I’ve heard this a lot. I cannot think of anyone who actually thinks they have a shot at being a billionaire. Maybe a shot at winning the lottery, which is still crazy, but the taxes are predetermined for that so it’s not like they’re going to increase on a winner after they’ve won and already paid. There’s always the steady drumbeat of “taxes are evil” from everyone living in a fantasyland that modern civilized life will continue without them.
IMO it’s more of a fear thing. We’ve been told they’re the “job creators” or whatever (even Musk has only created 100k jobs out of 163 million jobs despite being the richest person in the country). You’re already getting their “preferential treatment” and people are afraid they’ll withdraw their favor, as meager as it is, despite the damage they do to everything else.
Like with most things, it's the minority that messes it up for everyone. In this case there are a large minority that is either indifferent to or actually revels in the suffering of others. They seem to mostly be republican. For them, the cruelty is the point, or else they're selfish and indifferent, which I believe is indistinguishable.
Nah, the aspiration isn't so much that people think they could be billionaires, merely that anyone could be. It creates a social bond between the working class and billionaires, it dissolves the identity divide for the working class. Working class people think "they're hard workers just like me," while billionaires use their identification as working class to selectively absolve themselves of the responsibility they have.
I was having a chat with a friend recently about the cost of living in the UK. I mentioned one issue is the wealth inequality and billionaires are the problem.
Not entirely sure they were convinced. They have the mentality that billionaires create jobs for everyone and are super hard workers that worked their way up.
I don't want to just sit back and call people who look up to billionaires idiots. I want to be able to have strong compelling points to make them change their mind.
And then what? If they want to take their wealth with them they'd need to sell up, so the job creation would remain, the assets would remain, possibly the currency would be slightly weaker, and so importa would be slightly more expensive, which would encourage the local economy... What is the awful outcomes you're imagining from the ultra rich leaving?
Yes, that's sort of what I was getting at. Historically speaking there's no good examples of asking capitalists nicely for things being a productive strategy.
Dude...just google it, it's a myth. The people that want you to believe it are the ones thaf benefit from you believing it.
Heck, look at the interview Bezos just did. Notice how there wasn't even the possibility in his worldview of him being taxed more. Meanwhile, he lies about how much he pays and parrots the cherrypicked statistic of 40% of income taxes are paid by the top 1% of income earners. Guess what Bezos is? Not one of those. He takes an income of 80K, a little above average in terms if income earners. His wealth isn't taxed while he does fuck all and his employees toil away and he generates wealth off of their labor.
Shit, in America alone the top marginal rate was over 90%. They're still here.
This also misses the point that the level of wealth consolidation is a failure of the system to provide for its people. They shouldn't exist in the first place.
And they should be happy that most people are saying to tax them more. But these dipshits equate that to terrorism and racial slurs, so yeah, let's see just how deluded they are and just how much pain the people can put up with.
While everyone seems aware of a handful of high-profile millionaires decamping to low-tax states for tax reasons, in truth few move in response to state tax rates. Young examined tax data from every millionaire in the United States over thirteen years. He found that, even over that long time horizon, only 0.3% of all millionaires, on net, moved to a lower tax state. A larger share—about 2.5 percent-- move from one state to another each year, but most do not migrate for tax reasons.
Millionaires are not very mobile, and when they do move across state lines, taxes play a small role in the decision. Tax-induced migration among millionaires is not zero, but it is fairly close to zero.
Two years into Massachusetts’ millionaires’ tax and a higher tax rate on $250,000 in capital gains in Washington state shows that the millionaire class grew by 38.6 percent in Massachusetts and 46.9 percent in Washington, respectively. Their wealth grew by more than $580 billion in current dollars in Massachusetts and $748 billion in Washington state between 2022 and 2024.
Wealth flight fears are misguided. The number of wealthy individuals and their cumulative wealth grew after the enactment of higher taxes on high earners in Massachusetts and a progressive capital gains tax on high-wealth Washingtonians.
