The Future
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I would argue there is no such thing as an ethical billionaire. So yes, above a certain point, all rich people are bad. They hold an unusably vast hoard of resources. They elect to retain these resources rather than help others. Granted this is a subjective argument, but a sound one.
As for not being able to prove the danger of poverty, and my statistics you can rrad the research paper I pulled them from ar you leisure: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2804032
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Most people in the US are more than capable of 'spreading the wealth'. -So what stops us?
I chose to not be addicted to drugs, to be responsible with money, and learn valuable skills and indepencence from employers. Why should I provide for someone choosing different (or enabling them to go even further down a bad path)? Wealthy people are no different in this respect, they just have more money. Squandering it on people who claim to be poor isn't as good as...
Buying up farmland in the USA to keep it out of the hands of China, or funding vaccinations. -Something a 'billionaire' has been doing.
Or.. give an example of people winning big on the lottery and compare it to the people who's lives were destroyed by the easy money. Being a better steward of money doesn't make someone evil.
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Who in the hell is arguing that slavery was a choice?
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This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥replied to [email protected] last edited by
Realistically, if a couple rich people ever obtain all the money, they no longer have any, because money only has the trait of being money and not merely some piece of metal or paper or information or whatever else when it is used as a medium of exchange, and if almost nobody actually has any, then exchanging it on a meaningful scale is no longer possible.
Huh
Summary
T.J. discovers that while he was out sick, the school has undergone a currency implementation, "Monstickers." It would now require an X amount of Monstickers to do anything that was free at recess before that point. At first, T.J. is broke, but through hard work and investments, he becomes the richest kid in school and grows mad with power and greed and even loses his friends in the process.
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What happens when you don't work for the slave master?
If you have an answer, you have an option, and that means choice. Did you never hear "Give me liberty or give me death"? Going out and being productive without an employer is far easier, is it not?
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So you think people who are addicted to drugs choose that life?
I think you are ignoring the environmental pressures and sociological realities that result in drug addiction and poverty.
There are plenty of people in poverty, who is claiming to be poor?
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I'm not feeling bad for you if you can't afford your cigarettes, cannabis, crack, and alcohol because of your own damn choices.
I won't say get a job: I'd say straighten yourself out and quit trying to rely on others handouts.
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What happens? Yes either liberty if you successfully escape and likely death if you do not. You seem like a selfish person, so you may not have considered that slaves have loved ones too. No man is an island.
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Bootstraps. Got it. You have no compassion. What are you even doing in a place like Lemmy?
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You're implying that Lemmy is only for communist / socialists and not good for anything else? -Interesting.
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No, I am not. I don't mind having discussions with capitalists. But you are an extremist. It seems odd that you would want to spend time here.
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Argued by racists...
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[email protected]replied to [email protected] last edited by
Comparing "most people" to billionaires is ludicrous in terms of spreading the wealth. The average American makes between 1 and 2 million over the course of their entire life. So if you have 1 billion, you have 1000 lifetimes worth of money. Musk is worth 342 billion. The amount of wealth trapped in the 1% is absolutely preposterous.
As for your villainizing of "drug addicts", try to tell me wealthy people don't abuse alcohol and prescription drugs, and cocaine. The only difference is when they kill a cyclist while driving drunk they get a reduced sentence and it doesn't ruin their lives.
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Bezos is the example they were using to illustrate their point. Which isn't a strawman argument by any definition of the term.
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That's a statistic that can, in fact, be proven. They should probably cite a source for it, but given how you set the level of the discussion, I can see why they'd think that level of effort is unnecessary.
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Posing a question can be a way to make a point. It's called a rhetorical question. It helps the argument if you follow up with an answer to the question, but the question on its own is enough to make a point.
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[email protected]replied to [email protected] last edited by
These billions of dollars are not held in money, but rather held in terms of things which convey control over resources and other people's lives.
Under this scenario, one must imagine that people would eventually start growing food and making things on land that they do not “own” and trading it amongst themselves, until some new thing that people actually have access to becomes money. Even hiring security to prevent that ceases to be possible, because paying that security means giving some of that money to someone else
Consider the plight of horses following the invention of the automobile. You might think that if the costs of feeding a horse exceeded the money that could be gained by employing its labor and the farmers therefore as rational economic actors no longer provided them with food, they would go into fields regardless of ownership and eat the grass there. But actually what happened with most of them is they were slaughtered and rendered into meat and glue. I'm sure a lot of people found the idea of a bunch of feral horses running around inconvenient, and they control the land and its access, and the horses and their movements, with fences and ropes and such.
There is now effective mass surveillance, there are now drones with guns, and there is automation dramatically reducing the number of people required for most tasks. I don't think it's actually the case that maintaining our cooperation, or even our lives, is the only option faced by the very wealthy to retain their power.
