It's a paradox. The people who would use such wealth for good almost never become billionaires in the first place. It takes a significant amount of ruthlessness. No one becomes a billionaire without exploitation. And there are a select few who actually follow through on giving up their fortunes (while still alive, I consider the "giving pledge" upon death to be null and void).
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
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I just saw a story about Woz who gave up his apple wealth to fund museums and schools. He probably would have been a billionaire if he hadn't. But he said that he values more than just his bank account.
Exactly, great example! He could definitely have been a billionaire if he wanted to, but he's just not that kind of person. Mad respect.
They mirror the general population. If people would make sure to buy from good people and to vote for good people, good people would be in power.
Of course people will be good if that is what is rewarded in society. But in general people just do what everybody else does.
I remember when I used to believe in the myths of meritocracy and the ftee market.
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There are a few billionaires that inherited their wealth through birth or got through a divorce usually aren’t as insane.
or twice as insane!
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I think about this every... single... day.
Why don't we all just collectively say "no"? What the fuck would these 70–80-year old dick-tators do then?! NOTHING.
Unfortunately they got a fair amount of bootlicking sycophants to protect them.
We're not unified and we're incapable to be that organized. The billionaires are rich enough to buy the important infuencial people and to manipulate the masses with propaganda. It's hard to fight that, as we can see now.
i dont think were incapable. but to be fair i havent put that much thought into it. but i think there is a way we can at least checkmate them into being good.
for instance. lets say there is some FOSS that is better than any other paid/sub software like spotify. how would it work? i do not know. but lets just say, its possible.
people will use it, and spotify will dry up unless they change their model. they could try to buy up the foss, but we can just say no.
maybe a system where the community buy land through taxes. slowly putting it back in the hands of the people/local council. the rich are squeezing us out, but we can squeeze back.
there could be a marketing campaign similar to 'diamonds are a girls best friend' but more inline with 'community money is worth more than gold' so that we just stop selling to the rich. ingrain it in the people.
have people learn that billionaires are actually mentally ill and we should feel sorry for them and offer them therapeutic support to help them with their addiction. make them feel small like they are.
sometimes people go out to clean up the forest, or comb the beaches for trash and plastic as a way to give back to the community and help the world. similarly we could be using that same kind of effort healing the world from capitalism.
so not really incapable. but there needs to be a focused effort in specific directions.
i feel what is holding us back mostly is infighting(which is both an ancient practice of humanity as well as a consistent marketing campaign by the wealthy). once we can get past that, the world is our oyster.
Spotify is a poor example since you need to pay royalties to the artists (can't be free of cost). Operating systems, an office suite, Adobe replacements, game engines, CAD software and more could all in theory be FOSS-first
thanks. yeah i was just going off the cuff
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It’s easier to organize a small group of people around a shared common interest than it is to organize everyone else around opposing that interest. Everyone else still has their own individual interests but they don’t all align.
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upvote for dick-tator
A large percentage of people wouldnt join. And what would the rich do? I imagine that they'd start by hunting down and killing the leaders of that movement. And their families. Society wont protect us. They'll frame you for "terrorism" or sex crimes, or murder. They'll hire witnesses and plant guns in your bag-- whatever they need to do.
If money wasn't a thing, we could just say "no", I suppose. If we all had a spine and didn't bend to the almighty dollar. Would be nice if we could. We are enslaved by money. Forced to kill each other so someone else can get more power.
I hope people keep this concept in mind when the ones ready to fight for the planet and our future reach a critical mass:
“The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.”
~Utah Phillips
Inb4 pedant quibbles that "the planet itself is not dying." Yeah, but we and our fellow creatures are. It should be understood that is what Mr. Phillips meant.
For me that's not even the weird part, I have no grand hopes that human goodness could overcome their nature, but the really weird part to me is that we have all of the knowledge on how to fix this and despite that half of everyone everywhere has somehow been convinced that a democratic state which taxes the rich won't work.
half of everyone everywhere has somehow been convinced
Propaganda works well, especially if you own the media
Being a psychopatic evil piece if shit is not some innate trait of human nature, they're sick and twisted creatures
At this point it's a clear problem of human bias. We love our instincts so much that when we have sufficient power, we'll assure that people never challenge them, even when the offices we hold require reason contrary to those instincts.
The whole bit about bullshit jobs serves as an example, because our upper management desire to hold court and have courtiers and garden hermits buzzing about them like components of an orrery (I'm teaching my spellchecker words today).
In the media industry the process of crunching developers to make deadlines (even though it kills productivity and slows the rate of progress) is another example, and yet all the AAA game development companies do it... or are doing it so long as they exist. Our private equity firms are now doing to the big ones what was once done to Toys 'r Us, leaving a sinkhole of debt and bankruptcy where there was once a reputable company.
Our inability to see our community past our top fifty Facebook friends (or fellow villagers) prevents us from thinking in terms of cooperating with society, rather we deign ourselves part of the true Americans (or Belgians or Maoists or whatever), and so we fail to recognize personal greed as a mental disorder, rather a moral failing.
In a Star Trek society, someone who hoarded liquidatable assets would be regarded similar to someone who filled their house with junk (and hopefully not as they are abused on Bravo), we'd intervene, put them in a rehab center for a year, where they learn to exist in the comfort of minimalism. But in our own world, extremely wealthy people are regarded as a a higher strata of person, given power and authority to command PMCs, and eventually swarm-armies of killer robots managed by AI.
Currently, our tolerance of human billionaires is killing us, and it poses a global catastrophic risk not just of the human species but of 90%+ of all species on the planet.
you should don a hoodie and start something like fsociety, I am ready to lay my life bare for your cause
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I would cut off both my arms if it meant I could kick a billionaire to death.
Not judging your sacrifice, but how would you cut off your 2nd arm? The 1st one I get, but unless you set up a buzzsaw..... nevermind that's probably how.
Pedo island reoccurring patrons were all politically connected. Trump now trying to release the guilty child trafficking member from prison
peaceful enjoyment is a luxury apparently only afforded to the people actively ruining it for everyone else.
as long as they can charge for it :)
So what can we do about this?
Break out the forks and knives.
Dutch?
The French had a fairly effective solution a few hundred years ago. I'm sure we can automate the process to increase its efficiency.
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Nothing. Fantasize about space, blame Russia, do everything except look inward.
The essence of wealth is to take it from the poor and become even richer by leaving the poor in poverty. Alas, this is reality. The rich are rich because they own someone else's. Just my opinion.
... and who get to live that ideal livelihood while making sure nobody else can.
Every era, lather, rinse, and repeat.
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