And when it comes to the followup argument of "bUt It DoNt BrInG ReVenUE" it was largely not due to flight but instead from exemptions and tax breaks and poor policing of taxes on said wealthy individuals and being generally too broad and policy in place making those who were highly mobile to move.
And some lessons from Norway who have had wealth taxes since 1892, and by which they implememted a 37.8% wealth tax if you do choose to leave. If you really want the parasites to stay, make it worth their while, they only know how to speak money after all. After bleeding our system dry and profiting off of our labor and tax dollars through subsidies and utilizing our public services to pay workers less, it's the least they can do for us allowing them to exist in the first place.
If you're not willing to read and understand then your opinion is worthless, we have no reason to listen to someone so malignantly uninformed. You ask for sources, implying there are none, then when shown you backtrack and ask questions that the sources themselves answer.
Continue aiding Trump and the billionaires, I'm sure if you work hard enough you'll be one one day.
They can't leave when their businesses, properties, assets, and income are derived from your country. Much of it isn't easily movable, if at all. Most of a billionaire's wealth isn't in cold hard capital cash, it's in a mixture of assets and yearly income from said assets.
They can choose to leave, and live wherever they'd like to live. But their place of residence, if legislated properly, would have no bearing on wealth taxes instituted at the asset or income level. If we chose to tax them regardless of being domicile or not: it is a legislative choice.
It would have no bearing on whether we can still legally and feasibly tax the fuck out of them.
What you're saying is disinformation, friend. It serves the wealth class well when it's spread around. But if you stop and think about it as an idea for a second it quickly falls apart.
Don't hate them for it, because they never made a conscious decision to do it. It may be incredibly frustrating that some people are sabotaging everyone else like this, but it's not really their fault. They've simply been raised in a rotten society and brainwashed so hard their brains are literally fried.
Those of us who happened to avoid a similar fate are not necessarily better. Probably just lucky.
Also, you did not avoid a similar fate. The way in which you are a bootlicker is probably invisible to you, and it shows itself during different contexts. There is no way in Hell everyone in your environment was touched by this but you and you alone came away unscathed. Hubris.
There are some people who are just wired to submit, and there are a lot more of them than you would think. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know some otherwise really awesome people, smart in most ways, but happily submit themselves to authority time and time again; despite it burning them over and over.
That really interesting, honestly. I’m the kind who likes to break down task, figure out things, and I get really resentful when I’m given simple tasks without the context to understand them.
I don’t think what you are describing is what I mean though. I totally get having things broken down and simplified, especially in the context of productivity. That just seems like you understand yourself and workflow.
I’m taking more about an authoritarian mindset in values. I can tell based on the rest of your reply that you haven’t outsourced your judgement :)
Yeah, I guess isn't not really about simple vs. complex for me, I don't mind having to research, break down, or even delegate; but I want to clear goal. "Improve the login flow" is a task I hate, and probably won't do well or fast. "Allow Yubikey as an alternative to Google Authenticator for our 2FA" is something I can knock out, even if I'm totally new to the code base (and I've not yet ever used the Google Authenticator API or a Yubikey).
I know metrics make for poor goals (Goodhart's Law) but I like a task that is metric-driven. I do tend to be careful to not be overly fixated on the metric and rather the improvement it's meant to reflect.
Gotcha. Yeah, you and me both then, I feel exactly the same way. “Improved login” is such an undefined and wide space to begin with. Something like that is what a low executive function brain would ask for.
I’d say, you operate at a higher level, sounds to me like you are very good at executive level thinking. You see the problem space for what it is, and undefined is an awful place to be, since there is so many avenues that would fulfill the “request”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to walk people through how to provide useful requirements :)
I think in some cases, daddy issues play a part in it. I know a few guys who clearly found a substitute for their lacklustre fathers in strongman figures, be they CEOs or grifters. Having a figure like this to fall into line with does seem to make them feel more secure in themselves.
