AI, automation, and globalization would all be uncontroversially brilliant if the benefits weren't distributed like "150% of net benefit to capital, -50% net benefit to labor, better hope some of it trickles down brokie!"

I wholeheartedly agree, these are all "tools" at our disposal. We're just holding them wrong.

> Billionaires simply _should not exist

Billionaires who inherit their wealth shouldn’t exist. But I have no problem with people like Bezos owning a sizable percentage share of valuable companies they created. When I was a kid, getting something ordered by mail took a week or two, even if you called in the order. UPS and FedEx existed, warehouses and storage trucks existed, but Bezos reduced that to a matter of hours. And now the sheeple can get their daily Amazon deliveries while complaining that Bezos is making a nickel on each one.

In a purely analytical calculation—without emotional nonsense—one Jeff Bezos obviously is vastly more beneficial to society than thousands of ordinary people. If we just had school teachers, or whoever else you idealize, we’d all be living in mud huts. The average person would be living like an animal without the technology created by exceptional people like Bezos. Why shouldn’t society reward them lavishly?

Bezos didn't create that wealth alone. He had help from thousands upon thousands of people. It's impossible to calculate how much of the value of Amazon was actually created by the work Bezos did, how much by other people in the company, and how much was just natural evolution brought about by technological and societal change. Bezos gets billions because he is in a position of power where he gets to take it, not because he created that much value.

But even if Bezos actually creates billions of value on his own, it doesn't mean that he should get those billions. The reward for such high value work should be high enough that Bezos chooses to do it instead of something else, but it doesn't need to be higher than that. In a world where the highest paid position would reward a few million instead of a few billion, I'm sure Bezos and people like him would still gravitate towards that work since it'd still be work with the best rewards.

People who have some revolutionary ideas wouldn't abandon them if the potential highest reward was millions instead of billions. Or do you believe that there are people with good ideas right now that abandon them because they can't earn trillions with the idea? What people expect as a reward for their work is what decides whether they do it or not. If we can lower the expectation, we can get the high value work without creating dangerous levels of power concentration.

> If we just had school teachers, or whoever else you idealize, we’d all be living in mud huts.

Let's just look at countries which have high income and very low income unequality, like Finland.

Turns out they don't live in mud huts, and most aspects of society work far better than in the USA.

My parent comment points out why society should not "reward them lavishly" as you say. However, I would (and did) put it in different terms. I'll elaborate as I think you misunderstand me.

I have no issue with incentivising and rewarding individuals who contribute great works. Any rewards, monetary or otherwise, would be fine if our institutions could continue to serve all and not just the few "rewarded" individuals.

Unfortunately, time has proven that money and power are intrinsically linked and those same few will continue to shape how and what paths humanity takes at large. I'm simply stating we should tread more carefully and not place all trust in a few cult of personalities as many seem to, and your response implies. Perhaps the stories of the self-made individual and the chances of becoming one of those few (however vanishing small the chance) is too ingrained in our collective psyche that we blind ourselves to what parts we actually play in this game.

The trade offs here aren't as simple as getting packages sooner rather than later. The tradeoffs are accepting a brutal, fuedalistic society where the negative outcomes for the many are disregarded for the positive outcomes of the few.

Perhaps the negative outcomes are too "invisible" in our daily lives because we, in tech, are isolated enough by nature of being fairly well compensated for the work we do. This in all likelihood will change if history is our guide. I personally know many individuals that work 2 or 3 jobs to be able to afford a roof over their heads because of wage suppression by corporations like the one you mention. Teachers, healthcare workers and the like. You may not see them as important but you may want to reflect on why. Meanwhile, the commons are actively being destroyed: hard won clean air and water protections are being rolled back. My father is dying of cancer because of exposure to chemicals that corporations actively lobbied to hide from the public at all costs, even though they were well aware of the dangers. These are the real results of direct corporate lobbying efforts made by the rewarded few. I don't see this as an "emotional" argument to make, but rather an inherently humanist one.

My children are growing up in a world with dimmer prospects than I or my parents had. If this is simply the cost of faster packages, than I want none of it.

>Billionaires simply _should not exist_. T

If American billionaires couldn't exist then America would be even poorer and underdeveloped than Europe, the entire tech industry wouldn't exist, and it'd be entirely at the mercy of China. Because nobody's going to start a business in a country that violently confiscates their wealth just for being successful. The envy of people like yourself is a deep moral illness that destroys civilizations if left unchecked.

Have you actually spent an appreciable amount of time outside of the US? Europe isn't the place of destitution and squalor you imply. I highly suggest it, to widen your perspective at least. Maybe then you'll see it's quite the reverse in many cases.

"violently confiscates their wealth just" Sure are jumping to some...conclusions there.

> America would be even poorer and underdeveloped than Europe

Sounds like a self-defeating argument to me.