this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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Work Reform

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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

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[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 49 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Meanwhile I'm being taxed far too much

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

T(axed) E(nough) A(lready) Party

[–] Nythos@sh.itjust.works 5 points 18 hours ago

Axed nough lready

[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They've been allowed to game the system to hoard way more wealth than any single person should have been able to. They were supposed to pay their employees more, charge less to their customers or if all fails pay more taxes. But they didn't do any of that.

If this was a video game that would be called an "exploit that breaks the gameplay experience for everyone else" and it would have been solved in a patch. But to remain in the same analogy, they are buddies with the game developers so they're allowed to do anything they want. The only difference is that everyone in the country is forced to play this broken game as it is.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 24 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I've played fallout for more than 2 decades. How the fuck are we diving face first into every sci-fi dystopia at the same time? Like, there's hints of star wars, dune, fallout, 1984, the outer worlds, hunger games, Idiocracy etc. I'm hoping cyberpunk 2077 shows up and gives a sliver of a chance.

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 19 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Because those things were based on the real world and we are very bad at learning from the ever-growing list of mistakes we can’t stop making.

Cyberpunk 2077 is not a good world and does not have a good ending. That world is a horrid, capitalist dystopia. Maybe you should watch Edgerunners if you still can’t figure it out from the game.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 11 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The point was that as bad as cyberpunk's future is, I'm fairly certain ours will be worse in 52 years. At least in their timeline there's a resistance.

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[–] zaki_ft@lemmings.world 8 points 16 hours ago

The main reason is because people are stupid and get taken advantage of accordingly.

Every time you saw a moron say "they're a business and they need to make money!" you saw someone lowering their standards to make a rich person richer.

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

These assholes get taxed 1-2% on their total wealth increases per year - and even that gets offset with their loopholes - meanwhile the average people pay anywhere between 30-50% of just their income (and that doesn't account for other taxes like VAT, property, vehicle and road taxes, and so on).

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 13 points 20 hours ago

And not only that, but if you taxed them at 99% they’d still have silly amounts of money and ungodly financial security while even 20% off a poor person being paid by a less rich local business is just hurting the both of them. Taxes are a good thing but like you say they are horrendously unbalanced.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 19 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

Seize their assets, fund NASA.

That's how you actually make America great.

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[–] bagsy@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

No one should have enough money to purchase entire branches of government. Musk could give every member of congress 10 million and still be a billionarie many times over. That kind of wealth is not compatible with democracy.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 14 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

90% should be the minimum after 1 million a year

[–] foggianism@lemmy.world 14 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

I'd go for 99% after 5 bil

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 7 points 18 hours ago

Log tax rate.

[–] tfm@europe.pub 3 points 14 hours ago

Billionaires shouldn't exist at all

[–] Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 14 hours ago

There should be a wealth cap much lower than that. Perhaps 10 mil. Enough to live comfortably for life but not enought to have enormous power over politics.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It's a clear sign the government isn't, itself, spending enough on spaceflight and associated R&D.

Turning our next generation of economic and military supremacy over to the dipshit horn dogs that tanked retail sales and fucked up the post office seems like a huge mistake.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

With higher progressive taxes, not only do we stop billionaires from possibly existing, but the government gets more resources to spend on spaceflight R&D among other things.

[–] Bimfred@lemmy.world 4 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Governments HAVE the resources. They CHOOSE to not spend it on R&D.

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Both can be true

[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 13 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

I say we put them all in a rocket and shoot them into space...

That's it. Problem solved.

[–] GuyLivingHere@lemmy.ca 7 points 23 hours ago (2 children)
[–] faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Anchor and chains in 20m waters is much cheaper.

[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Ancher and chain?! In this economy! A .22 round is about ¢28

[–] faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I mean at that rate stoning is free, but I don't wanna stoop to taliban. Maybe French had the right idea.