I don't know a huge amount of those, but I do know a lot of men who had solid fathers who were there for them and listened as much as they spoke. They were attentive, caring and solid parents. None of those kids grew up to feel personally threatened when their favourite billionaire, CEO or social media grifter is critiqued or shown for what they are.
There is a strange phenomenon that some people really love following orders and they really love a simple worldview. Someone tells them that Elon Musk is a genius and that makes them happy so they believe it even when they see him not being a genius. And you can't fix that with facts because it's a mental block that they have.
It is, it’s a weird mental wall that you hit time and time again with these people.
Keep asking the why, and eventually they shut down. Once they get to where they need to think critically you can just see the brain turn off behind their eyes. It’s baffling.
Some people are more predisposed to value order and stability, which I get it. Life is ultimately rudderless and has no direction. It brings an existential dread for many to think that we are all ultimately free individuals. As Albert Camus puts it: we are condemned to be free. Some people have a stronger fleeting and listless feeling, and fear of the unknown-- but it is the endless possibilities of choices leading to the unknown results that they actually dread. So, I think some people want assurances; and they think they could get it from following an authority figure. This stems from our pre-historic evolutionary past that if you are not a leader type and either/or not part of a group, it could reduce your chances of survival.
This meritocracy bullshit is the equivalent of peasants who believed God appointed their monarchs.
Milord, that one stole thy crops! His greed betrays him, for he steals for his family too! Stone him, for he seeks to usurp you, milord! Perhaps, by thine benevolence, thou wouldst find it pleasing to reward thine loyal subject for defending your crop and your honor! I only seek to humbly serve milord and his Holiness!
I think billionaires and corporations spend good money to have people comment favorably about them. Eventually, via osmosis, those opinions percolate into some of the general public and they start spewing the same lines
You! (Whoop dee-wit)
I wanna be like you (hap du hoowee-doo)
I wanna walk like you (chuu)
Talk like you, too (chuu)
(We-be-de-be-du-wu) you see it's true (shubbedey-du)
Someone like me (scubey-dubey-dubey)
Can learn to be
Like someone like me (take me home, daddy!)
Can learn to be
Like someone like you (one more time!)
Yeah, can learn to be
Like someone like me
Zi-de-da-bapp bapp bada dodel-dad'n dad'n dad'n dad'n dad, eh
Ah-babba di-di-dibbi-di
Now, I'm the king of the swingers
Oh, the jungle VIP
A lot of lemmy and reddit comments are written by bots or marketing companies. Theres a whole industry of companies that sell the ability to influrnce others' opinions. Both political and via comments on products.
Sometimes it's misinterpretation. When a post attacks something - doesn't have to be billionaires, it can be anything - calling out a sloppy argument or a low-effort anger dump doesn't go well. In a crowd full of pitchforks and torches, if you aren't jumping up and down waving pompoms for the attacker then anything you say is going to be taken as defending the target - you're an apologist or you're a shill for Evil. Supposedly we're all about Justice, but if the accused is a known Bad Guy the crowd doesn't really GAF if they're innocent in this one case, they're guilty anyway and holes in the argument don't matter. If your own sense of justice doesn't let you go along with the angry mob always being right, you're better off just staying out of those threads.
i've never actually heard anyone defend billionaires irl. i don't really know who would do that.
i think lots of people are still stuck in the 20th century mindset "if i work hard, i can make it". it just takes a while to wake up from a deep dream.
I have. Lots of people are strongly Faith-Based, and have accepted living their lives being told what to do by people in authority. They think God, Jesus, preachers, bosses, cops, politicians, wealthy people, celebrities, influencers, etc. all know better than they do, so they defer to them: "Those people care about me, and my safety, so I'll do what they tell me to do, and they won't get mad and hurt me."
As if the vast majority weren't glazing 'Papa Elon' and brilliant Bezos, etc not so long ago.
