Asklemmy

A better question might be “name a billionaire that does more good than harm to the world”? Although personally I think that’s an impossibility.

My two cents:

1. The current problem is rather that relatively many rich people are trying to do good things. The vast amount of private donations and privately funded NGOs, etc., have a strong influence within traditional, often national, political and governmental processes. This has had good and bad consequences and has been done with good and not so good intentions. Even if all consequences were good, the question remains to what extent we object to the fact that the choices of where to put money have been made by individuals and not arrived at through democratic processes, which can also lead to good or bad consequences.

2. It is unfortunate that "effective altruism" has become the trendy moral framework for many wealthy individuals, especially within Silicon Valley, to make decisions about where they put their money and how. Effective altruism is a questionable moral theory because it is primarily about the question of "how" to act and less about why. The theory suggests no underlying value system. As a result, it remains a values-free form of consequentialism, unlike, say, utilitarianism, a form of consequentialism that does propose an underlying value, namely happiness - and thus happiness maximization as a goal. Moreover, "effective" is a vague term, which also remains relatively free to fill in.

The free-fillability of effective altruism combined with the inherently individual choices of, well, individuals, currently creates friction between wealthy individuals and democratically elected bodies.

This is imho the current issue we need to think about, regardless of any "goodness" of consequences. Where do the responsibilities, rights, duties, freedoms and liabilities of wealthy individuals start, lie and end with respect to those of democratically elected governments, other representatives of the people, and, of course, 'regular' citizens.

Anything? That seems like an easy goal to score on. Maybe you mean "done good overall"?

Double dog dare me?

Current Agha Khan founded the Agha Khan Development Network which has done a fair amount of good in the developing world.

A single good act does not a good man make.

Bill Gates. (Has donated money to charity and founded one himself).

J.K. Rowling, amongst others, have given away so much money that they've lost their billionaire status.

Crassus invented the fire brigade and his head became a stage prop for the Parthians.

That one brought a couple friends and his billionaire son down and unalived together.

Probably unintentional, but that one moment saved the planet a lot of hurt down the line I'm sure.

Chuck Feeney out here just existing and you having the audacity to suggest that good billionaire's don't exist. 3.7 Billion dollars donated in his lifetime.

The guy who ran Cuyamel back when they were bribing the Honduran government and after that the United Fruit Company supposedly spent the rest of his life drafting social welfare legal proposals for democrats. Which given just how evil the United Fruit Company was is more of an indictment of new deal legislation than anything else tbh.