Transcript

[A thin boy in ragged clothing holds out a bowl to an overweight Elon Musk] Musk: Society needs billionaires, we keep you from starving. Boy: Please, I’m starving. Can you help me? Musk: Fuck you.

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  • But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world
    14·
    2 days ago

    My son’s high school has been without air conditioning for 2 years. I asked around the cost of repair is near 150k

    Of course this means our government is garbage, but at the same time there are 20 billionaires living in my city. You’d think one of these fucks would be like “fuck dude, no ac in the school?? I’ll pay that bill right away” but no, Thats not how they think

    • solidheron@sh.itjust.works
      8·
      2 days ago

      I hear something similar in small organizations. One guy can set up a mutual aid effort and someone else can do start a mildly controversial thing and you can see the attention get split.

      Something something billionaires are mentally ill

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    139·
    3 days ago

    “Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.”

    • tomiant@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      I always wondered when capitalism deems everything is good enough. Like does it have a goal state? Because I’ve played games that don’t have one and those always end with having to put more coins in the machine.

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        The goal state is the same state of mind as that of the deranged cat lady who needlessly wants to own as many cats as possible and keep them all in her house.

        It’s a mental illness where the person collecting money and wealth only understands collecting more and more endless amounts of wealth and power … more than they can ever realistically ever enjoy in one lifetime.

        Think about it … it’s like wanting to horde bananas … the person keeps hording endless amounts of bananas until their banana pile is the size of Mount Everest and reaches into the clouds … but the person keeps wanting to add to the pile and not allow any else to touch their pile or take anything from it.

        • tomiant@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          23 hours ago

          Reminds me of that Simpsons skit, where Bart and Lisa got a massive pile of candy, and they’re so sick of candy because they ate so much, and Marge goes,

          “kids! That pile is starting to smell. Are you gonna eat it?”

          “nooooooh”.

          “Then we’ll give it away to the neighborhood kids!”

          “Nooooooh.”

          I’m probably massacring that skit but you know the one. 😁

          • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            23 hours ago

            Always loved the Simpsons and I’m happy I grew up watching them … my favourite commentary on wealth in the show was how they portrayed Montgomery Burns … “I have two buttons behind this desk: one will supply your town with power, the other releases the hounds” … ! … ? … ! …? … “release the hounds”

            of even better … the ‘See My Vest’ song

            See my vest, see my vest,
            Made from real gorilla chest,
            Feel this sweater, there’s no better
            than authentic Irish setter.

            See this hat, 'twas my cat,
            My evening wear - vampire bat,
            These white slippers are albino
            African endangered rhino.

            Grizzly bear underwear,
            Turtles’ necks, I’ve got my share,
            Beret of poodle, on my noodle
            It shall rest.

        • tomiant@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          23 hours ago

          At the very least it belongs within the scope of gambling addiction. I lost a friend to gambling. Gambling is one of the worst fucking addictions, because they will gamble until there is nothing left and then they die, and they take everyone around them down with them, they destroy everything for everyone. Another part of it is that if money is success is morality, you even get respected for being a good gambler.

          But I’d go even further and claim that it is a structural consequence of the rules of the system. It happens by necessity, because that is what the logical conclusion of running the game will inevitably produce.

          It is unsustainable, demands more of less, the more everything is improved and the more wealth is being produced, the more we see diminishing returns, because it demands ever more energy of ever diminishing resources, and thus produce ever diminishing returns, until there is nothing left.

          Thanks for listening to my podcast The End Is Nigh, good night.

  • henfredemars@lemdro.idEnglish
    114·
    3 days ago

    Friendly reminder that over 4 million children are in the process of dying because of his actions cutting foreign aid.

    You have to be truly mentally ill, or something less than human, to be this kind of evil.

    • tomiant@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      You could be both indifferent and ignorant at the same time. No inherent danger in that unless you’re super rich and powerful and everything you do has global consequences.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      over 4 million children are in the process of dying because of his actions cutting foreign aid.

      They’re dying because we’ve ramped up arms exports to surrounding territories in the midst of a climate crisis.

      The idea that countries like Sudan and Libya and Haiti need USAID is predicated on us ignoring why they’re impoverished and war torn to begin with

  • Hoodoir@lemmy.world
    7·
    2 days ago

    Farmers keep people from starving. Governments subsidize farmers to keep prices low. Subsidies come from taxes collected from regular people. So people keep themselves from starving by helping farmers.

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
    131·
    2 days ago

    Billionaire “charities”: The billionaires own your workplace. They underpay you but it would be even worse if you didn’t have any job, isn’t it? They sell you garbage products, but haven’t you thought that the fact everyone else also use them might be a sign that it’s actually good, you’re just too needy? They help fascists into power, but did you know that communism killed more by numbers? And no more vaccines for Africa, because they now want disease-driven eugenics.

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.worldEnglish
    251·
    3 days ago

    A business is made, and is successful. WELL DONE.

    Instead of a billion dollars going to the owner and, let’s say, 100K in salary to each worker… what if the CEO only made 100 million, and the employees each made 500K in salary?

    Is that communism?

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      what if the CEO only made 100 million, and the employees each made 500K in salary?

      The Raytheon Strategy.

      Works great if you’re trying to bribe Nazi ex-pats into compliance while fighting a war of arms escalation.

      Is that communism?

      True Communism can only be achieved if we wipe all the current communists off the map, take their stuff, and impose “democracy” through an occupying military.

    • saimen@feddit.org
      41·
      2 days ago

      To play devil’s advocate they would reply that without the owner there would be 0 salary for each worker.

      And you have to be careful. CEO and owner most of the time isn’t the same person.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
        9·
        2 days ago

        Of course, this argument is a pretty piss poor one when the example held up is Musk…

        His first jolt was selling a website to a relatively clueless Compaq that did nothing with it except throw money at Elon. No idea if Elon’s site was any good or not, but it didn’t matter because the reality is that it folded without an enduring impact as part of the dot-com collapse. He used his winnings to try to make X.com the first time, and was a comparative failure next to Paypal, which, somehow, agreed to merge and put him in charge and he almost tanked it. Then ebay bought it out and Musk got maddening amount of money for doing nothing but screw it up.

        Tesla is probably the first example of him not actively screwing it up, though his drama around “I wanna call myself a founder” was dumb. That said, any investor could have done it, so his ‘value’ was his lottery-like wins leading to that point.

        There are others that are arguable, though recently had it happen where someone kept giving out names of impressive and seemingly valuable ‘billionaires’, and we kept checking and every last one were ‘only’ millionaires. So it seems like ‘billionaire’ remains a stupidly over the top concept that isn’t particularly redeemable, with the defensibly decent folks staying under a billion through not being super greedy and/or philanthropy.