I would always prefer the wealth coming from inside the system, not being first taken by individuals and then spread at their whim. Such wealth would much rather be a sustainable source. A well functioning society/government would know exactly how to spend it well.
In many cases, to me, the good the rich do does not nearly weigh in for their wrongdoings.
Your comment has been downvoted, but there isn't yet an explanation of why it is incorrect. I'll provide my perspective.
1) Zuckerberg didn't "take" wealth. He created it.
2) Governments don't have particular insight into the best ways to spend resources. We spent a couple of decades comparing market economies with command economies, and market economies won.
And, of course, the fact that he was hired by the two guys who actually came up with this idea, stole the idea from them and purposely lead them along into believing he was working for them when in fact he was competing with them with their own idea.
What is the "market" in this case? For smaller donations, lots organisations does compete for our sympathies, but larger donations seems to largely go to pet causes of the persons making the donations. I don't see market forces at work there.
1) Myspace provided a large social network with free web hosting and some PHP doodads before Facebook did. Did Mark Zuckerberg create anything new?
2) Facebook is a weapon deployed against the integrity of human personality. Does facebook quality as wealth considering that it is a destructive force?
The value Zuck created has nothing to do with PHP or MySpace, it is the billion people who check Facebook each month and spend tens of billions of hours on the site. The value is provided to the network of users and to advertisers who want to reach that audience.
The market shifted from radio, newspaper and television to web advertising. 20 years ago the $500M that Zuck donated would have otherwise went to an aristocratic media owning family empire. I prefer it going to somebody who has created new value and who will be putting the money to better use. Simply spending and gifting the money is a better use than hoarding it and establishing a genetic dynasty.
The argument about Facebook being a weapon against human development and integrity is the same argument that luddites (and the Amish) made against radio, television, the telephone and many other new inventions.
95% of the people that I know in my life, and 100% of the career moves I have made in my life were through people that I met online. The difference is that I was technical enough to know how to use IRC, how to use early blogs, etc. Facebook is simple and accessible, and allows the other 99% of the world population to take advantage of the same networking technology to enhance their lives.
I found Facebook useful for finding my roommates and classmates during college. They took away the classmate finding feature, but then it became more accessible and my grandparents could use it. I just used it a moment ago to get my cousin's birthday.
That's a lot of value to me. When I share something there, it has the broadest reach of real-world friends on any social network, but that's my personal experience.
Facebook is not a weapon. It's a product, definitely, and a medium to some degree. A corporate and focused vision of the internet, sure.
Whenever a photo is shared through Facebook it is run through facial recognition software and the results are sent to every police agency that is interested. We know that policy agencies have picked people up on information attained in this way.
Some of the worlds police agencies are evil. Whenever you use Facebook to share photos or some other personal information you are equipping potentially evil police agencies with a potent weapon that can be used against you and your friends.
Wouldn't they get that information anyways by tapping my phone or internet connection? The NSA probably has my known IP addresses linked together, who knows.
I've not experienced Facebook used as a form of oppression against me and my friends. If I did, I would immediately alert them... on Facebook.
You might consider Facebook as a weapon and a destructive force, but don't state it as a fact.
As far as streaming facial recognition data to various agencies - source? Do they comply with various legal orders? Most definitely. Do they send all of their data to police agencies? I highly doubt it.
Your point 1 is basically correct. Just to be pedantic, I'd adjust that to he "created and led the creation of the first versions of a fast-growing system that attracted great investment and wealth", rather than "created" (which suggests out of thin air).
It sounds OK, but Bill Gates case may prove that individuals can do with wealth better service than government. In a way, the government also "takes from the system", and a lot of what it takes is then spread unfairly.
Where does your faith on government spending come from? Because I have exactly the opposite impression. The most extreme form of government spending is communism, and that didn't work out at all. The problem with governments is that they spend other people's money, so they have less incentives for being prudent with it.