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[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah... no. First other, no less greedy people will inherit their wealth, second capitalism guarantees the concentration of wealth to absurd degrees. "Kill all billionaires" is surprisingly not a good solution to the problem of billionaires.

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[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

That's kinda expensive. Just put then in a field and strap some explosives on them, same net effect without wasting millions of taxpayer money.

I wouldn't do that, it's barbaric overkill. You could accomplish the same result with like five Morties and a jumper cable — which I also wouldn't do... just saying... it's bad craftsmanship.

[–] chosensilence@pawb.social 12 points 1 day ago

it isn't. it is an intended best case scenario for those invested. capitalism rewards trickery and thievery. excess wealth is part of its system dependent on class hierarchies. it was millionaires before billionaires and now we're about to have our first trillionaire. for fucks sake.

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 12 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I think we just need to send them into space... Forcibly. Permanently.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 points 16 hours ago

That's what they want. We can't eat the rich if we can't reach the rich.

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't even know who the first one is and I'm kind of afraid of finding out

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not that it really matters but he's been knighted.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

She should have swung that sword a lot harder

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 6 points 8 hours ago

If you've got money to waste on doing the same space shots that they've been doing for the last 65 years, just with newer technology, all while people in America are hungry, and suffering from lack of health care, then we should take away everything they own, and redistribute it to the people. We can even name each distribution after the benefactor. First we'll have the Musk distribution, then the Bezos, distribution, then the Ellison distribution, etc.

And their companies, primarily created and made profitable by government grants and tax breaks, belong to the American people, and they should be confiscated, and operated for the profit benefit of the American people. To make it fair, the billionaire, and his descendents, will always have an entry level job available, at entry level wages, but they will be treated like any other employees, and can be fired without rehiring privileges. They aren't entitled to any special treatment, other than a guaranteed job. After that, they have to behave themselves.

[–] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

If there was a space race then you can guarantee that elon would want it out of the country.

[–] Avicenna@programming.dev 6 points 17 hours ago

nor that they give a rat's ass about sustainability, humanity, earth etc like some of them like Elon claims

[–] MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

$999,999,999 is just fine though!

Stop focusing on an arbitrary figure and start focusing on a real progressive income tax with no loopholes or workarounds.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago

"Billionaire" is a sound bite to focus attention. Publicizing "An improved progressive taxation rate" isn't as marketable.

[–] senorseco@lemmy.today 4 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

It's not a policy failure at all. It's a systemic feature. Capitalism is dog eat dog until only one dog remains. If you want to fix it you need a new economic system.

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[–] AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 3 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

The existence of an "AI race" between China and the U.S., where government contracted billionaires in both countries insist that citizens accepting authoritarian surveillance, is just a patriotic duty necessary to win that race, is a policy failure.

Especially when investigative journalism uncovers in 2025 that the U.S./Silicon Valley sold China the mass surveillance system that has allegedly given them such an upper hand in this imaginary race.

2019: Trump CTO Addresses AI, Facial Recognition, Immigration, Tech Infrastructure, and More

Q:"Maintaining U.S. leadership in AI might have costs in terms of individuals and society. What costs should individuals and society bear to maintain leadership?”

A:“I don’t view the world that way. Our companies big and small do not hesitate to talk about the values that underpin their technology. [That is] markedly different from the way our adversaries think. The alternatives are so dire [that we] need to push efforts to bake the values that we hold dear into this technology.”...“A patchwork of regulation of technology is not beneficial for the country. We want to avoid that. Facial recognition has important roles—for example, finding lost or displaced children. There are use cases, but they need to be underpinned by values.”

The baked in "values" of the men telling you not to worry about regulations:

2025: Silicon Valley enabled brutal mass detention and surveillance in China, internal documents show

2025: Palantir CEO Says a Surveillance State Is Preferable to China Winning the AI Race

2025: Palantir CEO slams ‘parasitic’ critics calling the tech a surveillance tool: ‘Not only is patriotism right, patriotism will make you rich’

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