this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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To be fair, if I was a billionaire and I had the choice of helping ordinary people or doing something awesome, I would definitely pick to do something awesome. I respect Bill Gates for fighting malaria, but I would go for spaceships or robots.
Which is why not you, nor them should have so much money. We need to prevent idiots from doing idiot things by redistributing their wealth.
Then everyone will be poor and the civilization will collapse.
Oh yeah, cause society totally collapsed in the 1960s when wealth distribution was far more fair than today.
Also, the Indigenous peoples in North America did really well with no concept of money until the Europeans came. Some Indigenous communities have lower life expectancy today than was estimated to be before colonization.
Well, sorta… from wikipedia:
Really well? Oh lol...
Great concentration of wealth is also highly destabilizing. We are seeing this play out before our eyes in real time right now.
It's not.
If it hasn't collapsed with a few hundred people having more money than the rest of the entire world while also using it for selfish motives, I doubt it would collapse with a fairer distribution. But capitalism shills gotta shill
You know which countries are most "equal"? Poor African countries where people can't even afford fresh water.
Do you know which one was more equal? USA in the 50s and 60s, when the tax rate for rich people ranged from 70% up to 92%. A time period where regular people could also afford to live comfortably (family and house included) with a regular job.
Sorry, your arguments are just bad and only show your ignorance.
There are many problems with this argument; but it's 11pm and I'm sleepy, so have the first one that came to mind.
Those countries don't have a lot of wealth per capita to begin with, so it's not a goddamned equal comparison.
Sleepy or not, but equality doesn't mean crap.
There's a large range between being a billionaire and being poor, silly billy.
And there's a big difference between a society which allows everyone to become a billionaire and a society which forces everyone to be poor.
These communists will always think "it's just never been done properly" trying to reason with them is futile
Healthcare and homelessness were both better than the US up until the last decade of the Soviet Union. If capitalism needs it's boom and bust cycles and we think that 40k+ people dying from joblessness every recession is acceptable surely we can afford the same level of devastation when discussing socialism right?
US is a craphole. Capitalism provides great healthcare literally everywhere else.
Helping ordinary people is the most awesome thing though.
Gates has the money to do both, and more. It’s just sometimes better to let others do it instead— having your own space company means worrying about competition, contracts, and potential profitability. Meanwhile if he wanted, he could hitch a ride on any of their rockets with no effort.
Musk and Bezos also have the money to do both, but they merely elect not to. Perhaps in the future they will, like Gates, begin funneling more of their effort and wealth into altruism to improve their reputations.
I'm an engineer, so my childhood fantasy wasn't to ride on a rocket, it was to invent a rocket. I did think it would be cool to explore space, but not as a test pilot or a tourist. To be honest, I don't think I'd go on one of those tourist flights even if it was free - I feel no urge to risk my life just to get a good view of Earth. Being a space colonist would be a different matter - then I'd get to actually use my skills to build stuff.
(The reason I think this is relevant is that a lot of these tech billionaires were originally engineers too, so I guess they also think like this.)
But if it's something awesome marketed towards saving humanity then do something actually awesome and impactful instead of distracting bullshit like hyperloops and Mars colonies on unrealistic time-frames and self-driving cars instead of public transportation. Endless talk and grand gestures when these people have the resources to really drive improvements/innovations in achievable realistic projects.
And how are you helping
By going into work sick so that I can reduce my workplace's carbon emissions for a few days
Virtue signalling moron
Lol it's not virtue signaling it's malicious compliance. My workplace has vacation and sick days pull from the same incredibly small pool. They're also very anti work from home. So since I've explained the problem and was told to just take vacation time when I'm sick, I decided to just not "be sick" and explain the problem when it comes up next
Mars colony is better than helping some poor souls.
Are you, like, 12? >:C