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Tom Grlla's avatar

Maybe there's more nuance to it, but the pig story sounds like: 'Pigs get a nasty disease when they're kept in bad conditions inside'. But instead of... improving their conditions, we've created something which means that they'll stay alive and continue to suffer.

Don't get me wrong, I love eating meat, but I think animals deserve decent lives, and they taste better on it.

This just doesn't sound like a Munger win-win situation.

Happy to be corrected.

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Liberty's avatar

I totally agree, factory farming is one of the things that I can't wait for it to end. The future state of things is probably us eating meat that was grown without an animal (people will think it weird at first, and then someday, when it's better, cheaper, and healthier, nobody will bat an eye).

But as long as there are a billion pigs in relatively small areas (even if we were to greatly improve conditions, you still can't have domesticated animals roam free), I think diseases will be unavoidable. So I think we should do both what you say and this.

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Tom Grlla's avatar

Yep, fair enough. More pulses!

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Green Valley's avatar

You and Shakespeare, kindred spirits in creative license.

One other thing on Buffett, his nod to index funds for the masses probably saved countless folks from fees and fool’s errands.

Great points on what makes him exceptional. There is so much to say about him that often explanations get wrapped around the axle on detail. You hit the tops of several waves on short succession.

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Liberty's avatar

Great point on indexing, I should've mentioned that! 💚 🥃

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Liberty's avatar

These types of experiments are also early R&D for when we can decide (if we want to) to have humans immune to various genetic diseases and viruses.

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Ján Beňák's avatar

hi, i remember reading somewhere that Bill Gates had to sell big stake in MSFT before IPO because he was not allowed to hold such a big proportion of shares. So if you say how much WB would be worth, I think its good to remind that Gates in this alternative universe would be even richer :)

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Liberty's avatar

I'm not sure if that's correct. Have you found a source for it?

I've read a lot about Gates' early day, and Microsoft was profitable and didn't really need the IPO money, but they wanted to get some of the experience VCs on their cap table and so raised a few millions (and they put in the bank).

The stake of Gates actually went up over time in the early days, I think he negotiated with Paul to get more because he claimed he was doing more of the work.

But maybe there's a part of their history that I don't know about!

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Ján Beňák's avatar

well, this was pre- OneNote. But it sounds like you know more about Gates than I so lets settle that you are more likely to be correct than my memory :)

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