Even HPMOR points out that people who obsess over avoiding death are typically considered evil, and Peter blood-of-the-youth Thiel isn’t really doing anything to counter that impression, is he.
I kinda hope someone shoots Thiel, not just because he deserves it, but also because it would be so great for all his research into human longevity to go to waste. You might be able to outrun telomere decay or whatever, but you can’t outrun hot lead.
unless I’m woefully misinformed about the level of his crimes against humanity, I’d be extremely hesitant to endorse murdering the man as I think any grounds on which to do so would apply to way too many people.
Being a billionaire in and of itself constitutes an extremely serious crime. One cannot possess that level of power and influence over other people’s lives without, not even intending to, carelessly harming and killing people.
There’s a reason people use the word “obscene” to describe extreme wealth. Because that’s what it is, disgusting, brutal, bloody, destructive.
guess Jack Ma is ten times as bad, then
does it make a difference if his billions are invested in shares of publicly traded companies, US government bonds, or cash stashed in a storage locker?
if you divided the ownership of his wealth between ten people, but they kept it in the exact same form as he has it now, would that make them each 1/10 as evil as he is, even though the net effect of the wealth on society hasn’t changed?
…why do I suddenly find myself rooting for Peter Thiel to become immortal, and not just discover life extension technologies that can eventually be extended to most of humanity?
Anyhow, what difference does it make if it’s a person that has that power, versus vast, impersonal forces? Vast, impersonal forces carelessly harm and kill lots of people as well, but their perceived liability is spread so wide that it’s hard to see - and composed of the same personal failings but spread out over a lot of smaller and imperfect humans.
….vast, impersonal forces that could easily exist, or have equivalents, under other economic modes.
For instance, if we executed all the billionaires, how many people would die due to subsequent lack of technological progress and making that technology cheap enough to be widely accessible?
It seems to me like the pro-guillotine camp here would deny any moral liability for these after-effects.