I kind of envy the mindset where one has empathy for someone who is so out of touch with reality given their status. I like to think I’m a good, just person that wants to do the right thing but when I think of what the billionaire’s perspective is: someone with so much power and influence that most people are just objects or playthings to them, it’s frustrating to think about. They think they’re bigger than people, the earth, maybe even the universe.
I’m not saying I could be the triggerman, I’m not that kind of person, but yeah, fuck 'em.
Exactly. These people are downright evil. They at least accept that their actions kill thousands of people. Why would I has sympathy with a psychopathic murderer?
Every billionaire has enough power and influence to change the world on a whim. And every morning, every single one of them wakes up and chooses to be evil.
Imagine having so much money that you could never spend it all your entire life and your first concern is to hoard even more of it.
The more savy billionaires at least try to hide behind their “philanthropy”, but it doesn’t take too much digging to find out that those ventures are actually run for profit/propaganda.
Eden of the East has this as a main plot point and it’s a badass show to boot if you like weird thinking shows/anime.
My wife has been trying to get me into anime, and I’ll take this recommendation.
I don’t think you should, but should we derive what is just from how much sympathy capital a given person has? Assuming your objective is to end poverty, etc, and to minimize suffering, then if you are ready to advocate for something like murder even in the hypothetical that you absolutely don’t need to, then you’re probably just letting your feeling dictate your actions. You can of course dispute that hypothetical, and there is definitely an argument to be made there, but a lot of people don’t and still go all in on it. Hence the problem with “wanting” these people to die, as opposed to “doing what is necessary”.
Let’s entertain that thought for a minute.
What you’re describing (in unnecessarily complex phrasing) is, that calling for the actual death of billionaires is an emotional response.
If you read my comment above, my argument is not, that per being rich billionaires are bad and thus deserve death. My argument is, that the fact that these people own so much directly causes deaths several orders of magnitude above what a complete eradication of all billionaires would cause. That’s math, not emotion.
Now, killing them and redistributing their wealth is without question violence, but not doing it causes much more violence.
What your fundamental error is, is that you’re equating doing nothing with doing neutral. In your setup, watching a Nazi kill 100 Jews is neutral, but killing the Nazi is bad, because murder is bad. I’m exaggerating slightly here, but I think you get the point.
This kind of thinking is unfortunately very common, and it’s almost perfect for people who are so aloof, that it’s even beneath them to interact with the real world and they claim is rational - which is it not.
So circling back to the initial question: killing billionaires is a net positive. It’s without bad sides, it’s certainly neither the way I would prefer things to go down and it’s not the ideal way neither. But it’s not the worst option either, certainly better than the status quo.
Oh no that kind of thing I agree with. As long as it is necessary, then sure. However, a lot of these discussions are plainly theoretical - no one here is gonna do shit, in short. But people get galvanized by the idea of committing these acts and get from these fantasies a certain kind of satisfaction I’m not sure I understand properly. I mean - I do understand. People are fed up and angry with the state of the world. But since this is purely ideological and not practical, it derails all productive discussion.
What I’m saying is: as long as you can’t come up with an actual plan that has better odds of working than any other proposed alternatives, I don’t know why you’d be so obsessed with the idea of violence that it ends up being unhealthy; this maladaptive coping mechanism, in turn, might bleed into other aspects of your life and/or activism. Even if the maths check out, a lot of this is inflammatory tribalistic discourse with no point other than to rile up ideological support through emotive means. I think that actually matters quite a lot.
Apologies if my expression is somewhat unclear at times.
It’s a war. It’s just that one side has been convinced it wasn’t a war so they should be peaceful and nice. Propaganda…
It amazes me that people don’t make the connection that billionaires are both directly and indirectly killing massive amounts of people. They force people to live paycheck to paycheck, skip meals, skip basic medical needs, work multiple jobs till they die, feel in a hopeless cycle until the depression is too overwhelming.
They deserve to die.
Empathy doesn’t mean you can’t be angry. I feel sorry that they have so much money it’s corrupted their view and made them heartless gods amongst men. Feeling sad for someone doesn’t mean you can’t be mad and it doesn’t mean you can’t want them to see justice.
I think most people (on every part of the political spectrum, unfortunately) believe that restorative justice is the same thing as punitive justice.
And it’s hard to explain to someone who thinks they are the same that “making someone suffer” can be independent and separate from “righting someone’s wrongs.” That you can be anti-suffering and pro-reparation.
