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The fundamental problem of all civilization is not hanging billionaires.
We have so much stigma around being poor. I would probably cry myself to death out of joy if I woke up in a world where people felt shame for hoarding wealth.
It’s really not effectively managing selfishness.
We don’t have to hang them, just put a wealth tax on them before they become billionaires.
But for anyone who has a billion I think it’s OK to take it all, because nobody should be so selfish so they have more than a billion.I’d really rather hang them though…
Yeah they think they’re so great and untouchable. Let them find out they’re mortal and fallible.
Its certainly simpler, though hardly a solution. There’s always more billionaires unless you change the system that created them.
I won’t stand in your way. I am in principle against death penalty, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs.
More and more I’m thinking we really need a wealth tax. Not because the government needs the money - the government literally makes their own money, they can create as much of it as they want - but because I think a cap on wealth is necessary for social cohesion. Plus, once people get over a certain level of wealth, the chances of it seriously negatively affecting them psychologically seem to go up considerably. Many, if not most, billionaires are just weird, creepy, disturbed wackos. I don’t think it’s good for them or for society.
I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to capping individual wealth at $999 million. Another option might be to set the maximum at a percentage of GDP, maybe something like 0.01% of GDP. I think that would put the cap at just over $3 billion. That’s still an astronomical amount of money, and there would still be billionaires but not the mega, stupid billionaires.
More and more I’m thinking we really need a wealth tax. Not because the government needs the money - the government literally makes their own money, they can create as much of it as they want - but because I think a cap on wealth is necessary for social cohesion.
This is literally what the inheritance tax is for, so there’s precedent.
Of course, they piss and moan about that too, but I don’t give a shit and neither should anyone else.
a cap on wealth is necessary for social cohesion.
Billionaires are undermining democracy, which already is a huge problem and against the values of a country that wants to be democratic.
Yes most billionaires end up wackos, which makes it even worse that they have so much power.
IMO you can add an extra zero to the decimal places to make it 300 million. 1 billion is IMO already to much.
But I wouldn’t make it a hard limit, just incrementally bigger tax percentage the higher you get.
Because we have too much empathy for them?
I can assure you, I feel no empathy towards you Elon Musk.
You mean, humanity’s single-biggest cancer cell…?
How DARE you! 😠
Ah yes, we fight wars because we’re just so gosh darn empathetic.
The second panel hit me hard, knowing how USAID operates in practice relative to how it is portrayed in media.
After taking power in April 1978, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) instituted an array of socialist policies, including “land reform, growth in public services, price controls, separation of church and state, full equality for women, legalization of trade unions and a sweeping literacy campaign.” This might seem like a positive development, but not in the eyes of the U.S. empire and its capitalist agenda. In addition to the CIA’s covert support for the mujahideen’s holy war against the secular evils of increased living standards and women’s rights, USAID also played an interesting role in this conflict.
The agency reportedly spent $50 million on a “jihad literacy” program in Afghanistan, primarily during the 1980s. This effort included the publication and distribution of ultra-conservative textbooks that “tried to solidify the links between violence and religious obligation,” according to author Dana Burde. Lessons on basic math and language were accompanied by depictions of Kalashnikov rifles, grenades, ammunition, and a commitment to militancy and retribution against the Russians (who were depicted as “invaders” despite having been invited to lend military assistance by the PDPA). After consolidating power in the ‘90s, the Taliban government revised and reprinted these textbooks, and copies have even been found in Pakistan as recently as 2013.
Assisting the Taliban’s precursor with reactionary, jihadist propaganda to viciously sabotage a progressive, feminist government and its allies is a strange form of “humanitarianism.” You might even say it’s the opposite of humanitarianism. Was this just a mistake that USAID made in the distant past and has since learned from, or is there a continued pattern of this behavior?
Fortunately, Afghanistan was half a world away. We liberated a foreign country from Soviet aggression. We struck a blow against Radical Leftist Socialism. And, as a consequence, we restored liberty and democracy to Eastern Europe. There wasn’t any risk of a radicalized movement of ultra-conservative religious fundamentalists ever doing anything that might blow back on American civilians.
The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is whatever let people like Musk attain great wealth and a platform, despite their incredible bias and incompetence.
Yeah, western civilization was really brimming with empathy for all those slaves and indigenous people. 🙄🙄🙄🙄
Empathy is a danger to civilization
Don’t like the guy, but I think he meant “weakness” as vulnerability, aka, if you want to attack the west, take advantage of them.
Empathy is good, taking advantage of the empathetic? Not so much.
The only administration I have seen extorting empathy recently is the Trump administration that used it against the democrats by taking away food stamps and wages to force the democrats to yield so Republicans could take affordable healthcare away from Americans.
And now we have idiots like the California governor protecting billionaires against being taxed. It’s an ever worse one way street that only benefit the rich.
Yep. Elon Musk knows the playbook.
Yeah, this was my take. Those without empathy view it as a weakness, because nobody becomes a billionaire by helping others in need
Very good observation. Billionaires take advantage of it.
Looks like slop.
So lap it up, fuzzball.
