As someone from an ultra wealthy family but with no real wealth of my own. I’ve warned them plenty. They think they are safe. I’m just gonna sit over here and sip my tea. They can have fun.
Just drink matcha for safety.
If something happens to one of them and I happen to be in the area … I didn’t see anything.
I hope you realize Orange is amassing domestic military to protect billionaires and himself.
Sorry, I could afford to buy a “t”.
A+ comment
11 years ago…
The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats — By NICK HANAUER
See also his Wikipedia page in the section on his controversial TED talk where he said:
Businesses and the rich do not create jobs. Jobs are created by a feedback loop between customers and businesses that is set in motion by consumers increasing their demand.…
If lower income tax rates for the wealthy really worked we would be drowning in jobs, and yet unemployment and underemployment is at record highs
TED refused to publish the talk.
They refused to publish it? Wow, thank you for finally giving me a concrete reason to hate TED talks. They’ve always seemed like the biggest fart-sniffing conventions I can imagine. And it drives me nuts how people all present with a certain cadence, intonation, tone of voice. Like some kind of learned artificial dialect, the “good public speaker” dialect/accent. A perfectly fitting marker of the incestuous masturbation so prevalent among the kinds of people who give TED talks. I’m not saying they’re all bad, so no offense to anyone’s favorite TED speaker. There’s been decent ones, but its largely exactly the kind of elite Ivy League parasite that, remarkably, manages to be despicable to both conservatives and many liberals. No wonder TED didn’t publish something that might make their own speakers feel bad.
TED is a platform for basic “Ecomodernism” (Green Capitalism), its entire philosophy is Business As Usual with slow change via technological innovations.
So the thing is, there’s TED Talks, and TEDx Talks, and the second one you can just buy your way on to and say whatever the fuck you want to. That’s the one usually used by rich yahoos to peddle their snake oil.
Yes that’s true, I won’t even consider watching a TEDx.
They’re all Steve Jobs wannabes. They copy his presentation style as much as possible, short of wearing a black turtleneck and jeans.
It’s really just a platform for self-aggrandizement.
In the 2019 talk, Hanauer does not explicitly mention any political party but calls out the faults of “neo-liberal economic theory” and highlights alternative economic hypotheses.
Probably more effective this way. Need to get the conservatives on board.
This is the only TED talk worth watching.
Incorrect. The best TED talk was the one where Bobby Mcferrin educated neuroscientists in music theory.
interestingly, his later ted talk about basically the same topic is available on the TED channel.
“TED is complicit with oligarchs”
Hey look those people off the same class have opposite view points go waste time and effort in them. Ez win every time
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
That’s capitalism. I find the more of a capitalist someone is, the more they worship money and the more they idolize anyone with a lot of it.
It also seems to be the case that the further you are from capitalism and it’s ideals as a person, the more you’re willing to emphasize with those less fortunate and want to help them to succeed.
Weird huh?
It’s totally not weird at all that there hasn’t been any studies on billionaires brains and what having that much money does to you
Capitalism doesn’t hold a monopoly on financial obesity, it can manifest in many economic models.
Agreed. People blame capitalism but our problem isn’t economic: it’s social, psychological, cultural.
That financial obesity is a symptom, but the root is the issue of cooperating with immense amounts of total strangers: no animal is wired for it, almost no one is wired to truly, deeply, emotionally care for nameless and faceless people: strangers who, you feel, won’t help you when you have a fever, but who raise the price of potatoes because they need them too. We say we do care, maybe we even donate 5€ to some cause, but a stranger is a stranger and our day goes on.
That antagonism is even more heartfelt if you were a child who wasn’t give the love they should have been given… Like way too many of us. Burning the village to feel its warmth.
No animal before us had the option, once they had abused the trust of their pack, to easily move hundreds of miles away and start from scratch with a clean reputation.
No animal before us fell into the trap of the paradox of tolerance: if a pack member intentionally and repeatedly damages other members, other animals do not spend a lot of time writing books about feel-good, entirely theorethical principles.