It’s kind of like this: there are languages that don’t have a word for green. The people who grow up speaking these languages have a harder time distinguishing different shades of green.
You say, “I don’t want that shade of green.” And these people respond, “the hell is wrong with you!? We agreed we wanted this blue-yellow color that you call green! Now you’re saying you want less green instead of more? Green is good!” Because they genuinely cannot see what you’re advocating against and what you’re advocating for.
Just like how it’s nearly impossible for me to explain to a pro-capitalist that there is a difference between a workers’ cooperative and a public traded corporation. The person will say, “they’re both businesses” even though to me that’s like saying dictatorships and democracies are, “both governments.”
But the difference is missing from their vocabulary. And because of that, they don’t even know how to approach it and think about it and express their thoughts on it. Because they don’t even have the words to describe it.
Let me copy pasta myself here to save time and just say - they are already murdering us in the millions, any harm that might come to them is an act of self defence.
Look around - the violence is already here, it has been inflicted on to the working class for centuries, killing hundreds of millions (at least, in all that time) for profit in war, with hunger and restricted access to water, with homelessness and poverty, with preventable disease, with climate change, with immoral laws and entire systems designed to keep large segments of the population as slave labour, which is what they used to gain their power and wealth to be in the position to impose all of this in the first place. And all that just off the top of my head, there is so much more violence that is inflicted on us daily, they’ve just got most people convinced that’s just life, when it really really isn’t. And those who actually benefit are never just going to give all of that up.
But they did though. Robert E Lee, Jefferson Davis, Alexander H Stephens, plus countless slaveowners all just… surrendered, and went back to owning the exact same plantations their slaveowning had provided the startup capital for.
Was it right? Hell no! Their plantations should have been given to their slaves. We would live in a better country if they had.
But it’s worth repeating that people who blew out their chest and blustered about how it was better to die than to lose this fight just went right back to comfortable lives after a heinous, sadistic, brutal form of capital exploitation was abolished right out from under them.
If you can abolish slavery without killing Dolly Sumner Lint or Jefferson Davis, then it stands to reason that even after sending Pinkertons, cops, and bootlickers to die by the thousands, these billionaires will surrender at the first sign of blood on their doorstep.
Meaning you can abolish capital without killing Jamie Johnson OR Jeff Bezos.
Which in turn means the killing of those particular people ends up peripheral at best.
They will not throw their bodies in front of the bullets aimed at their orphan killing machines.
As much closure as they would bring, as good as that would feel. It’s just not going to happen.
And then, at that point – when they have surrendered – it’s like torturing a serial killer. We gain nothing. It doesn’t bring anyone back to life. It doesn’t put the aerosolized carbon back underground or bring the temperature back to livable levels. All it does is introduce a little bit more pain to the world.
Again: at best.
At worst it could potentially set a precedent that anyone perceived as “aligned” with billionaires deserves the same death inflicted on those billionaires.
In other words, at worst, it could turn the person holding the guillotine into the de facto capitalist controlling all of the factories, all of the land, and all of the equipment single-handedly. Because who is going to stop them? Anyone who challenges that person can be easily labeled a “capitalist reactionary, counter-revolutionary” and punished according to that label.
That’s a pretty ahistorical statement.
Plantation owners and slaveholders used the legal system to enact a second set of laws specifically intended to make freed black Americans subject to white rule and operated workplaces, schools and public spaces with separate rules.
The American prison system even has a carve out in the 13th amendment that allows the operation of a majority black prison in the south as a plantation where prisoners aren’t paid for their labor. To this day. There is an actual factual black slave plantation right now.
Yes. And it’s horrible! And we should have done more!
We should – like I said – have stripped property from the slaveowners. They surrendered unconditionally! The North could have done with them as it liked.
It should have confiscated the property of everyone who profited from slavery prior to the war, and given that property to the slaves. And yes, the North should have killed as many people (be they slaveowners or bootlickers) as was necessary to carry out that transfer of property.
Station troops on the plantations. Shoot everyone who shows up with torches to burn them down and deprive former slaves of their newfound wealth.
But what I’m trying to say is: no more than that number. No more killing than is absolutely necessary to achieve that goal.
We should be imagining Jeff Bezos in prison, not dead. You don’t want to make allies out of the people who want him dead. Those people are not good friends.
How do you think Jim Crow was established? With violence.
It was not simply due to congressional reconstruction that programmatic land reform wasn’t attempted in the south. People were actively pursuing campaigns of violence during reconstruction.
There was no alternative to violent resistance.
