And in order to stay rich, you have to play your role and participate in a society that oppresses the poor which in turn maintains your wealth. Are you really still capable of being a good person?
It's a complex topic, but this is the crux of the matter I think. If we're talking about today's world, then I don't think there is a billionaire who is not complicit with participating in a system that is rigged (for lack of a better term) in their favor, and profits in an unfair scale from the work of others.
On the other hand, I also don't think you need to disown your material wealth and start living paycheck to paycheck to be able to qualify as a good person. So... in my head, there's definitely millionaires who are good people, who earned their riches with authentic hard work and some genius ideas/inventions/services, and pay the people they employ well, or keep good relations with the people they work with.
My $10 goes a lot further than their millions of dollars. I spent $10 on a donation, who will then spend it on an uber. The uber driver will then spend it on something else. Their millions of dollars will just sit in a bank account not adding value to anything but their net worth. Fuck rich people.
A bit late to the party, and haven't read through every comment, so apologies if this is was already stated opinion.
In many (if not most) cases excess wealth is a byproduct of capitalizing on others labor in an unfair way. There was (not so long ago) a time when excess income over a certain amount (say a million) was taxed anywhere from 60-90%. This high level of taxation mixed with the victories of the labor movement standardized that upper management and ownership made around 10X max what their average laborer did. That number has now swelled to 100X-1000X the average salary and with minimum wage (US) basically the same for the last 20+ years.
Beyond having more than you could ever use and depriving a portion to those below you; the systems of capital seem as much about cleaving society into separate castes and classes (as much as anything.) We've had the ability to bring the world out of poverty and hunger for a long time now and instead we've managed to perpetuate myths about those less fortunate being a burden around societies neck. The poor are raised to look at the poorer as impediments to their ascendancy and the idea of base universal standards as rights for humanity have stalled and are largely no longer talked about. Capital has done everything it can to divide people with hate and drain money from the bottom, while maintaining the expectation for never ending growth of markets and resources. This is unsustainable and will eventually lead to rifts that will break governments and societies around the world. Probably faster than most of us think or are willing to accept.
In America so many of us think that we're always one lucky break from rising away from those like us. So as secret millionaires we tacitly approve in the hopes of living better than the rest. Legitimately though, to be rich (from means other than luck (EDIT, see bottom)) will come down to how little you care for exploiting others. If you can take more from those around you and feel less about it, then you could be the next millionaire. And it is this difference in ethics and mentality (possibly psychopathy) that leads to being rich and doing fucked up shit.
I've worked for very wealthy people and they are masters at disguising themselves as adequate people. They are usually very charismatic and can say all the right things without being found out for a very long time. Being wealthy makes people view you as exceptional. You must have been smarter, worked harder, more godly and/or more worthy. As such, people almost always give you the benefit of the doubt much more than they would a regular person. And the rich are exceptionally good at wearing that trust just to the point of breaking for as long as they can. From my experience they are largely on cocaine or prescription stimulants, so that they're always "on point." They buy excessively, without thought and will throw even costly unopened things away. They become bored with life and begin sexual abusing those in proximity to them. These tastes will continue to become more extreme and degrading so that they can feel more power and hurt others more. Hurting people, without consequence, is a great way to assure ones self of how untouchable they really are. They come to enjoy these things and have no care for those they hurt unless it affects them in some meaningful way. They can make up stories that allow them to feel fine about this when it's clear they've done horrific things (DARVO behaviors) and thus will likely never feel any lasting remorse for even the worst of things.
This last part is again from personal experience, but it largely matches over a number of people and I see no difference in the actions of the vast majority of the wealthy. Surely there are some wealthy people who not all of these things apply to, but they are exceptions and not the rule.
We could point to so many things that make the world awful but the overly rich and powerful are a nearly singular point that if toppled could right so many wrongs. Humanity needs a second bill of rights and even beyond a maximum wage, the majority of excess wealth and holdings needs to be taken back and used to fix humanity's course.
All of that certainly isn't going to be happening though, so I look forward to spending the horrifying future with the rest of you poors!
Edit: @Aesthesiaphilia pointed out that inheritance is the largest means of wealth transfer and they are absolutely right. Previously the notated EDIT portion said "to be rich (from means other than luck or some inheritance)" and I've edited out the inheritance portion because you could inherit a million dollars randomly or 500 million. The amount doesn't matter as the impediments to generational transfer of wealth between elites has been substantially weakened even recently and it very much folds into the myth of the self made millionaire/billionaire, which is not supported by reality.
Good point, I take back the thing about inheritance. In my mind I meant like a random relative dies and someone previously unrich, then has like a few million. You are absolutely correct that it doesn't really read like that though. Thanks for the correction kind stranger, I'll go edit the portion and notate this.
I think 10Gbps in general is the max. I haven't thought about that level of speed because it's expensive, for both the plan and the need to upgrade all my network equipment to support 10Gb.
I'm jealous, I pay like $33 for 600mbps after having opted out of paying from all the useless antivirus and filters and having my own router rather than renting.