No animal is as detached from themselves as we are: since we have such complicated language with abstract concepts, we can forget the truth of our bodies and live in a fantasy world. We can even deceive ourselves, and make decisions informed by that deception. Even worse, we can deceive others a lot better than other animals: a lying gazelle might maybe sound the “lion!” alarm when there is no lion, but it’s soon discovered; humans instead can brainwash others into standing against their own best interests, and the victim might believe it was their own opinion until their very last breath.
Capitalism creates competition with its advanatages and disadvantages, but I’m not sure it has great alternatives within the current system: incentives are necessary in a society of strangers, although I think the details -such as the amounts and the safeties- should be re-thought.
Again, within the current system. But I believe we will witness big changes in our lifetime (climate, biodiversity, AI, mass surveillance, military drones, a multipolar world, life extension, pandemics…), and who knows, maybe the entire framework might change.
This is true, but since many of us live under the concepts of capitalism, I felt it was a good point of reference.
Pretty much all the glorified billionaires that I’m aware of are from capitalistic economic models.
Obesity is a nonsense term used by traitors. Let’s not do that. Being fat is fine, capitalism is not.
I mean, there are proven negative physical and mental effects to being overweight. None apply to everyone but in general being a healthy weight is, well, healthier
It’s correlated with negative physical and mental effects. That’s not the same thing. Causality has been elusive, and it may be entirely broken to associate one with the other.
See, you just proved my point. You said “healthy weight” even though there is no such thing, and demonstrably so. You are allowing yourself to adopt capitalist thinking.
There is absolutely a healthiest weight (BMI 19-21), supported by mounds of science. Weight higher than the healthiest one causes poor CVD outcomes, higher cancer risk, depression, and many more. That is nearly a fact. Evidence: calorie restriction has a positive effect in laboratory settings. Population studies from questionnaires and direct weight measurement. Longitudinal studies for many decades.
We should not shame anyone for their weight, nobody has to lose weight or do anything. But don’t spread misinformation like that, it’s just not true. Notice I’m not asking you for proof because it’s well established.
Obesity is a product of capitalism, the very thing you claim to hate. There would be no fat people in your personal utopia.
Being fat has nothing to do with capitalism. You are a right wing traitor lunatic who belongs in prison if you believe that nonsense.
So you’re telling me that Walmart, highly engineered and processed foods, food deserts and a general lack of, or disconnection from, traditional cuisine and foodways all have absolutely nothing to do with capitalism… lol, ok man
I didn’t say that. I agree with that.
Yeah, stop the fat shaming!
Eat the rich!
Don’t eat shit.
Mulch the rich.
Compost the rich
Make them into fertilizer! Yeah!
Read the room, buddy did you really want to Karen out and distract from the message with your petty complaint?
I love when you worthless right wing dumbfucks come at me with shit like “read the room” and “the downvotes speak for themselves”. I don’t care if everyone is downvoting me. I’m right and you’re a moron.
Obesity applied to just about everything is an existential threat, we evolved as prey animals fighting for scarcity and now have no prey peers except ourselves … so we fight ourselves for resources
we evolved as prey animals
Humans are predators, not prey. A quick heuristic for this is forward-facing eyes.
A quicker one is to understand biology and where we’re placed ecologically in the food chain.
Eye placement isn’t a bellwether for being a predator. Our forward facing eyes give us pretty good binocular vision which is a pretty good thing for primates to have evolved. Dense foliage is something we’re good at seeing through. We don’t know EXACTLY why we evolved forward facing eyes but this is one of the best theorized guesses.
We have carnivorous traits but are not strictly a predator. We’re somewhere around pigs on the food chain.
What do you consider carnivorous traits? Binocular vision is for depth perception, something the world’s best arm cannon would specialize in. Meanwhile, Orca don’t have binocular vision but are absolutely an apex predator.
Also, humans don’t conform to natural classifications and food chains so arguing what is prey or predator is pointless. Humans are now one of the mass extinction events on this planet and it doesn’t look like that’s going to slow.
We do fight ourselves for resources, but honestly so does basically other animal on earth. Even the previously mentioned orca have had fads of wearing salmon hats for social clout. What makes us special is we understand how we are fucking ourselves over and do it anyway.
