As much as I agree with you, the harsh reality is that the people who do choose the money end up having disproportionate influence over how the world operates. Money buys power.

It's sort of like finding honesty in politics. The reason politicians are dishonest is because it works.

It's just a bug in society, I guess.

It works until it doesn't work anymore. Examples from mild to not-so-mild: Feds suing Bill; Madoff getting thrown in jail; Epstein losing his head.

I get what you mean by "bug", but I think it's less of a bug, and more of just how things work, and if we could have perfect information, it'd most likely all make sense.

At the end of the day, all of us are gonna have to choose our poison, because none of us are getting out of here alive. I think most people make the very reasonable choice to not end up in a situation where the past will come back to haunt them, since when it does come back it will be very difficult to control the how/when/where of it all.

Counterpoint: I've taken the high road when I had the chance to compromise my principles and (maybe!) make a lot of money. And I ended up with a decent amount of money as a result. People with values look for and value other people with values, so it did open doors.

Now I'm not rolling in cash as a result, but I'm quite comfortable. And I ended up much better than some of the cut throat people involved in that enterprise who lost the game of thrones and ended up with nothing.

I've always gone with my gut, which is nothing more than just common sense, and I've also been luckier more often than not.

"Good enough" has been a highly rewarding concept for me.

Those people actually become larger by virtue of occupying their minds with money. Numbers signify connections (groups) so it's just natural.

It's a lack of exchange caused by lack of specificity of requests and a lack of discernment on the part of the hubs.

Maybe the bug is wishful thinking. Legitimizing things we view as positive even though rationally you can see why they would never happen.

It's a nice bug. If enough people were guilty of having that mindset, maybe those nice things could make sense?

The bug is that in order to make a difference, you have to have power. But in order to have power, you have to compromise your character. And thus, you compromise your ability to make a difference.

Obviously this is a wildly simplistic generalization, but it is a very powerful rule of thumb.

Sounds like learned helplessness to me.

The only sensible inner practice I've found is refinement of character. It works both when practiced publicly and when practiced privately.

And aspects of character can be built, sustained and recycled. Like anything.

Once you're a billionaire, what incentive do you have to better yourself when you can just pay to change the world around you?

> For better or worse I've always made the choice to take the high road, and I've never regretted it.

How high of a road do you think you've really taken? This whole industry is super-connected to some unacceptable atrocities, from plastic pollution to the torture-at-scale perpetrated by the military industrial complex.

You may feel as though your hands are clean, but what about your customers and suppliers? How far down/up the dependency chain are you from materially supporting real suffering?

There are a lot of folks on high horses in this industry, but unless you're dead set against the bulk of it, you're colluding in some really, really nasty–not to mention undignified–exploitation, violence, and depravity.

Also, my own life observations have told me that whenever people have chosen the money there's always some unforeseen attachment. It's never just the money. There's always at least one string attached that they either didn't anticipate or ignored the severity of.

Or when people choose the promise of money over principles and get neither, as something happens to take away the promise, either being outright cheated or eg stock options becoming worthless when the company implodes.

How much money are we talking here because that makes a pretty substantial difference.

Right? Story time:

My wife went back to college in her early thirties. During one class, the grad student was trying to get the class to really question their moral certitude. "Would your loved one cheat on you a million dollars?"

My wife, however, was positive. When pressed, she said "Oh, he's done the math. I have nothing to worry about for less than 5 million. After that, sure, who knows, but until then...".

This was not the answer they expected. The students were horrified and the instructor was confused.

To rephrase your point (and the problem): Money can't buy happiness, but it can provide a lot of security against UNHAPPINESS. Depending on where I'm at, security-wise, different money amounts mean different things. Even if I'm very secure in all my personal needs, offer me a billion dollars and there's a lot of options at the top of Maslov's hierarchy. If I recall the math right, I could give a family $10,000/day, every day, for 216 years. Add in the effects of interest (and offset for inflation), and it's probably an infinite ability.

That's a lot of soul-soothing.

I too have made choices, at far less than the $1billion (or 1 million) level. And....

I'm still torn. I'm glad my current job isn't one I'm ashamed of, but those past jobs provided a lot of security for my wife and I. We have physical and mental health specialists able to attend to our needs.

I will disagree with anyone that says money/security is all that matters, but I can't say the choice is easy or clear.

Exactly. You have to live with yourself forever. I'd much rather work to being the person I want to be, than letting someone else dictate who I am.

Alternatively, earning as much money as possible and donating most of it will probably leave a greater positive impact than using your skills directly to impact the greater good, unless your skills are correctly aligned.

> donating most of it will probably leave a greater positive impact than using your skills directly

This is true only insofar as the vocational marketplace promotes skillsets that are highly valuable in-context, but over-all contribute to some very negative externalities.

According to the calculations I've done, my collusion in an environment-destroying military-industrial complex is far from well-enough-compensated to, well, compensate for the damage we've wrought.

Even in a simple dollar-scale, if I earn 1/10th what produce for the company, there's an outsized swath of profit spent against my philanthropic endeavors

We, as individuals, cannot outspend the corporations from whose pockets we're fed. Working for a corp it's two steps back for every one step of charitable spending.

Philanthropists give money to causes that do not result in the systemic changes necessary to reduce their wealth to a small multiplier of the average person's.

It's the old saying: "give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish..."

Philanthropy will never solve the fundamental problems with our economy.

The real gift is giving a man a fishing pole. Knowing how to fish without the tools to do so is worse than just getting a single fish.

No, you missed the point. The "teaching a man to fish" includes all the knowledge, including how to make the pole.

Coercive economic dependence drives exploitation and disparities.

The Bill Gates effect. He's all Mr. Philanthropy now, and doing great work, but only thanks to the 90's-2000's ethically questionable shenanigans of Microsoft.

Even his philanthropy (or at least that of the Gates foundation) is ethically questionable [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat... ... And that's just barely scratching the surface. Honest curiosity will lead you to understanding how the megalomaniac in Bill is still alive and well.

I am a believer in your overall point that people don't change easily, but the criticism against the Gates Foundation is pretty thin considering how long it's been around and how much money they've spent.

> Honest curiosity will lead you to understanding how the megalomaniac in Bill is still alive and well.

I'll bite. Where is your evidence of Bill Gates being an egomaniac in recent history? The 3 points made in your link are underwhelming.

Gates on Making the world’s invisible people, visible:

  https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Heroes-in-the-Field-Nandan-Nilekani

Reality:

  https://jsis.washington.edu/news/the-aadhaar-card-cybersecurity-issues-with-indias-biometric-experiment/
  https://www.epw.in/engage/article/aadhaar-failures-food-services-welfare
  And in general - https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Aadhaar+problems

The basic underlying idea being pushing surveillance tech under the guise of public welfare.

Gates on Climate change:

   https://www.gatesnotes.com/Search?search=climate

Reality:

   https://grist.org/climate-energy/the-gates-foundations-hypocritical-investments/

Gates on medical assistance:

    https://www.gatesnotes.com/Search?search=medication

Reality:

    https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/another-missionary-africa-bill-gates-myth
    https://www.vox.com/2015/6/10/8760199/
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/gates-foundation-accused-of-dangerously-skewing-aid-priorities-by-promoting-big-business-a6822036.html
    https://www.nonprofitpro.com/article/report-slams-gates-foundation-for-self-serving-agenda-corporate-ties/

...and this is just with simple random google searches like 'gates foundation criticism' . There is a rabbit hole you can fall through if you're so inclined but the core idea of a megalomaniac comes through fairly quickly.