There is no alternative to violent resistance.
Reconstruction was ended through assassination. This was hardly a resounding conclusion to slavery but a re-systemization of oppression. For starters, the slaves never received compensation, whole many of the previous slave owners did. Same goes for the GI Bill.
They can live, but it has to be on 60k a year, with all of their initial assets liquidated and used to support people in need.
60k a year is probably already too generous in most cases, make them live off of the equivalent salary of their lowest paid employee
yeah i’m fine with that but not murder like a lot of people here say they want
I think most of us start with the assumption that they’ll never give up their stranglehold willingly, and move on to more practical solutions.
They need to make the choice: pay a lot more taxes, or take the second option. I’m not threatening violence, but as our society gets more desperate the targets on their backs get larger.
There are 756 billionaires in the US and 330 million of us. Once that becomes clear to people things might change, one way or the other. All other “culture wars” are noise generated to distract from this one.
Shameless displays of excess wealth is increasingly being met with more and more cultural hostility, especially amongst younger people. Gen Zers are highly likely to view people who flaunt their wealth or indulge heavily in luxury goods as being tacky or just generally negatively. The hostility as the climate crisis increases will only increase as well.
Former tax professional here. The problem is that the billionaires aren’t really billionaires. Elon Musk does not have a quarter trillion dollars in his bank account. His net worth is calculated from what other people think his holdings are worth. He cannot be taxed on this.
Unless someone is game enough to pass legislation enabling taxation of “unrealised gains” (while not allowing credits/offsets for unrealised losses), billionaires will continue not paying their fair share of tax.
practical
Ah, teenagers
what other pressure do you have the ability to put on a billionaire that they wouldn’t find utterly laughable, if they even noticed it? but you can’t buy your way out of death. sure, if the threat to their lives were to become credible, they could leverage their wealth to protect against it, but being surrounded by bodyguards at all times, having every rooftop surveyed for snipers before you go out to get coffee - these are things that disrupt their overly-cruisy existences. and the more people there are gunning for them, figuratively or literally, the worse their lives get.
and sure, if you off them, their wealth will just default to someone else. but if billionaires start dying left and right, their inheritants might just start to find ways to make sure their fortune stays a little shy of that magical 9-digit mark.
This is the teenager equivalent of telling Santa you want a pony
Who is Santa in this analogy? And why is a teenager talking to Santa? I’m lost.
@Aesthesiaphilia @Narrrz @moosetwin @Track_Shovel holy shit like half of ur post history is “hAha TeEnAgErS LoL”
To a billionaire that fate is worse than being murdered.
B
Look I’m all for taxing the wealthy, but saying we should force billionaires, or really anyone for that matter, to give up everything more than $60k/year is fucking laughably insane.
Why, exactly? Only two years ago, 37.9 million people were below the poverty line, which is only $20k/yr. And that’s only counting the US. If we can do it, they can do it.
If those making over $60k currently cannot make it work when so many of their own countrymen have been doing so for their entire lives, perhaps we need to talk. If nothing else, I can give you financial advice.
Nice red herring. The argument was that demanding a billionaire give up all of their money and live on a relatively small salary is absurd, and nothing you said refutes that.
Sounded to me like what they meant was basically as a friendlier option than death. What’s absurd about it if you weren’t saying it’s too little to live on?
I want them to give up their wealth and power for the benefit of society. But they aren’t going to do that, are they?
A rare few do. They’re off limits.
They sure aren’t. They give up their wealth, but by doing so gain more power. They get to decide what is important for the world by dumping millions of dollars in their favourite charities. Charities that they conveniently get to put their names on to feel good about themselves.
So they’re not allowed to have the money…and they’re also not allowed to donate it? Am I clear? Because that seems stupid, tbh.
The world worked a little better when philanthropy was encouraged for the tax break. It always will. They get their cute little name on a plaque, whatever. The money goes where it’s needed.
This is not to say anyone needs to be able to make that much in the first place, but demonizing one for also getting rid of it is funny
The money goes where they want it to go, which is frequently not where it’s needed.
And you are correct, they should not have the money, since they didn’t earn it. They also shouldn’t get to decide where it goes, since they aren’t suited to make those decisions. It should be taken from them.
Behold, I am a pedant that agrees with you! However, I do believe that billionaires earned their money… in the same way that a plantation owner earned their terrifying hoard; using their complete moral depravity and means.
See you call that earning. I call it stealing. When something is earned, it would be wrong to take it from them.