Pandas.
we evolved as prey animals
A quick heuristic for this is forward-facing eyes.
Pandas.
Pandas are also not prey animals.
Funnily enough, their digestive system is much more suited for meat, berries, etc, they just refuse to eat anything other than bamboo.
Yeah, but if these people were truly masters of long-term thinking, they wouldn’t be spending all their time ruining the economies upon which their wealth is predicated.
You say that, but if you have a large cache of cash, economic crashes are just opportunities to buy assets at a bargain.
Up to a point yes. However, if the majority of your ‘wealth’ is not liquid and bound up in a stockmarket that no longer exists, you’re going to have a hard time leveraging it. Similarly, what liquid wealth you have is only as valuable as the form it takes. Your dollar bills in a hyper-inflationary scenario is going to have more values as toilet paper than as a means of exchange, and your gold is no good if there are no one around willing to exchange anything for it. You can eat gold, but the nutritional value is somewhat dubious.
That’s why I specified having cash, and buying assets.
they get millions in cash per week
Quit licking boots. You think banks will stop loaning money to musk if Tesla stock crashed? Trump has been bankrupt multiple times, it’s a big club and you ain’t in it.
Your both wrong, you based on your lack of understanding of economic fundamentals and OP in the belief that rich people are shooting them selves in the foot.
It’s true rich people are nominally undermining their own wealth by rushing us towards a collapse of financial assets, but OP misses that the rich are also hoarding real resources too: properties (including fucking BUNKERS), farmland and most likely massive storages of food and other necessities. Peter Thiel style people want to crash the economy because when they do, their wealth takes the form of tangible power over who gets to be alive. As opposed to today, that power will not be abstract.
Having money, at a certain point, has very little to do with accessing and consuming goods or services, but rather controlling others’ access to those resources, i.e power. This is what drives these people. Fundamentally, a lot of super rich capitalists are betting that they will end up with more power by collapsing capitalism itself. It’s their revolution. They’re very long-term thinkers with impeccable class solidarity and coordination.
They only have those things as long as we honor the social contract and I think we’re all hoping for a collective flipping of the rigged monopoly game soon
You’re right, but that’s particularly true within the current paradigm of capitalism, if they get to pick the next paradigm they will have a firmer grip over those things.
That’s what I said dixkhead.
Watch who you’re calling a bootlicker. You talking to a guy who’ve never taken a loan, made use of credit or had an insurance policy. And I dare say banks will stop loaning money to Musk when they have no fucking money.
That’s what you think boot licking is?
I think bootlicking is bowing down to the (unreasonable, amoral or unethical) demands of someone who considers themselves the master or owner of other people whether that’s you or someone else, and that this can take many forms and have many motivations, precisely none of which are acceptable or excusable. I cannot think of a single form of it that has been characteristic of my life, and so I’d kindly ask you to use that term for someone who deserves it instead of me. I suggest the nearest MAGA adherent or Russian. Thanks.
Any crashes really…
But that econony they keep treating like a pinata actually does things. Or did. Like, it was for something.
They need to be found and taxed.
deleted by creator
They’re so busy building survival bunkers…
I fully approved of this. Then just cement over all the exits when they have closed the hatches and forget about them
All one would have to do is find the air filtration vents.
Cement!
Or airborne pathogen.
Cement is less complicated.
I was thinking community toilet
I think it’s very civic-minded of them to hole up in a static position so we know where to find them.
50% they’re going to leave for mars because it’s a tax-free haven.
I wouldn’t be opposed to that outcome either.
me neither :)
I think we have passed the point of no return. Like, we are going to have our very first trillionaire, and everyone seems okay with it.
Yeah, but if I tax trillionaires, what happens when I myself become a trillionaire?!
Better not take that risk. Any one of us could become a trillionaire tomorrow.
I think we’re beyond taxing territory. I’d say we’ve reached confiscation of wealth over 100 million territory. These people have become a threat to everyone on earth and can’t be tolerated
I don’t know… the way people cheered Luigi tells me that most people are not okay with it - but that’s never stopped the media and their political handlers before.
The biggest problem is there is only 1 Luigi.
I mean… there is more where he came from. But I’d say that’s not the important thing.
