Since a couple of you asked what’s the something we can start doing about billionaires, it’s simple:
Whatever you can to make them socially unacceptable. Make being a billionaire the equivalent of wearing fur.
Don’t feed them if you can help it (easier said than done). If you must feed them, make sure people know you’re not happy about it. If there are alternatives, fund, promote, and use them. But at the very least don’t praise and glorify them and stop giving them “the benefit of the doubt.”
@aral Especially when that "doubt" doesn't exist. When you have a billionaire whose track record shows they "do the right thing" exactly 0% of the time, it's deliberately misleading to suggest this time will be different.
@aral Heck yeah. I insist on the framing that billionaires are bad people. Even the ones with great PR, fundamentally they aren't doing enough.
The biggest consolation social media gives me is when someone like Bezos is on twitter caught up in small drama though. Like, go buy an island dude. Consistent proof money doesn't buy personality or happiness.
I don’t think the problem is billionaires but the fact that economic power easily become political power and grows in a positive feedback loop. Billionaires are a symptom but the problem is a pathological social system.
And a big part of this is people seeking for wealth, social status, visibility etc even at the lowest possible level of the pyramid.
I think a better advice is giving less importance to the narrative that everyone creates about themselves and give it to the really important things in life, including being morally upright and principled, even if no one will ever know, even if no one appreciates you, even if that means sacrificing wealth.
@aral I find the hardest part to be the tough conversations with people whose bubble im bursting or even going against someone they look up too. Had a few awkward conversations with relatives or at a wedding. I don’t want to be the one ruining the mood but I also don’t want to just smile when a dude says that Space Karen could be “the modern equivalent to Jesus”… I think I t requires good conversation skills and good knowledge of the topic to bring the right words at the right time?
@aral The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed. - Balzac
@aral I just can't get my head around the concept of being a billionaire. It's such an enormous amount of money for one individual to have. I often think about how and why they seem so hell bent on keeping it and getting more even though they don't have a long enough life to spend it. The first question I would ask to billionaire is why do want so much money?
Honestly? I cannot believe working or middle class people in the United States "donate" money to a $billionaire presidential candidate and brag about it like they just did something quite smart.
@aral What do you imagine the “something” is in “we can start doing something about it?” I don’t see a line from “awareness that billionaires are bad” to “billionaires stop being bad,” but I would like to see one.
I admit this may be just me, but I’m on-board with “concentrated wealth is bad” and I’m ready to move the conversation to next steps that aren’t guillotine memes. 🤷
@aral ...Welcome to the economic infrastructure of Capitalism. It's a sure-fire method of total destruction of Earth for the sake of GREED. A very sorry state of affairs, indeed.
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