The world’s rich stay rich while the poor struggle to prosper (opens in new tab)

But if you look at living-hand-to-mouth poor, I can understand John's reasoning. Yes, average incomes (productivity) have gone up but you also see how prices on commodities are rapidly raising in the developed countries to make up for that. [1]

This makes me wonder if the universal basic income is ever going to work. Look at insane costs of healthcare/education in the US - no doubt caused, in part, by "free money" either through government-assisted programs or employer-sponsored insurance.

Perhaps it's an inherent property of capitalism: some things always end up barely within reach of a lower class.

[1] Hence the need for things like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

We need to realize that what people think of "prosperity" may not be same everywhere.

They're not irrational, they just care about things outside themselves.

The simple fact is that we only fear death because our genes want to survive. Once that is accomplished -- or once we pass the age of reproduction -- the alien goddess of biology stops whispering that terror into our hindbrains. Myths of hells and grave-monsters and rotting corpses cease to haunt us so deeply. The desire to just be here becomes less intense.

I would like to extend my life, but not because I fear death. I have children. It doesn't scare me all that much, really, though I would of course be afraid if it were staring me in the face. But I'd like to extend my life so that I could experience a kind of extended late-life in order to pursue intellectual ventures of high value and long-term focus. I'd love it if after kids, after ordinary biological life, I could basically become a monk-academic-entrepreneur and dedicate a century or two to art, science, philosophy, etc.

Edit:

In addition, through Gates' philanthropy, his selfish genes are in fact increasing their fitness. All those people in Africa are walking around with 99.999999% the same genetic material that's inside Bill Gates. He is them from a genetic point of view. So his actions are "genetically rational" from a perspective of selfish-gene self-preservation.

Lots of human behavior makes more sense through this lens. Why, for example, do we exercise moderation in war? Because the enemy carries our genes. The whole point of war is probably evolutionary stimulation from a perspective of selfish-gene logic. My guess is that if we went to war against hostile aliens there would be absolutely no mercy or moderation. It would be all-out war, no holds barred.

I do not disagree with the parent poster though. Such investments would have follow-on benefits and the technology would trickle down to us eventually, so I wish there was more money being put into those areas.

A lot of the reason is that people do philanthropy to gain various types of status and reputation. It's often a social action. Investing in SENS wouldn't impress their friends in the right way, while various other causes optimize for social signaling.

Yachts and social media companies are a bit different. The yachts are for fun in addition to being a social signal that impresses some people. The social media companies are usually either to make money or to hang out in certain circles, but they do also have some signaling possibilities (you can tell your old stodgy rich friends that you're involved in more hip investments than them).

By claiming that the only rational investment would be life extension, you're making the implicit assumption that your life and experiences are worth something (otherwise, why bother extending your life?). If we agree there, why are hedonistic pursuits that (arguably) increase the quality of your life, any less rational than investments that increase the quanitity of life?

No. You make a false assumption that everyone's main goal in to live as long as possible. Different people have different goals, and Gates clearly cares about making a major impact on other people.

Maybe because it's because I'm only 30, but I'm not afraid of death. Indeed, I find the idea of life extension horrific. It would destroy the vitality of society to have old generations, with their decades of entrenched perspectives and power, cling on in perpetuity. I don't want to hang around consuming resources and overshadowing my children. I want them to have their own time in the sun.

There might also be some (perhaps cultural) selection bias - people who want yachts try to become billionaires, people who want to improve the world focus on improving the world themselves rather than on becoming rich.

[1] I wrote "realise" first, but I have no way to know if they are right or not.

In the greater scope of the universe, all things must die. The rational outlook is to see our position in this context. Our mortality establishes the constraints in which we look for meaning and purpose, so that we may not be wearied by an incalculable infinite.

And then we may understand it is what we do and express about ourselves that imbues life with meaning, and not in the hope a monument may immortalize an empty phrase. For in all finite existence, the most we can say, and what we must say, is "we are here".

Once some steps toward life extension start happening without billionaire's help, and start to become part of popular culture, then billionaires will realize it's a thing.

Also, inertia. You probably strive to live a similar lifestyle as your parents and your friends, rather than (for example) selling your possessions and spending your life backpacking the world, even if the latter might rationally be a better option if it occured to you.

It is certainly not the "only" rational investment. It might be the only rational investment for a person who shares your views on the importance of staying alive and your optimism for SENS research, but there are plenty of people who fail one or both criteria, and they're not all irrational. They're just optimizing for different criteria.

Minimal advances for example may take years and years.

And especially, how do you know that those advances are going to apply to the person who's founding the research?

What if one is at risk of heart attack? Should he still invest in life extension?

The concept of "curing [almost] every known disease" doesn't make any sense.

In this perspective, investing in life extension looks more like gambling to me, because we're dealing with non-deterministic contexts. So much for rationality.

Luxury commodities are an entirely different thing. As people pointed out, they satisfy some different needs.

Perhaps you're overestimating the extent to which billionaires accept that view.

>Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.).

Or maybe the ultra-rich have done enough research to conclude these sorts of technologies won't be mature in time to help them. So why bother?

No, the only rational investment would be in things that give you utility, or in loose terms, make you happy.