While anyone could see what awful people they really were.
Hypocrite libs and their selective memory.
Now they're crying about something they helped create.
The guys with the ai warehouses and their own social networks can muddy the waters all day long. There are idiots defending them, sure, but I think/hope it is mostly fake.
"Spending more than a billion dollars just on boats is a lot but not when daddy Gaben does it. Gaben gives me a product I like, he is therefore a good billionaire."
Crazy to see comments about how it's never seen when half the steam threads turn into a circle jerk for this guy. Imagine calling it a benzostick instead of a fire stick as a sign of affection, like the simps do with the "GabeCube".
I see so many "everyone it the comments want to suck Gabes dick and claim they hate billionaires" and I've never once seen a comment in one of these threads defending him or justifying his wealth.
The bar is so low, actually making a nice product you can buy instead of enshitifying everything constitutes as a ground for much praise over here. It's a grim reality.
Maybe people don't really hate billionaires as in the class. They just hate specific people in that class. Does it make sense, absolutely not, but I can't find any other explanation for that particular brand of simp. The products aren't even good, just the same pairs of shackles one can find at other locations... run by the billionaires they hate.
Complaining about "defending billionaires" is like complaining about public defenders defending criminals. Each argument stands alone. You just have to argue each one. The argument doesn't become valid or invalid based on who's one what side.
Valve seems like a nice enough place to work. But, I agree that much of GabeN's wealth would not have accumulated without (a) Labor exploitation in the Game Development Industry in general and (b) Consumer exploitation through DRM and the DMCA.
GabeN (and, e.g., TSwift) might not have directly, intentionally engaged in exploitation, but they have benefited from systems that institutionalize exploitation. (Sometimes, when the mask slips, people supporting those systems will claim the systems can't be profitable without the exploitation, in an attempt to justify the exploitation as a necessary "sacrifice" to Profit.)
Because they hope to become one of them
Or at least an "Uncle Tom" who will receive preferential treatment
I’ve heard this a lot. I cannot think of anyone who actually thinks they have a shot at being a billionaire. Maybe a shot at winning the lottery, which is still crazy, but the taxes are predetermined for that so it’s not like they’re going to increase on a winner after they’ve won and already paid. There’s always the steady drumbeat of “taxes are evil” from everyone living in a fantasyland that modern civilized life will continue without them.
IMO it’s more of a fear thing. We’ve been told they’re the “job creators” or whatever (even Musk has only created 100k jobs out of 163 million jobs despite being the richest person in the country). You’re already getting their “preferential treatment” and people are afraid they’ll withdraw their favor, as meager as it is, despite the damage they do to everything else.
Americans are stupid, hateful and willing to shit all over each other if they think they will personally benefit, even if know it is only temporary
Selfishness is baked into what passes for culture in that backwards dump
Its baked into and directly caused by the ethos of rugged independence. It's in the roots.
I agree completely
That, and the fact that cruelty is celebrated
Like with most things, it's the minority that messes it up for everyone. In this case there are a large minority that is either indifferent to or actually revels in the suffering of others. They seem to mostly be republican. For them, the cruelty is the point, or else they're selfish and indifferent, which I believe is indistinguishable.
Nah, the aspiration isn't so much that people think they could be billionaires, merely that anyone could be. It creates a social bond between the working class and billionaires, it dissolves the identity divide for the working class. Working class people think "they're hard workers just like me," while billionaires use their identification as working class to selectively absolve themselves of the responsibility they have.
I was having a chat with a friend recently about the cost of living in the UK. I mentioned one issue is the wealth inequality and billionaires are the problem.
"If we do a wealth tax they'll leave!"
Sent this link https://equalitytrust.org.uk/evidence-base/billionaire-britain-2025/ to explain how a large proportion of billionaires just extract wealth.
Not entirely sure they were convinced. They have the mentality that billionaires create jobs for everyone and are super hard workers that worked their way up.