Compare the public’s reaction when Alexander Berkman shot capitalist Henry Clay Frick back in 1892. There was a lot of sympathy for when capitalist (and Nazi) Hanns Martin Schleyer was offed by RAF in 1977. I’d say the magic spell that capitalists once enjoyed has been thoroughly broken - and that’s unprecedented.
Whichever one it is, it should be taxed. Its whole family should be taxed. Its close servants ane security staff shoukd be taxed. Ajyone who enabled it shoukd be taxed. Taxed in ways both spectacular and public.
“Oh, those rich people better look out. Something real bad is going to happen to them” is a thing I’ve been hearing since the 90s.
The only “bad thing” I can think that’s remotely qualifying is that US billionaires are being left behind by their East Asian peers, as their home country is run into the ground. And idk if “feel bad because you’re not in first place anymore” is the thing being implied.
The only “bad thing” I can think that’s remotely qualifying is that US billionaires are being left behind by their East Asian peers, as their home country is run into the ground.
Nah, billionaires have class solidarity that transcends nationalist sentiment. Which is why they are so afraid of anyone trying to gather class solidarity amongst the lower classes, they know how powerful it is.
Billionaires from East Asia and billionaires from the West all vacation in places like Dubai, have their own private islands, and multiple homes and banks all over the world. Nationalism to them is just a tool to keep class consciousness away from their employees.
Not to mention, a billionaire is no longer a citizen of any country in any way that truly matters. They can easily go elsewhere, be safe from whatever is going on in their “home”, and so on. The only country I know of that has ever actually thrown its power at its billionaires is China. So unless the billionaire currently lives and works in China, they essentially have no nationality.
The only country I know of that has ever actually thrown its power at its billionaires is China.
Iceland did good punishing bakers after 2008, although i wouldn’t call those billionaires.
Nah, billionaires have class solidarity that transcends nationalist sentiment.
In America, at least, we’re seeing a rising tide of white nationalism among the mega-rich. There was a point in which I’d agree with you. The Clintons would break bread with anyone whose checks didn’t bounce (Donald Trump, for instance). But your Musks and Thiels and Lutnicks and McMahons are going in a very different direction.
Billionaires from East Asia and billionaires from the West all vacation in places like Dubai
Even Dubai ain’t what it used to be. Consider the kidnapping and murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan.
But your Musks and Thiels and Lutnicks and McMahons are going in a very different direction.
Eh, I think that’s mostly just crowd work. They’re just the types who use the right as a vehicle because they know they’re easier to control and they hate taxes.
Certainly.
But these aren’t simply Bush / Cheney climbers. They’re true believers who think Trump’s win is a sign of Divine Providence.
Idk, I still think they’re just doing that because that’s what trump demands for a seat at the table.
I wish. It’s more the reverse. The whole reward of getting a seat at the table means whispering a new flavor of madness into Trump’s ear.
Eh, it’s the same old same old. When people like musk and thiel are in his good graces they stand to make hundreds of millions in graft and even more by manipulating regulatory bodies in their company’s favour.
They may project crazy beliefs or even truly hold them, but all of their beliefs fall away when compared to their underlying belief in profit.
I’d think it’s more like horse racing. They want to see their “horse” “win” but aren’t that fussed at the end of the day. Because they’ll all be glue eventually, and what matters is the fun they had.
Yeah even after Luigi shooting a CEO nothing happened. Even if a revolution happened these people would just go to their luxury underground bunkers to wait it out.
There have been several more CEOs shot and stabbed since then but the media was instructed to not push those stories.
Please enumerate.
I mean, looking a bunch of billionaires in a luxury basement for the rest of their lives would be something resembling a consequence. I would actually be fine with that.
Would I prefer they get the Jack Ma or Hui Ka Yan treatment? Absolutely. The Louis XVI treatment? For a few of them, definitely.
But it’s so far away from “Renting out Venice to celebrate my marriage to my favorite concubine” that I’d take it
For them the near-term danger is coming from inside the house so to speak. The political monster they created that is now seizing absolute power will turn on them, first the disfavored that will be prosecuted and have their assets seized. Before long seizing assets will be the end initself.
