There could be nothing wrong about making money. There could be nothing wrong about rejecting any too specific thing for it being a waste of time, if they could universally legally live without it, no matter how common it is in your eyes.
You only feel there is a problem when he is perceived as "only" motivated by money. Here is a problem: it's very difficult to prove a negative, namely there is exactly nothing beside money that could motivate him. If he claims you don't know him, and he has other objectives that you just don't understand, I don't think there is any easy way to continue the discussion.
So let's assume this is a philosophical question, and both of you agree on Z's way of thinking exactly.
The point is, does his way of making money contribute to the world and society? If we ignore minor details and the imperfectness of reality, money could mean the following two things:
- A way to model the contributions to the world. The people with the most contributions should get more.
- A measure for the resources in the world someone could control.
By not actually wanting to control any resources, he gives up #2. For #1, as a kind of contribution, it is obviously morally good. He could be better by donating to charity, etc. But not doing so doesn't make him bad. There is nothing wrong until he has so much money (some percents of total money) that he becomes a headache of the government. In that case, they may create specific rules against him, and we couldn't talk about morality anymore when it becomes a legal problem. Before this happens, prices falls or the government issues more money to compensate him not using his money for anything. Nothing would change much. He is at worst only considered a kind of risk if he suddenly uses all his money, but that never actually happens.
If we take the minor details and imperfectness into consideration, the logic still hold, but the way we understand it would change much.
We know that money is quite a crude model of the actual contributions. He may make money by doing immoral things, which simplifies the question. (If he is immoral, he is still immoral if he also makes money.) If not, there are two ends of ways potentially making enough money that is worth discussion:
- By inventing something very valuable using his knowledge or other abilities.
- By investment, that he could put the money or other resources somewhere and simply forget them.
Many of the actual ways lies in between.
For pure #2, if that really doesn't require him to do anything, he would simply feel empty. It would become a psychological problem for him instead of a moral one. He would now control some resources using his money. But the people managing his money would be just normal people, and would do most of the things you would expect from a normal person.
#1 would slowly degenerate. Z would not consider the number increment appealing forever if he simply keeps repeating the same task. If he intends to keep making significantly more money than normal people, he has to learn a lot of new things and make predictions about the future. It would not be as simple as everyone knows how to make money, and he simply does that. He may ends up trying whatever you have considered useless for him at least once in the infinite time he has, just to make him open to chances or understand the market, and doesn't demand immediate payback.
On the other hand, if you do something valuable for whatever reasons, you will expect some reward. You may still do it even if there isn't any obvious reward, but there would be reward for similar things at one point if you had the chance to live forever.
In the end, the two ways of thinking wouldn't be that different. Unless Z does something immoral, he is just contributing to some otherwise irrelevant people in some form, while not contributing to the people you have specified. But Z is likely oversimplifying the problem, and you might not be so optimistic about any politics involved, which may have created the difference. Possible consequences include:
- Z is not actually able to keep making that much of money, which mostly hurts himself.
- Z neglects moral responsibility for other reasons, and we blame him for other reasons.
- Z prefers profitable jobs to useful jobs more than normal people. It is difficult to blame Z as the market balances itself.
- Z doesn't push for making the world more fair, and doesn't set an example himself. This is like not voting in politics. It's difficult to decide the morality and may need a separate question.
People could have a false sense of security for things mostly #2 that need a bit #1. They may keep their position for much longer time. But in the end, they would have the same problem of #1: Any part that needs intervention would slowly degenerate. They fall to the basic interest rate if someone never improve in infinite time.
There is another small thing: Any person who have really a lot of money and behaves weirdly would possibly disrupt the market, such as damage some jobs slightly or produce useless things. But that isn't specific to Z. It could apply to anyone who has a lot of money and a rare hobby. So it cannot be considered immoral.
Now answering the questions:
- To my eyes, most people who has said they are like this may not have a moral and practical way of guaranteeing profit in the long run. They may depend on various prerequisites that doesn't hold yet. We could simplify this as: Z has misinterpreted the meaning of money, which should reflect actual contributions, which naturally has uncertainty for valuable enough things. But not having profit has nothing immoral if they don't have too much money. If they have too much money, that may involve wasting resource, but that could still be considered to be their incapability. If the prerequisites actually hold, they may simply appear as either busy people or lonely people. They are doing useful work for someone. Whether they are satisfied by the number hardly becomes important. And there isn't anything immoral involved.
- You could mock him if he ends up making less money than normal people, or blame him if he does any other immoral things. It's very difficult to guarantee a success in all cases, which could be observed in some Ponzi schemes. There are ways for individual cases but I'll not expand in this answer.
- No and no. There are many cults that could convince people give money away, and for no good reasons. Why not just leave them in the bank? The question is worded like begging.
Saying Z lives forever somehow simplifies the problem a bit, as everything has to happen sooner or later. Mortal people would have a point that they feel they should stop learning and being open to more chances. Some people could delay this indefinitely, but it's difficult to persuade someone they can too.