I don't want to just sit back and call people who look up to billionaires idiots. I want to be able to have strong compelling points to make them change their mind.
If you do a wealth tax, they would absolutely leave.
And then what? If they want to take their wealth with them they'd need to sell up, so the job creation would remain, the assets would remain, possibly the currency would be slightly weaker, and so importa would be slightly more expensive, which would encourage the local economy... What is the awful outcomes you're imagining from the ultra rich leaving?
Good.
How?
They are a menace to society and there existence is an embarrassment.
Does kicking them out of the country cause them to cease to exist?
If everyone does it, yeah. Kinda.
Agreed. Capitalism cannot be brought down without global unity.
I don't want them here, ideally they would pay a crap ton of taxes or rot in a cell, and stop buying out the legal systems.
Agreed but unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world
Not if you have a 38% exit tax like Norway.
Damn! I didn't know there was actually a solution to the Marxist problem of capital flight!
The obvious solution is to simply not allow the capitalists to take anything but the clothes on their backs as they flee for their wretched lives
Unfortunately that's not possible unless the state seizes their assets.
Oh nooo.....
The last time a country seized the assets of the wealthy, half the world declared war against it. Be careful what you wish for.
Yes, that's sort of what I was getting at. Historically speaking there's no good examples of asking capitalists nicely for things being a productive strategy.
Did you not read the comment you're responding to? Them leaving would be a good thing dumbass
Explain how, smartass.
Try reading the article linked in the comment you were responding to you fucking moron
The article doesn't explain how kicking them out would be a good thing you fucking imbecile.
It explains in great mathematical detail how they cost more than they're worth, fucking duh, learn to read
You can't blame billionaires for people continuing to think that GDP benefits them.
Dude...just google it, it's a myth. The people that want you to believe it are the ones thaf benefit from you believing it.
Heck, look at the interview Bezos just did. Notice how there wasn't even the possibility in his worldview of him being taxed more. Meanwhile, he lies about how much he pays and parrots the cherrypicked statistic of 40% of income taxes are paid by the top 1% of income earners. Guess what Bezos is? Not one of those. He takes an income of 80K, a little above average in terms if income earners. His wealth isn't taxed while he does fuck all and his employees toil away and he generates wealth off of their labor.
Shit, in America alone the top marginal rate was over 90%. They're still here.
This also misses the point that the level of wealth consolidation is a failure of the system to provide for its people. They shouldn't exist in the first place.
And they should be happy that most people are saying to tax them more. But these dipshits equate that to terrorism and racial slurs, so yeah, let's see just how deluded they are and just how much pain the people can put up with.
I want a source that says that billionaires would remain in countries even when taxes rise.
😮💨
A literal book of research published from Stanford
https://www.sup.org/books/sociology/myth-millionaire-tax-flight
https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/what-republicans-and-democrats-can-learn-myth-millionaire-tax-flight
https://ips-dc.org/release-wealth-expands-after-higher-state-taxes-on-high-income-earners/
And when it comes to the followup argument of "bUt It DoNt BrInG ReVenUE" it was largely not due to flight but instead from exemptions and tax breaks and poor policing of taxes on said wealthy individuals and being generally too broad and policy in place making those who were highly mobile to move.
https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/news/publication-study-wealth-taxation-including-net-wealth-capital-and-exit-taxes-2026-04-15_en
And some lessons from Norway who have had wealth taxes since 1892, and by which they implememted a 37.8% wealth tax if you do choose to leave. If you really want the parasites to stay, make it worth their while, they only know how to speak money after all. After bleeding our system dry and profiting off of our labor and tax dollars through subsidies and utilizing our public services to pay workers less, it's the least they can do for us allowing them to exist in the first place.
https://www.aol.com/articles/analysis-norways-wealth-tax-trades-050140872.html
Thanks for the post and references. Good information.
