?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
NAOS said:
Joe Bag hasn't just taken the bait of the neoclassical synthesis, he's swallowed the hook.

His notion of "value" is so lopsided and full of blind spots that I don't even know where to begin. Here's a little start: I have friends in Trinidad whose grandparents grew up near the bubbling tars. The locals at the time didn't find them "valueless"; on the contrary, they were utilized for certain health benefits and there was plenty of local lore that grew up around them. "Technology" didn't give these places value. The value was already there; it just wasn't seized by, striated, and subsequently controlled by the (colonial) State.

I'm not arguing about the "falsity" of Joe Bag's comments. Many of them are "correct" from within the fictions of neoclassical economics and Keynesian theories. That doesn't make them universally correct. When I read these kinds of comments, I'm amazed at how often HUMAN WILL and TECHNOLOGY appear as God-like in their beneficence.... creating something from nothing. Belief in that miraculousness is what buoys the fiction. Value was there already, y'all. Just because the market and State didn't recognize it doesn't mean it wasn't there. Humans don't create objects from inanimate or "dumb" matter. Nonhuman entities have agency in this creation... and they have value regardless. Good grief.
Click to expand...
When I choose to view a NAOS post I am almost always treated to a guy who believes that discussion equals climbing upon an intellectual high horse and mocking the intelligence and knowledge of his opposition. Since the post above is simply more of the same I'm not going to get into a spat over any of it, but I'm interested to learn if I am the only one here who sees logical inconsistency in claiming that tar pits were used long ago for therapeutic reasons and therefore the value of vast unknown underground oil reserves was already there prior to the technology that we utilize today to exploit them. Yes, I slightly overstated the case that they had no value prior to industrialization, but come on...
 
Well at least I think we can all agree that it's complicated!


And I'll admit that I do tend to think of it as a bit of a zero-sum game, which I'll also admit is a bit foolish on my part.

The history lessons on forests and tar pits and tulips and all that have been good reminders of the evolving notion of what constitutes "the good life"

Now what was the original question?
 
My thoughts are that both Joe and NAOS have valid arguments to the two sides of the debate.
Difference is Joe stated his opinions and NAOS did the same but in an unnecessarily condescending way.
I would greatly prefer being educated to the two ways of thinking through constructive debate with less hyperbole and personal barbs.

But it's a message board.

#modauditioning
 
Btw, only reason I would want to be a mod would be to get the IP address of ncoloradojazz and run through his house with my ****ing truck.
 
Joe Bagadonuts said:
When I choose to view a NAOS post I am almost always treated to a guy who believes that discussion equals climbing upon an intellectual high horse and mocking the intelligence and knowledge of his opposition. Since the post above is simply more of the same I'm not going to get into a spat over any of it, but I'm interested to learn if I am the only one here who sees logical inconsistency in claiming that tar pits were used long ago for therapeutic reasons and therefore the value of vast unknown underground oil reserves was already there prior to the technology that we utilize today to exploit them. Yes, I slightly overstated the case that they had no value prior to industrialization, but come on...
Click to expand...

I think what you are failing to recognize is that it isn't the innovator that claims the value of the pits nor is it the people who have an ancestral claim. More often than not it is a cutthroat capitalist whose contribution to the value of the pit or stewardship of it was minimal. The myth of the innovator isn't so much that they aren't adding value it is the myth that equates the capitalist with the innovator that is so frustrating. If you're so high on innovation why not tout an "innovationist" economy instead of a capitalist one. I don't want to speak for Naos but having read his posts over the last few years I think this is what he is getting at.
 
♪alt13 said:
I think what you are failing to recognize is that it isn't the innovator that claims the value of the pits nor is it the people who have an ancestral claim. More often than not it is a cutthroat capitalist whose contribution to the value of the pit or stewardship of it was minimal. The myth of the innovator isn't so much that they aren't adding value it is the myth that equates the capitalist with the innovator that is so frustrating. If you're so high on innovation why not tout an "innovationist" economy instead of a capitalist one. I don't want to speak for Naos but having read his posts over the last few years I think this is what he is getting at.
Click to expand...

Well said, hey.
 
♪alt13 said:
I think what you are failing to recognize is that it isn't the innovator that claims the value of the pits nor is it the people who have an ancestral claim. More often than not it is a cutthroat capitalist whose contribution to the value of the pit or stewardship of it was minimal. The myth of the innovator isn't so much that they aren't adding value it is the myth that equates the capitalist with the innovator that is so frustrating. If you're so high on innovation why not tout an "innovationist" economy instead of a capitalist one. I don't want to speak for Naos but having read his posts over the last few years I think this is what he is getting at.
Click to expand...
I think it would be most accurate to say that I believe the oil reserves gained value to human society as a result of the technology. But yeah, I guess if the paradigm someone is arguing from is anti-capitalism then we're probably going to butt heads from time to time.

I once had a neighbor who was self-described anti-human. Maybe NAOS is in that category as well. We had some interesting conversations about his position that humans are so bad that he would be honored to kill himself as long as everyone else agreed to do the same. I told him not to hold his breath. The irony (to me, not him) is that he uses more than his fair share of resources in this world. I hold nothing against him for doing that, but by his logic, he certainly should.

My position is that humans (and human society) are a remarkable occurrence (regardless of whether intelligent life has ever happened elsewhere in the universe). I am unashamedly in favor of human progress. I love pristine places and enjoy them often, but the beauty of those places which are mostly untouched by man does not cause me to feel, like some do, that man is therefore bad. As a matter of fact, I think a world filled with innovation and competition and capitalism and religion and science and wars and victories and all the rest that comes with our complicated culture is infinitely preferable to the path this planet would be taking at this very moment had intelligent life never emerged. Yes, there would be many beautiful vistas (some of which we have destroyed), and no forest creature would ever know the terror of a rifle shot, but there would also never be anyone to truly appreciate those beautiful vistas (or to recognize that we have also proven ourselves capable of creating beautiful ones of our own) or to record the history or to argue ethics or anything else.
 
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