I’m not defending billionaires. I just don’t care about them because of the amount of money that they have. If they are assholes, then I judge them based on that. Maybe in order to become a billionaire, you have to be an asshole, in which case they are all assholes. I just don’t see the very act of being a certain amount wealthy as itself in itself issue. If Bezos were to wire a billion bucks into your account right now, would you instantly become an asshole? Of course not, that’s absurd.
Life sucked more for everyone before there were billionaires, so who am I to say that I know for sure that they make life worse for everyone? Maybe life would be better in a system in which they can’t exist, I don’t know, and to act like I do know 100% would be disingenuous. Sure, I get that people claim they can perfectly imagine how life in completely different complex systems with billions of individuals would be, but I just don’t choose to give such high regard to my own very hypothetical imaginations. I’m suspicious of people who claim to have such a perfect ability to simulate possible alternate realities in their minds. Especially when they also can’t seem to be able to use their incredible mental powers to get their life comfortable enough to be able to see just what an incredible time it is to be alive.
The immense majority of extremely wealthy people had to be assholes in order to accrue that much money, but even if that wasn’t the case, I would still argue against that much unequality. Why? In a market system, offer of goods and services is determined by how much money each layer of society has: if the poorest people have very little money in comparison with the richest people, the market is going to put less resources and work into providing for cheap, basic needs in comparison to offering vastly luxurious, expensive high tier items.
If everyone alive today could all of a sudden live with the comfort and security that they would have with an extra 3 zeros at the end of their bank statement, but the richest .01% get to have an extra 9 zeros at the end of theirs, should we do it? Would you like to increase inequality in this way, or do you prefer things the way they currently are?
Again: Money is relative. If everyone gets 3 extra zeros on their total money, everyone has the same purchasing power than they had before, so prices would multiply by 1000 and no one would be any richer or poorer. If on top of that, the richest .01% get 6 or 9 extra zeros, then everyone else is getting poorer.
That wasn’t my question. Of course, money is relative. I’m saying if the quality of life were to increase for everyone as if they all had an extra 3 zeros with today’s spending power. Would you like this to happen even if the richest got the spending power or an extra 9 zeros. Inequality would be greater, but we would all be better off. Would you like things to be less equal if this is the case?
Inequality isn’t the worst possible thing. We all almost all way better off than the richest people 100 years ago. Things are way better than ever before, that’s fantastic. If a side effect is that I have to know that Bezos can buy ten story yachts, IDGAF.
We are all getting better off at a very rapid pace. There will always be outliers that got lucky, worked harder, or outsmarted the rules. If we let jealousy consume us, then it does us no favors. When we have a problem is when things are actually getting worse for us. It’s no big deal if there are some people who have things that we don’t. It’s not so unlikely that in our lifetimes, we will be able to do all the things that billionaires get to do today anyway.
Do you think you are worse off than you would have been 50 years ago? 100? 200? If so, then it’s just a history lesson you need. If you think you are better off now then you would have been back then, but you feel like you deserve to be even more better off, then what do you base your estimated amount of “better off” that you feel like you deserve? Have you lived 1,000 lives and you know that this pace is worse than average? Of course not.
It’s jealousy. It’s the kid that gets what he wanted then gets angry because he sees someone with something better. That’s going to keep happening no matter what you get. The demon you need to conquer is within. It’s jealousy.
Bezos splits all his money up and gives it to everyone equally. As you correctly pointed out, if we all gain, then none of us gain. We just lose spending power.
Bezos decides to split up all his money to his workers, and then work for the same pay as all his workers. All the other Billionaires are so inspired that they do the same thing. A bunch of workers get richer, and everyone not working for the ex-billionaires gets even poorer than they are now(again, since money is relative).
Bezos gives all his money to the government. Now we have a 50/50 chance of genocidal Joe or dictator Donald having hell of a lot more power to do what they do with it. So maybe we bomb more brown people, or maybe we bomb more brown people and put up statues of trump. The richest governments get richer and better weapons, the poorer countries get poorer and more demolished.
Bezos gives all his money to the government, and all of a sudden, a bunch of people in control of the government have a massive change of heart and develop the super power of being able to massively increase production of everything. They stop the wars, they free the unjustly imprisoned, they fix the schools, they help the poor, they magically increase food production, they support science, and they give everybody everything they want. The people run through green pastures laughing and singing. Yayyy!!
Is there a #5 that you have in mind, or are you just assuming that #4 is what would happen if Bezos were to all of a sudden become compassionate?
That line from the joker about the dog chasing a car and having no idea what he would do with it if he actually caught it is so fitting here.