I'm not saying that people would leave to boring states just for tax benefits. I'm saying that people would leave to different countries.
I don't understand how Norway implements it's wealth tax.
If you're not willing to read and understand then your opinion is worthless, we have no reason to listen to someone so malignantly uninformed. You ask for sources, implying there are none, then when shown you backtrack and ask questions that the sources themselves answer.
Continue aiding Trump and the billionaires, I'm sure if you work hard enough you'll be one one day.
Let them.
You can't tax them at all if they leave. Forget wealth tax, you won't be getting any taxes.
They can't leave when their businesses, properties, assets, and income are derived from your country. Much of it isn't easily movable, if at all. Most of a billionaire's wealth isn't in cold hard capital cash, it's in a mixture of assets and yearly income from said assets.
They can choose to leave, and live wherever they'd like to live. But their place of residence, if legislated properly, would have no bearing on wealth taxes instituted at the asset or income level. If we chose to tax them regardless of being domicile or not: it is a legislative choice.
It would have no bearing on whether we can still legally and feasibly tax the fuck out of them.
What you're saying is disinformation, friend. It serves the wealth class well when it's spread around. But if you stop and think about it as an idea for a second it quickly falls apart.
Nope. Most of a billionaire's wealth is in the form of stocks. This is true of any billionaire.
Stocks are financial assets.
Stocks don't even require moving afaik
Which is good, as they would then not be extracting wealth from where they left and money can once again circulate how it should.
Lol billionaires extract wealth from every single nation.
Then maybe we should tax the fuck out of them across the board.
Good luck convincing all countries. (Most countries are class traitors)
Brainwashed, mentally ill, non critical thinker.
Pick one.
Don't forget bot. Bots are cheap. Billionaires can pay for lots of them
Wanted come write this too. And to add people who feel peer pressured by said bots
Non critical thinker as bots and sockpuppets don't think.
Which one of these is a bot account or a fishing email?
I'm fine with fishing emails. Phishing ones are the problematic ones.
😛
Some people have the mindset - "If we take money away from billionaires now, then I'll have less money when I become a billionaire in the future!"
Americans aren't Labor, they are temporarily embarrassed Capital.
Don't hate them for it, because they never made a conscious decision to do it. It may be incredibly frustrating that some people are sabotaging everyone else like this, but it's not really their fault. They've simply been raised in a rotten society and brainwashed so hard their brains are literally fried.
Those of us who happened to avoid a similar fate are not necessarily better. Probably just lucky.
Also, you did not avoid a similar fate. The way in which you are a bootlicker is probably invisible to you, and it shows itself during different contexts. There is no way in Hell everyone in your environment was touched by this but you and you alone came away unscathed. Hubris.
There are some people who are just wired to submit, and there are a lot more of them than you would think. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know some otherwise really awesome people, smart in most ways, but happily submit themselves to authority time and time again; despite it burning them over and over.
I think I'm more productive when I have someone else doing the executive thinking and "just" assigning me "simple" tasks.
But, I can still recognize Rentiers as bad for the economy in specific and society in general.
That really interesting, honestly. I’m the kind who likes to break down task, figure out things, and I get really resentful when I’m given simple tasks without the context to understand them.
I don’t think what you are describing is what I mean though. I totally get having things broken down and simplified, especially in the context of productivity. That just seems like you understand yourself and workflow.
I’m taking more about an authoritarian mindset in values. I can tell based on the rest of your reply that you haven’t outsourced your judgement :)
Yeah, I guess isn't not really about simple vs. complex for me, I don't mind having to research, break down, or even delegate; but I want to clear goal. "Improve the login flow" is a task I hate, and probably won't do well or fast. "Allow Yubikey as an alternative to Google Authenticator for our 2FA" is something I can knock out, even if I'm totally new to the code base (and I've not yet ever used the Google Authenticator API or a Yubikey).
