14 billionaires join Bill Gates, Warren Buffett in giving away more than half their money

[Final-Fan]

BraLoD said:

Final-Fan said:

Well, what has me confused is why you say they are "not solving the problem in the slightest" when you imply that they would be solving the problem if they gave away all of their money instead of some of it.  Logically, if they gave away half of their money, wouldn't they be halfway to solving it?  So when you said "not in the slightest" I figured you must mean that the money they were giving away wasn't even going in the direction of solving the problem, which is VGPolyglot's complaint. 

When you are part of the constitution of a problem, if you lessen the problem you caused you are still not solving it, you just become less of a the problem, but still part of it, so the problem is still there even if less of it now, you didn't solve anything in the slightest, in the end you are still the problem.

If I take $10 away from you but then feel guilty and give you $5 back, I'm not solving the problem at all, as I still have $5 of those I took from you and you still have $5 less than you would if I didn't take it from you. You're better having $5 than nothing, so it's better if I give you some back, but I'm still the reason you just have $5, instead of $10, so I'm still the whole problem.

Do you see where I'm coming from now?

I sort of think I do, but it still seems nonsensical to me, so it's entirely possible that I don't see yet.  Here's my perspective. 

If the problem is "you took $10 of mine" then getting $5 back solves half the problem.  There is still a problem; it is unsolved; it is halfway to being solved compared to the original problem.  Thus "not solved at all" seems nonsensical to me when referring to the problem of "$10 missing". 

If going from "$10 missing" to "$5 missing" doesn't solve the problem at all, then there must be some other problem than "money missing" that you are referring to. 

Or ... wait a second.  When you say "the problem is not solved at all", do you mean "it's entirely false that the problem is entirely solved"?  (In other words, "not solved at all" is purely for emphasis, and means the same thing as just "not solved".)  In that case, I would agree with the intent of your statement while strenuously disagreeing with your choice of words to phrase that intent.  Your original statement "not solving the problem in the slightest" to me clearly said "no progress has been made in the direction of solving the problem". 

Relating this to the larger subject, I don't think you can reasonably say that the economy is a zero sum game.  Two businesses can each make profit by interacting with each other, and although I do think some workers are getting shafted the same principle applies in that society is increasing the overall amount of wealth.  It's just being funneled to the top even faster than it can accumulate at the lower end.