"The major part of my book... was devoted to descriptions of the economic and social institutions that enable some countries to operate near the technological frontier. The failure to establish such institutions, or to operate them effectively, condemns most of the world to levels of productivity and living standards far below what is possible with existing knowledge and techniques. That subject should interest you"

There's nothing about funds and foundations being insufficient because their founders remain wealthy. He's explicitly saying the opposite: that in many countries with plenty of foreign cash flowing in most people will remain poor and very limited in their opportunities to change that due to inadequate institutions, even if they have access to the mobile telephones and antibiotics their parents didn't and shinier public buildings in the capital city. Gates points to oil-rich Gabon's per capita incomes being "nearly" where the US was in the 1960s, but in 1960 the average American had access to running water and had a life expectancy significantly higher than 55... Gabon might have the income of a "middle-income" country but a large proportion of the population lives in exactly the same way as people in a nearby very poor countries. The problem here is that even though there's enough oil money going into Gabon to ensure the average person has an adequate standard of living, that money is so badly distributed there's a fair chance that Bill will have to chip in for people in Gabon to have malaria nets and HIV tests.

In reality, I think they're talking past each other and would probably end up on agreeing on most points that actually matter: I don't think Gates brought up book titles to ridicule the idea that reforms are necessary for poor countries to prosper, and I doubt Kay objects to Gates' current level of spending on malaria nets.

Except there is this thing called "diminishing returns" that somehow does not apply to being rich. Also, wouldn't "spend" be a more appropriate description than "give away" here?

> There is no shortage of humanitarian efforts, funds, and foundations started by the wealthy for the sake of the underprivileged. To suggest these are insufficient because their founders remain wealthy is foolhardy.

Luckily, the author of this article isn't suggesting that - he is arguing that in its current form these efforts are insufficient because the poor remain poor, and that he has good reasons to believe they will stay poor if we don't change specific problems not addressed in Gates' letter.

Second, John Kay's arguments are not contradicting (or even discussing) the main premise of Bill Gates' letter - which is to convince people aid is effective, but one specific argument made within it regarding wealth and the global economy:

> I was surprised and disappointed that the data you chose to support your case referred not to the distribution of average incomes across states – the subject of your letter – but to the distribution of household incomes across the world. These are very different things.

If I was an economist, I would also point out that mixing up the data like is disingenuous and probably damaging to the overall argument, even if to lay-people like you and me it makes little difference.

Finally, as far as I can see the author of this article and Gates want the same thing: to help the poorest on the planet. The difference is that Gates focuses on what has worked and what his vision is of what happens when things go right. Kay on the other hand focuses on what has gone wrong and is still going wrong and why, and thus is deserving of being paid attention to by people with the power and intent to change things (like Bill Gates for example). This is constructive criticism.

[1]http://forbesindia.com/article/real-issue/direct-cash-transf...

I think you are conflating the measures of Relative Poverty and the Supplemental Poverty Threshold [0]. Relative poverty is a measure of inequality and is explicitly labelled as such. The supplemental threshold is people whose entire income is less than the 33rd percentile of spending on necessities, and it is not intrinsically true that this group must always exist.

[0] http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/methodology/supplemental/...

I'm not sure what metric you are using to compare the US to other countries that make you think it is a statistical outlier, but unless your key metric is military spending, I have some news for you...

That seems like unambiguous progress to me.

Inequality whining is just getting started, given that we're on track for the problem to just get worse.

Gates may be right that most countries will be out of absolute poverty. (In fact, I hope he is right.) But I suspect that Kay is right that most countries still won't be in the "rich" camp, even by 2014 standards.

[1] http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S37/75/69M50/inde...

Taking all the money from a coddled, unemployed trust fund child would definitely have no effect on their solvency in the long-term, because money is entirely distributed based on merit.

I mean, thank god, can you imagine if it wasn't?

That's because they don't have the choice, or the chance, to do not do things. At least for the poor people in 3rd world countries. If they don't spend their entire day working for scraps, they (or more likely their children) could die the next day.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Column+Want+help+poor+...

"In Dauphin, Man., the government gave more than 1,000 families a four-year guaranteed income to help keep them out of poverty. Crime rates and hospital visits dropped. Education enrolment surged. Nobody sat around in sweatpants eating Cheetos. They used the extra resources to make plans. "

Focused on children: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/what-happens...

"But just four years after the supplements began, Professor Costello observed marked improvements among those who moved out of poverty. The frequency of behavioral problems declined by 40 percent, nearly reaching the risk of children who had never been poor."

Rural poverty in Kenya: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-25/want-to-figh...

"Food consumption increased 20 percent, with a 42 percent reduction in the number of days children go without food. Recipients were also able to increase their ability to earn income. Revenue from raising livestock rose by 48 percent; total revenue from self-employment rose by 38 percent."

Again, for emphasis: total revenue from self-employment rose

And lastly, a large one-time payment to long-term homeless men in London (though an unfortunately small sample size): http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/free-money-might-be-t...

"A year later, 11 of the 13 had roofs over their heads. (Some went to hostels; others to shelters.) They enrolled in classes, learned how to cook, got treatment for drug abuse and made plans for the future."

You need to update your model of how people work.