The judiciary will be owned by the accusers, and the parasitical parts of our economy will be in league with the government.
Our productive companies will fall. Which will further damage the economy, further encouraging taking of assets from others.
When Society fully collapses Security Services will continue on in this vein and in the highway robbery.
How is it turning on them? They get tax cuts and less business regulations. Who has had his assets seized?
We are still at consolidating power phase with a propped up economy, after the economy falters when they are fixed in power that will start in earnest.
If they keep bringing the military into domestic affairs they will subbordinate civilian leadership at some point as well.
I think we are very close to being past the point of society accepting these people in any form. Too much damage has already been done while the ultrawealthy laughed it away.
I wish i felt that way. Maybe in 20 years, but right now these people are still on a high pedestal in the eyes of the majority. They’ve mastered the art of giving “just enough” to keep the masses at bay. It will take a catastrophe of epic proportions with billions dead or suffering and these rich mf’ers sitting high in their ivory towers before the masses will open their eyes. Even then we’ll be told to “pray” and they will give us a few more scraps to naw on (all while they “prey” on us to further widen the gap between us and them).
Think I’ve seen how this pans out.
If I remember right,
Tap for spoiler
Immortan Joe’s face gets ripped into pieces at the end.
Idk, I live in the US and I have a hard time believing the status quo can even continue 2 years not to mention 20.
Will it just get worse? Probably, but I don’t think there is any holding the masses back that will kick the can that far down the road. The point of critical evolution towards collapse is right now.
I’m in the US as well. Specifically the south. These inbreds still to this day love cheeto jesus and would eat his ass on command. So many people here would rather hate than eat. It’s so sad. I have family obligations (elderly parents) but I can’t wait to get out of here.
This is something that, of all people, Ivanka Trump has kvetched about in private — her infamy, her dad’s infamy, her company’s infamy, her wealth’s infamy, and not to mention, her husband’s infamy — has essentially procluded them from any social circles in NYC. They reportedly left politics because every single one of their friends would refuse to engage with them anymore.
One simple thing that brings me joy in a dark world is that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump can’t make a single friend.
This was delightful to read, thank you for typing it out : )
This brings me joy
The t is silent.
Nothing’s going to happen to them. They have the upper hand and everything that happens will be slightly tilted in their favor, at least. I don’t see any major victories ahead for us. This isn’t a defeatist attitude, it’s the recognition of truth that makes revolutionaries do what they do.
I’m just saying, if things go as usual the billionaires will be just fine, it’s the rest of us that need help
On the contrary the political monster they created appears assured to seize absolute power and when the financial downturns hit the supreme leader will cannibalize the rich, first the disfavored rich that will be prosecuted and have their assets seized, before long seizing assets will be the end.
Even those that stay above the fray will see their real wealth decline as the economy fails even as the numbers on the economy are rigged to make it appear as good as ever.
Short-term greed will destroy these Ultra rich. One way or the other and or others.
That seems totally plausible
Also, they planed for the worst. They all have their little (or rather not so little) islands they can retreat to.
The islands that are drowning?
I think the ultra wealthy are just trying to buy time until they can put automated turrets and drone death squads in their mansions.
I’m not trying to argue that it’s a sound strategy, it’s just what I think they’re aiming for.
until they can put automated turrets and drone death squads in their mansions.
Cut off the supply chain,if any, wait for munition to drop to zero, advance.
Then somebody will just hack their death turrets and make them the targets.
It takes 1 guy to make a killdozer that will get past those turrets and is immune to drones.
I think the Dildozer was better equipped.
I think the ultra wealthy will have to leave their apartment at some point, and then they’re vulnerable.
Also, what’s even more important is that the rich own all their wealth in the form of company shares and real estate, and that cannot be moved inside a bunker because it fundamentally has to face the outer world. In other words, the billionaires can hide in their bunkers their entire life for all i care, but the publicly accessible infrastructure that they own is gonna get taxed in that case, and that is just as well.
it’s just what I think they’re aiming for.
Some of them definitely are… they ahave never been the sharpest pencils in the box.
Change your diet for the climate, eat the rich 👏👏
