I've seen a lot of outpouring of hatred in response to Jeff Bezos' successful trip off the planet in his penis rocket ship. My instinctive reaction is to hate him too as a hoarder of such obscene wealth, who could probably buy and sell my life a million times over if he wanted to. I see people in response to this saying that that is just jealousy, a case of sour grapes, hating him because he is successful.
So it's got me thinking, is it blameworthy to be a multi-billionaire in the current conditions of the world? When I think of a very rich business man, I tend to imagine that they got there by being ruthless to their competitors and exploitative of people's poverty and powerlessness, for example when looking for the cheapest labor and materials. But this is just my imagination, since I'm largely ignorant of the ins and outs of business. I'm guessing many who pour out abuses on Bezos and his ilk imagine the same things, but whether they are more informed about it I don't know.
Some go so far the other way as to look at these billionaires as a positive force. They see them as technological innovators, job creators, and philanthropists. Several billionaires are those things, but I don't know how much the good weighs compared to the bad. Another possibility is that maybe they're just not as important as they're made out to be? After all, what is 10 or 20 billion compared to the budget and spending of the government? I don't know, it all confuses me because they seem as distant to me as if they were on another planet, which may be literally true soon when the penis rocket flies again.
Its not much good being a job creator if the jobs you create are shit.
Three billionaires own more wealth than the bottom HALF of the US.
Three single people have more wealth than 160 million people. In the richest country on the planet. America's wealth inequality is grossly unethical given the state of the country and it's worst off. People who pretend otherwise are either delusional, sheltered, or temporarily embarrassed billionaires just waiting for their imaginary turn to stick it to the poors.
I see billionaires as a product of capitalism. Capitalism tends to concentrate wealth on a few people, that's just how it works. They are neither inherently good nor bad.
I would say you should take a look at them as just people, and judge them for their personality, not their wealth. Maybe, they did do shady shit to get there, maybe not. Do your proper research on them individually.
If your workers are literally monitored to keep track of their piss breaks, no you shouldn’t be going to space. Fuck you,
No billionaire is a singular, Tony Stark-esque genius who is singularly responsible for even a fraction of the innovation those under them have enabled.
On July 22 2021 08:03 WombaT wrote: The short answer is yes.
If your workers are literally monitored to keep track of their piss breaks, no you shouldn’t be going to space. Fuck you,
No billionaire is a singular, Tony Stark-esque genius who is singularly responsible for even a fraction of the innovation those under them have enabled.
This all the way through.
Even the final choice to engage in a bloody personal space race rather than doing literally anything of broad public value with a modest nation's worth of resources at your fingertips is, in and of itself, utterly disgusting and worthy of revile.
The fact that it was funded by creating and exploiting terrible working conditions and avoiding returning any money to the public wherever possible is then a whole 'nother level of grossness.
People can get rich without being such pests, but not billionaire rich. Certainly not Bezos rich.
Also, just imagine the things someone could do with that much money, and chooses not to do.
Just a few examples: -Eradicate malaria ($100 billion) -Pay your workers a living wage -Lift every american out of poverty ($170 billion) -Provide clean drinking water to every human on the planet ($ 240 billion)
The first three are something Bezos could do and still be a massively rich billionaire. For the last, he would need to ask another one of the obscenely rich billionaires.
Choosing not to do these things when you can do so at literally no cost to your style of living, is incredibly unethical in my opinion. (Because honestly, it doesn't matter if you own 1 billion or 200 billion for how you live)
On July 22 2021 23:00 Simberto wrote: Also, just imagine the things someone could do with that much money, and chooses not to do.
Just a few examples: -Eradicate malaria ($100 billion) -Pay your workers a living wage -Lift every american out of poverty ($170 billion) -Provide clean drinking water to every human on the planet ($ 240 billion)
The first three are something Bezos could do and still be a massively rich billionaire. For the last, he would need to ask another one of the obscenely rich billionaires.
Choosing not to do these things when you can do so at literally no cost to your style of living, is incredibly unethical in my opinion. (Because honestly, it doesn't matter if you own 1 billion or 200 billion for how you live)
But it does not work that way. His networth has nothing to do with his money in the bank, only a small portion of all that wealth could be actually be distributed "to do good".
Besides that, the focus should be more on all these other billionaires around the world, not just bezos and the rest of the space elite. It is actually kind of sad that so few of them contribute (in a noteworhty way) to make this world a better and fairer place. Especially from the ultra-rich, that come from a middle-class background.
For my part I don´t see anything good with these clowns flying in 100km above the surface of the earth.
On July 23 2021 10:21 Zambrah wrote: Its not really common knowledge, its very hard to picture the difference in wealth between a millionaire and a billionaire, like this rice video,
On July 23 2021 07:28 Starlightsun wrote: So I guess I will carry on thinking "screw those greedy rich bastards" with a clear conscience.
You're asking this on an internet forum and like most of those it's overwhelmingly left wing with a 'fuck the rich' attitude. If you want to challenge your views you're better off asking this same question somewhere else.
To give my opinion on the topic: it largely depends on how they gained their wealth. Billionaires like Bezos and Gates have created products which are used all over the world and have made life better for all of us. If these products weren't significantly better than the alternatives we wouldn't be using them. As to your point about cheap labour I don't think that's true. Larger companies generally pay more than others.