I think different countries have different PPP, so I wouldn't say it's fair to compare directly like that. I think ease of access to such services and how much it costs in relation to wages is a better gauge.
yes, they can be - but why do they need to spend their money to benefit the public to be proven as “good”? are you yourself bad because you’re unwilling to spend your money to benefit the public?
I dont see myself as greedy, but I am unwilling to spend my own money to help humanity. not even one iota
no, the opposite of philanthropic is selfishness. if I work for my money (and I do), then it’s mine. other people need money? sounds like they need jobs too.
Keeping more money than you could ever spend is pretty clear cut greed.
But at the amounts we're talking about, it's mathematically impossible to "work for" that amount. No billionaire ever got a billion dollars by just working hard.
I have 6Mbps (and it's not just me), if that gives you an idea on the pricing/tiers... (no other options, semi-rural USA internet, it's not even perfect service).
I don't believe fiber is available, or at least it doesn't seem to give that info (like it did before) that I can see now. Also, it's an old phone wire into our house and that's it (no ethernet jacks).
Mario RPG. It's just enjoyable, it's a video game toy you really play with. Throughout you're encouraged to just have fun and not take anything seriously. Yeah jump on whatever you want, see if you can land on that Toad running around in circles. You did it, here's a funny little animation as a reward. run up a debt at the hotel and play bellhop, get yelled at for jumping on the shop counter, officiate a wedding, do some random backtracking to see Samus sleeping, go on a world spanning scavenger hunt. All while every little attack and magic is a little minigame to play with. Dont worry about grinding, here's a power star to run through a dozen battles worth of xp in a few seconds.
My hot take: Weddings are solely a patriarchal event to make it public whose inheritors are whose.
I would be good at dancing, I think. My older relatives are professional ballroom dancers. I just don't like to do it...the whole contact thing. I prefer US country line dancing since it's single but i loathe the music it's done to. With COVID now i literally can't even begin to care to seek out events where dancing would happen.
It is a good observation tho that VERY few people even know how to dance nowadays. But swing style takes atheticism and training that not everyone has access to.
One thing to realize - it is paper money, stocks, obligation, not actual resources that rich people own. If you actually spend billions on yourself, like building multiple palaces, huge and multiple yachts, then yes, you are consuming resources egoistically for yourself. If the money are "working", producing something that not for you to consume (also known as "invested"), and especially if you donate a lot for charities, then sure, you can be a good person.
One thing to realize - it is paper money, stocks, obligation, not actual resources that rich people own. If you actually spend billions on yourself, like building multiple palaces, huge and multiple yachts, then yes, you are consuming resources egoistically for yourself. If the money are "working", producing something that not for you to consume (also known as "invested"), and especially if you donate a lot for charities, then sure, you can be a good person.
I suppose it depends. There are plenty of rich people who do actively seem to care and go out of their way to not only donate to charity, but actively get involved in communities and try to improve things. Very clearly putting themselves out there and not for personal fame and prestige.
The big part you have to focus on is whether the charity is being done for tax write-offs or other personal benefits, such as what you see with most conservative rich people like the Kochs.
Of course, no matter how a rich person uses their money, even if they very clearly are spending massive amounts of it on helping others and improving the lives of those around them, they'll still be considered evil just because they are rich.
It's an interesting paradox. For some people who have a very narrow view on the subject, they will only consider a rich person "good" if they make themselves not rich. Entirely so. Of course, such a no longer rich person wouldn't be able to help others at that point.
I think there is a line, and it's different for every person, but on one side of the line to lift other people up you would have to sacrifice your own life velocity, and on the other side of the line you have the power to lift tens of hundreds or thousands of people out of poverty without impacting more than a fraction of your children's inheritance.
I understand that there are issues with unchecked charity, for instance, if Bill Gates suddenly decided to take I don't know 25 billion dollars and distribute it equally to everybody in the 50% or below category of America which is about 250 million people, then he would basically be giving these people a hundred bucks each and saying "there I've done my job I gave up 30% of my net worth to help the poor" and that really wouldn't accomplish anything.
But that same $25 billion targeted at the bottom 1% of America I could do quite a bit but then there's overhead. Buying houses and repairing them for people to solve the homelessness problem or purchasing all of the debt that you could possibly buy for $25 billion and then forgiving that debt for the poorest people, those things could be better and do more for people but then you have administrative overhead finding and communicating with the debtors and negotiating with them, and then at the end of it it's likely that you would get a massive tax right off cuz you wouldn't do this as an individual you do it as a nonprofit, and then bill would get back 8 billion of that in tax rebates or so.
Like there is obviously a line on both sides and while I don't think people making you know even 200 Grand a year should put themselves at risk for homelessness in order to justify their financial status I also don't think that any billionaire has any right to strive to continue being a billionaire for the rest of their lives. If you cannot live a happy life on a billion dollars then you cannot live a happy life.
I think there is a line, and it's different for every person, but on one side of the line to lift other people up you would have to sacrifice your own life velocity, and on the other side of the line you have the power to lift tens of hundreds or thousands of people out of poverty without impacting more than a fraction of your children's inheritance.
Studies have shown it to be around $150k/yr for a single person. Any more money than that does not really improve individual happiness. Obviously that varies but for a ballpark idea that's the number.
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