Vikings earned their broadly spread genetics in much the same way, complete moral depravity and means. Just because something is stolen doesn’t make it unearned, and just because something is earned doesn’t entitle possession. Theft begets reprisal.
I believe they’re alluding to the wealthy funneling their money into foundations and other “charitable” endeavors as basically being a money wash that also comes with a lot of power to influence things. Their charity comes with strings and when you’re talking about the vast sums they wield, it has the ability to derail other charities or efforts that may have been more focused on the actual task/problem. If NPR decides not to run a story critical of Microsoft or the Gates’s because the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation are donors, does that charity still have a net positive effect?
Can’t fucking win with you, can they?
No, because it is literally impossible to become a billionaire without exploitation.
Millionaire? Possible. Billionaire? No moral way.
Oh good grief, you really are a tedious lot.
lmfao, right, because you complicit “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” are a real treat…
Here’s a hint for you: no matter how much boot you lick, or how much you defend the indefensible, they’re never going to know you exist and you’re never going to be one of them, so you’re not only humiliating yourself for nothing and shooting your own foot, but the rest of our feet, too, by allowing those who exploit us all (yourself included) to continue to do so uninterrupted while their hoards of pathetic sycophants fight their battles for them.
Clown.
Umad?
try this for tedium… if you don’t understand that being a billionaire is unethical, you aren’t human… because that sentiment only grows from here, so you need to get used to it…
I’m not quite sure what you’re missing. The entire premise of those post and this thread is that we don’t think billionaires should be allowed to keep their money and power because being a billionaire is morally wrong. Why would we let them “win?”
If they still have billions to their name, they’re not as good or generous as they’ve made you think they are.
Yes. Your a naive fool.
Unironically choosing the lives of some of the most vile despicable people to have ever lived over the lives of 50,000x as many completely normal people.
I want to eradicate their genomes.
*you’re
While I do agree with you, minor spelling mistake.
I personally am a pacifist, but the billionaires will not be missed if the general public decides to
I don’t advocate for it, I just won’t miss them
Keanu can stay though
I believe it was Twain that said “I’ve never wished a man dead, but there are obituaries that I have read with great satisfaction.”
…And?
Murder can be just without being legal.
The murder of billionaires, and CEOs of oil companies (along with all other oil executives) is morally justified, even if it’s not legal.
Billionaires is a weird group of people to choose to speak up for.
They can afford protection.
Murdering people is wrong.
People work together to build a society that helps those who cannot help themselves.
By this metric, billionaires aren’t people.
Is there a point where someone who is born human is beyond humanity? Where their depravity and lack of empathy no longer links them to actual society?
I’m feeling a lot of that in this thread as far a lack of empathy goes.
We all act as if we’re experts on what it takes to become a billionaire and are confident enough in our knowledge to the point that some people here are actually ok with murder because they think they know enough to justify it.
Just one, possibly shitty, example: Bezos’ ex wife. Did she do anything wrong to people? Bezos more than likely did, but as far as I can tell the worst thing she did was be married to him. She’s a billionaire now. Do we murder her? Is that really justified?
Personally I’d much rather have them all stripped of their wealth and made to live like the rest of us. Their endless quest for more and more wealth would leave them distraught if it was all taken away. Murder is not only wrong, but too quick of a thing especially if you truly hate these people.
Yes we do. It’s about sending a message to all billionaires. Hoard and you die.
It’s more of a line in the sand or a gradient than a hard point of “pass this and you’re not human anymore”.
Crimes against humanity and warcrimes meet the thresh in my mind.
I’d shoot someone like Al-Assad myself and I doubt I’d be very disturbed by it.
It’s them or us
My tummy has the rumblies that only billionaires can satisfy
I don’t want to murder them specifically, but I doubt they will let us take all their stolen wealth without a fight.
You don’t?
It’s only murder if you subscribe to the “meat is murder” mantra…
I think meat is murder, but i still think we should kill billionaires.
The same way I wouldn’t kill a cow for a burger, but Id defend myself if some wild animal was trying to kill me.
murder is murder… but some murders are definitely less… crime-y than others
Self defence isn’t murder
They’re coming for you, whether you fight back or not.
coming for you? they’re eating you right now… they eat you every day, and will for the rest of your life… every extra bit of you there might be goes into their bellies… they’ve got it all tabulated already… they know what sauce they’re going to use…
Exactly, we’re already just cogs in their money making system at best - some of us may die but it is a sacrifice they are willing to make…