In many developing countries you see billionaires as a result of political connections and corruption. Those are the bad kind of billionaires which don't add as much value.
The next time someone claims billionaires rocketing off to space is a sign of societal progress and heroism, remind them there are basically 4 ways to accumulate a billion dollars in America:
1) Profiting from a monopoly 2) Insider trading 3) Political payoffs 4) Inheritance
On July 23 2021 07:28 Starlightsun wrote: So I guess I will carry on thinking "screw those greedy rich bastards" with a clear conscience.
You're asking this on an internet forum and like most of those it's overwhelmingly left wing with a 'fuck the rich' attitude. If you want to challenge your views you're better off asking this same question somewhere else.
To give my opinion on the topic: it largely depends on how they gained their wealth. Billionaires like Bezos and Gates have created products which are used all over the world and have made life better for all of us. If these products weren't significantly better than the alternatives we wouldn't be using them. As to your point about cheap labour I don't think that's true. Larger companies generally pay more than others.
In many developing countries you see billionaires as a result of political connections and corruption. Those are the bad kind of billionaires which don't add as much value.
But they haven’t, that’s precisely the thing. They’ve been big players in facilitating the production of products that have improved people’s lives, they didn’t do this untethered from society at large.
An Apple are still going strong long since Steve Jobs departed this mortal coil for example, Microsoft are still doing their thing long after Bill Gates was intimately involved.
On July 23 2021 23:21 RvB wrote: To give my opinion on the topic: it largely depends on how they gained their wealth. Billionaires like Bezos and Gates have created products which are used all over the world and have made life better for all of us. If these products weren't significantly better than the alternatives we wouldn't be using them. As to your point about cheap labour I don't think that's true. Larger companies generally pay more than others.
I'm not sure that Windows is significantly better than the alternatives or that it's made the world better. It seems more to me like they did everything they could to squash the competition, regardless of quality, and to lock everybody into using their products. I think that that has been detrimental to the world. I'd be much happier using Linux but I have to have Windows installed because so many games were built to run on it exclusively due to the monopoly created by Microsoft. Sorry to narrow in on that example but I suspect the same thing is applicable in other cases too.
I don't think I should hate anybody. If I have to feel unnatural feelings, I'd much rather pity a man, not hate him. So in my opinion, no, we should not hate billionaires. And from all I've read about them, they seen quite unhappy and discontented with their lives and this just strengthens my inclination towards pity.
I revile Bezos for some personal reasons, and for his obscene wealth. I do find it incomprehensible that our current tax system doesn't seem to know how to properly tax someone at his level.
That said, I don't lump in Elon Musk into the hate train. Especially on the space front. SpaceX is legit. Our species needs to be multi-planetary, and SpaceX has single handily fast forwarded that progress by 10 years or more. We are going to have humans on fucking Mars by the end of the decade, and a colony the decade after that with Starship.
On July 24 2021 10:34 Husyelt wrote: I revile Bezos for some personal reasons, and for his obscene wealth. I do find it incomprehensible that our current tax system doesn't seem to know how to properly tax someone at his level.
That said, I don't lump in Elon Musk into the hate train. Especially on the space front. SpaceX is legit. Our species needs to be multi-planetary, and SpaceX has single handily fast forwarded that progress by 10 years or more. We are going to have humans on fucking Mars by the end of the decade, and a colony the decade after that with Starship.
Elon Musk is literally the worst of them. Talks more absolute fucking nonsense, has an insane, insane ego and has a number of bizarre fanboys who think he’s a genius.
A guy who gets so salty that other folks rescue trapped miners that he feels the need to call them paedophiles, not that great.
Never mind the hefty NASA funding of Space X, that we’re still a million miles from supporting space colonies, that there’s much to be done in the interim on the Earth.
Guy’s an absolute fraud of the highest order, any half intelligent TLer would do a better job as a billionaire
On July 24 2021 10:34 Husyelt wrote: I revile Bezos for some personal reasons, and for his obscene wealth. I do find it incomprehensible that our current tax system doesn't seem to know how to properly tax someone at his level.
That said, I don't lump in Elon Musk into the hate train. Especially on the space front. SpaceX is legit. Our species needs to be multi-planetary, and SpaceX has single handily fast forwarded that progress by 10 years or more. We are going to have humans on fucking Mars by the end of the decade, and a colony the decade after that with Starship.
Elon Musk is literally the worst of them. Talks more absolute fucking nonsense, has an insane, insane ego and has a number of bizarre fanboys who think he’s a genius.
A guy who gets so salty that other folks rescue trapped miners that he feels the need to call them paedophiles, not that great.
Never mind the hefty NASA funding of Space X, that we’re still a million miles from supporting space colonies, that there’s much to be done in the interim on the Earth.
Guy’s an absolute fraud of the highest order, any half intelligent TLer would do a better job as a billionaire
I won’t defend some of his stupid comments nor some of his Tesla employee descisions.
But it’s reductive to complain about NASA funding SpaceX. The first three years or so was all funded by Musk, and he was chief engineer. Handpicked the first few hundred team members etc. I can say he is a genius without being a fanboy. I just listened to the Liftoff audiobook that came out this year. SpaceX earned everyone of those NASA deals. I highly recommend it. Nobody in the space industry doubts the company or Musk now.
EPT