I know metrics make for poor goals (Goodhart's Law) but I like a task that is metric-driven. I do tend to be careful to not be overly fixated on the metric and rather the improvement it's meant to reflect.
Gotcha. Yeah, you and me both then, I feel exactly the same way. “Improved login” is such an undefined and wide space to begin with. Something like that is what a low executive function brain would ask for.
I’d say, you operate at a higher level, sounds to me like you are very good at executive level thinking. You see the problem space for what it is, and undefined is an awful place to be, since there is so many avenues that would fulfill the “request”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to walk people through how to provide useful requirements :)
I think in some cases, daddy issues play a part in it. I know a few guys who clearly found a substitute for their lacklustre fathers in strongman figures, be they CEOs or grifters. Having a figure like this to fall into line with does seem to make them feel more secure in themselves.
I don't know a huge amount of those, but I do know a lot of men who had solid fathers who were there for them and listened as much as they spoke. They were attentive, caring and solid parents. None of those kids grew up to feel personally threatened when their favourite billionaire, CEO or social media grifter is critiqued or shown for what they are.
There is a strange phenomenon that some people really love following orders and they really love a simple worldview. Someone tells them that Elon Musk is a genius and that makes them happy so they believe it even when they see him not being a genius. And you can't fix that with facts because it's a mental block that they have.
It is, it’s a weird mental wall that you hit time and time again with these people.
Keep asking the why, and eventually they shut down. Once they get to where they need to think critically you can just see the brain turn off behind their eyes. It’s baffling.
Some people are more predisposed to value order and stability, which I get it. Life is ultimately rudderless and has no direction. It brings an existential dread for many to think that we are all ultimately free individuals. As Albert Camus puts it: we are condemned to be free. Some people have a stronger fleeting and listless feeling, and fear of the unknown-- but it is the endless possibilities of choices leading to the unknown results that they actually dread. So, I think some people want assurances; and they think they could get it from following an authority figure. This stems from our pre-historic evolutionary past that if you are not a leader type and either/or not part of a group, it could reduce your chances of survival.
This meritocracy bullshit is the equivalent of peasants who believed God appointed their monarchs.
Milord, that one stole thy crops! His greed betrays him, for he steals for his family too! Stone him, for he seeks to usurp you, milord! Perhaps, by thine benevolence, thou wouldst find it pleasing to reward thine loyal subject for defending your crop and your honor! I only seek to humbly serve milord and his Holiness!
I think billionaires and corporations spend good money to have people comment favorably about them. Eventually, via osmosis, those opinions percolate into some of the general public and they start spewing the same lines
alot of propaganda, especially how movies and shows glorify being rich, plus als in irl, its a plus if worship white ones.
I'm here to discuss the original image. Is Jesus shooting America at a sinner? Who is the baby?
He's shooting France at someone.
USA???
🇳🇱
🇫🇷
Are I think what you're looking for.
It's baby Jesus, duh
Baby Jesus cries about everything, to the point that only adult Jesus can take care of him.
Because they're fucking stupid.
I think a Disney song might explain some of it...
I read that in Louis Prima's voice
A lot of lemmy and reddit comments are written by bots or marketing companies. Theres a whole industry of companies that sell the ability to influrnce others' opinions. Both political and via comments on products.
They are stupid. They dream of being one with no hope that they will even be a millionaire. They are stupid and that is all it is.
Propaganda and "philanthropy".
Sometimes it's misinterpretation. When a post attacks something - doesn't have to be billionaires, it can be anything - calling out a sloppy argument or a low-effort anger dump doesn't go well. In a crowd full of pitchforks and torches, if you aren't jumping up and down waving pompoms for the attacker then anything you say is going to be taken as defending the target - you're an apologist or you're a shill for Evil. Supposedly we're all about Justice, but if the accused is a known Bad Guy the crowd doesn't really GAF if they're innocent in this one case, they're guilty anyway and holes in the argument don't matter. If your own sense of justice doesn't let you go along with the angry mob always being right, you're better off just staying out of those threads.