I’m not defending billionaires. I just don’t care about them because of the amount of money that they have. If they are assholes, then I judge them based on that. Maybe in order to become a billionaire, you have to be an asshole, in which case they are all assholes. I just don’t see the very act of being a certain amount wealthy as itself in itself issue. If Bezos were to wire a billion bucks into your account right now, would you instantly become an asshole? Of course not, that’s absurd.
Life sucked more for everyone before there were billionaires, so who am I to say that I know for sure that they make life worse for everyone? Maybe life would be better in a system in which they can’t exist, I don’t know, and to act like I do know 100% would be disingenuous. Sure, I get that people claim they can perfectly imagine how life in completely different complex systems with billions of individuals would be, but I just don’t choose to give such high regard to my own very hypothetical imaginations. I’m suspicious of people who claim to have such a perfect ability to simulate possible alternate realities in their minds. Especially when they also can’t seem to be able to use their incredible mental powers to get their life comfortable enough to be able to see just what an incredible time it is to be alive.
The immense majority of extremely wealthy people had to be assholes in order to accrue that much money, but even if that wasn’t the case, I would still argue against that much unequality. Why? In a market system, offer of goods and services is determined by how much money each layer of society has: if the poorest people have very little money in comparison with the richest people, the market is going to put less resources and work into providing for cheap, basic needs in comparison to offering vastly luxurious, expensive high tier items.
If everyone alive today could all of a sudden live with the comfort and security that they would have with an extra 3 zeros at the end of their bank statement, but the richest .01% get to have an extra 9 zeros at the end of theirs, should we do it? Would you like to increase inequality in this way, or do you prefer things the way they currently are?
Again: Money is relative. If everyone gets 3 extra zeros on their total money, everyone has the same purchasing power than they had before, so prices would multiply by 1000 and no one would be any richer or poorer. If on top of that, the richest .01% get 6 or 9 extra zeros, then everyone else is getting poorer.
That wasn’t my question. Of course, money is relative. I’m saying if the quality of life were to increase for everyone as if they all had an extra 3 zeros with today’s spending power. Would you like this to happen even if the richest got the spending power or an extra 9 zeros. Inequality would be greater, but we would all be better off. Would you like things to be less equal if this is the case?
Inequality isn’t the worst possible thing. We all almost all way better off than the richest people 100 years ago. Things are way better than ever before, that’s fantastic. If a side effect is that I have to know that Bezos can buy ten story yachts, IDGAF.
I would accept the trade, but it’s a nonsensical one. The economy isn’t a zero sum game, but unequality does harm the economy.
We are all getting better off at a very rapid pace. There will always be outliers that got lucky, worked harder, or outsmarted the rules. If we let jealousy consume us, then it does us no favors. When we have a problem is when things are actually getting worse for us. It’s no big deal if there are some people who have things that we don’t. It’s not so unlikely that in our lifetimes, we will be able to do all the things that billionaires get to do today anyway.
Keep telling yourself that, buddy.
Do you think you are worse off than you would have been 50 years ago? 100? 200? If so, then it’s just a history lesson you need. If you think you are better off now then you would have been back then, but you feel like you deserve to be even more better off, then what do you base your estimated amount of “better off” that you feel like you deserve? Have you lived 1,000 lives and you know that this pace is worse than average? Of course not.
It’s jealousy. It’s the kid that gets what he wanted then gets angry because he sees someone with something better. That’s going to keep happening no matter what you get. The demon you need to conquer is within. It’s jealousy.
I got it. Let’s play this out.
Bezos splits all his money up and gives it to everyone equally. As you correctly pointed out, if we all gain, then none of us gain. We just lose spending power.
Bezos decides to split up all his money to his workers, and then work for the same pay as all his workers. All the other Billionaires are so inspired that they do the same thing. A bunch of workers get richer, and everyone not working for the ex-billionaires gets even poorer than they are now(again, since money is relative).
Bezos gives all his money to the government. Now we have a 50/50 chance of genocidal Joe or dictator Donald having hell of a lot more power to do what they do with it. So maybe we bomb more brown people, or maybe we bomb more brown people and put up statues of trump. The richest governments get richer and better weapons, the poorer countries get poorer and more demolished.
Bezos gives all his money to the government, and all of a sudden, a bunch of people in control of the government have a massive change of heart and develop the super power of being able to massively increase production of everything. They stop the wars, they free the unjustly imprisoned, they fix the schools, they help the poor, they magically increase food production, they support science, and they give everybody everything they want. The people run through green pastures laughing and singing. Yayyy!!
Is there a #5 that you have in mind, or are you just assuming that #4 is what would happen if Bezos were to all of a sudden become compassionate?
That line from the joker about the dog chasing a car and having no idea what he would do with it if he actually caught it is so fitting here.