When when the conclusion is accurate and/or agreeable, it is good to point out fallacious reasoning, but it can attract some real hate.
i've never actually heard anyone defend billionaires irl. i don't really know who would do that.
i think lots of people are still stuck in the 20th century mindset "if i work hard, i can make it". it just takes a while to wake up from a deep dream.
I have. Lots of people are strongly Faith-Based, and have accepted living their lives being told what to do by people in authority. They think God, Jesus, preachers, bosses, cops, politicians, wealthy people, celebrities, influencers, etc. all know better than they do, so they defer to them: "Those people care about me, and my safety, so I'll do what they tell me to do, and they won't get mad and hurt me."
They defend capital and will never own any of it
'some people'?
As if the vast majority weren't glazing 'Papa Elon' and brilliant Bezos, etc not so long ago.
While anyone could see what awful people they really were.
Hypocrite libs and their selective memory.
Now they're crying about something they helped create.
The guys with the ai warehouses and their own social networks can muddy the waters all day long. There are idiots defending them, sure, but I think/hope it is mostly fake.
"Spending more than a billion dollars just on boats is a lot but not when daddy Gaben does it. Gaben gives me a product I like, he is therefore a good billionaire."
Crazy to see comments about how it's never seen when half the steam threads turn into a circle jerk for this guy. Imagine calling it a benzostick instead of a fire stick as a sign of affection, like the simps do with the "GabeCube".
I see so many "everyone it the comments want to suck Gabes dick and claim they hate billionaires" and I've never once seen a comment in one of these threads defending him or justifying his wealth.
The bar is so low, actually making a nice product you can buy instead of enshitifying everything constitutes as a ground for much praise over here. It's a grim reality.
Maybe people don't really hate billionaires as in the class. They just hate specific people in that class. Does it make sense, absolutely not, but I can't find any other explanation for that particular brand of simp. The products aren't even good, just the same pairs of shackles one can find at other locations... run by the billionaires they hate.
Complaining about "defending billionaires" is like complaining about public defenders defending criminals. Each argument stands alone. You just have to argue each one. The argument doesn't become valid or invalid based on who's one what side.
Because being rich isn't a sin. Billionaires aren't some biblical demons ffs.
Exploitation is a moral failing. You almost never become a billionaire withoit exploiting something.
Assuming everyone from certain class is a fraud is like a new type of racism...
There is literally no ethical way to amass a billion dollars. Every single billionaire's wealth involved exploitation to accrue, without exception.
Without. Exception.
Valve seems like a nice enough place to work. But, I agree that much of GabeN's wealth would not have accumulated without (a) Labor exploitation in the Game Development Industry in general and (b) Consumer exploitation through DRM and the DMCA.
GabeN (and, e.g., TSwift) might not have directly, intentionally engaged in exploitation, but they have benefited from systems that institutionalize exploitation. (Sometimes, when the mask slips, people supporting those systems will claim the systems can't be profitable without the exploitation, in an attempt to justify the exploitation as a necessary "sacrifice" to Profit.)
No, Capital has always been a criminal class, since Marx.
Even Smith identified rent-seeking behavior as the primary enemy of free markets.
At worst, "assuming everyone from a certain class is a fraud" could be considered a type of kink shaming. Where the kink is hoarding resources.
Same goes for people who bash billionaires online. Tf do you think you're going to achieve?
I mean, people complain about the weather too, but at least we can hope for economic change
Hope is a dangerous thing. People should be careful not to let hope loosen their grip on reality.
I miss when insults at least required creativity. Don't worry though. One day you'll discover that disagreement isn't betrayal.
Your both-sides-ism, your caution, your Apathy, is the momentum that keeps the cruel juggernaut status quo gliding forward.
Care. Care and fight.
Show others that they are not alone.
Alone in what exactly? Being screwed by the economy? I think most people know that.