A lot of people on kbin are here because we don't support reddit anymore, and we are especially displeased with spez holding decades-worth of accumulated knowledge and content for ransom.
Even if they're questions which could be easily found on reddit or with a Google search, I think it's a good idea to ask them here (and on other instances) anyway. It will give those who are boycotting reddit a new space to search for answers, it will foster more content creation on kbin, and it will decentralise the combined niche knowledge and expertise of all netizens, so that it is less likely to be lost or held hostage again.
I think it's also a good starting point for anyone who is usually a lurker, but would like to create quality content here to promote community growth. Ask a question you could easily search (or maybe one you already know the answer to?)
We can come together as a community to ask and answer those questions, rather than each user trying to single-handedly create valuable content from scratch, which is much more daunting.
Lemmy can see kbin magazines. I’m on a lemmy instance right now.
kbin.social itself has had some federation issues in the past month, but I think that’s more growing pains of a new platform than anything inherent in the system itself.
Oh, maybe that's where I got the idea that Lemmy couldn't see them, I've only been on the fediverse for a couple weeks. People were saying Lemmy couldn't see kbin, but I didn't realize that was temporary.
There's some suspicion that the specific instance lemmy.ml is rejecting incoming requests from kbin via a configuration, but lemmy.world, lemmy.ca, beehaw, etc. seem to be federating well enough.
Not really suspicion at this point. They are proveably 403 rejecting requests from the KBin useragent. You have the letters "kbinbot" anywhere in your useragent (case insensitive) you ain't getting content.
As a bonus they're still sending out stuff to instances though. But since KBin can't then resolve it it amounts to a DoS attack as the messages just build up in KBin retry queues.
Noted and I'll make sure that my list is clear of .ml subs. Honestly, with the "not so much rumors as facts" information swirling around out there about the devs, I'll not be surprised if they're intentionally tanking (pun intended) any competition that isn't parroting their views.
Yeah this seems to be a temporary thing. I've been following the federation issues we've been having on kbin and I'm hoping they can resolved as everything stabilizes.
I'm unsure if the ingest from kbin > Lemmy was working because last I checked they were returning error responses on requests that had "kbinbot" in the name.
Yeah that doesn't look like it's federation correctly. I'll raise it again with some of the other devs, maybe one of them will know. Pretty annoying ;(
I'm unsure if the ingest from kbin > Lemmy was working because last I checked they were returning error responses on requests that had "kbinbot" in the name.
It's only lemmy.ml, not all of lemmy, that's returning a forbidden response on requests from kbin.
I hope kbin gets federated by lemmy.ml it seems they have been rather trigger happy with blocking. It seems we will have to wait and see which instance is the most free.
A lot of the original Lemmy instances are quite trigger happy. It’s one really nice thing about the new instances with new admins who block but still prefer not to unless it’s really necessary.
i kind of knew what i was signing up for with this lemmy ecosystem, so at worst people will just switch instances and the most free gain the most leverage, it beats this hopping from one centralized service to another by far.
I’ve been all-in on the fediverse since early 2021, including the threadiverse. It may not be the future for the masses, but I think it might be the future for people who value freedom and autonomy.
there are like 10 times or 20 times more users online than back when reddit even started, i think we will be fine even if it wont be for "the masses". I respect that you got in early, a true pioneer.
Thanks man. I had to crawl through some filthy comments, I'm pretty sure it was worse than whatever those chumps on Juno Beach during the D-Day Normandy invasion had to endure... You got a medal for me? Let's see what you have.
I doubt you can judge someone as bad based off that
EDIT: I'm gonna go with better terms here: Not responsible enough and ignorant, I still don't believe someone can be considered bad as a person for this.
Yeah I mean, I have seen people do that countless times at the walmart near my house for example, I feel like that's just calling a very high portion of the population to be bad people unfairly.
Actually as I was explaining to another person, unfortunately, there is a reason.
I am living in Tampa, Florida, the nearby walmart to my house, has a huge parking lot, but a car corral near the entrance and ONE on a huge damn parking lot.
The thing is, while I am not against returning carts when possible in anyway, what can I do if I park my car all the way on the other side on the parking lot and not near the cart corrosal? And the reason I park there is because it's one of the few parking spots available in a busy day? I am sorry but in such cases, people will just leave the carts on the side and leave with their car.
Not to mention, the damn sun here, it gets absolutely hot here at times, even I don't see myself walking halfway to the other part of the parking lot just to leave a cart when I already walked all the way from the entrance carrying all of my groceries, I don't see myself returning in that case.
Again we need to think in practical real-life scenario, so not only should people start returning carts, stores that don't have enough cart returning points in parking lots especially, should increase them.
I am not saying I don't return carts because that actually doesn't apply to me, atleast lately, as I have been mainly ordering stuff online mostly.
I do also want to make it clear, I am in no way giving justifications for those who make these basic mistakes without a genuine reason, I don't ever see myself not returning a cart when there is indeed a fairly nearby cart corrosal, and unfortunately, there are people who won't return their cars even if they have a nearby car corral, and i'm not arguing for them!
Do you think it's fair to think that just because you are able to, others can too? I've been living in Canada before moving to florida, opposite weather here, extremely hot, I try to stay cool as much as possible, it's good that you "crossed a parking lot at a street" (assuming that is long distance, don't extactly understand the meaning here), but I am not you man, different people, scenarios, circumstances.
I know people are going to downvote this for me lol, again I ain't justifying for those who actually don't return when there is actually a cart corral nearby, but I am not trying to justify my own actions or argue for those who make this mistake without a genuine reason wantedly, in-fact as I''ve mentioned in several other comments in this thread, I do online shopping mostly these days, so this does not even apply to me.
I am simply trying to discuss from another not so popular perspective here in this thread.
I am also wondering if people have different definitions of what "bad" could be, because to me, this is more about lack of responsibility and ignorance when you are able to return a cart, but you still don't. If I saw someone doing this without a genuine reason like I have stated before, I don't think that'd still make them a bad as a person, I'd consider them not so responsible and kindly ask them to return it.
If they're physically able to push the cart somewhere they should be able to return it. Bar some edge cases I don't see why someone wouldn't return the cart.
I think you have stricter definition of bad and a looser definition of acceptable reasons. For me "not responsible" is bad, like a minute amount but still in the bad zone, and tough weather and distance isn't enough of a reason to not return the cart.
The thing is, pushing the cart to take groceries to a car is a must for a person isn't it? The same can't be said for returning it, and while I respect a lot that you seem to have returned the cart every single time even if there is no nearby return spot, I don't see everyone being that way, especially when some stores barely have enough cart return spots on parking lots with PAID staff who are there to collect leftover carts.
If I am being honest, when I do physically grocery shop, in most cases since I mostly order online, when I really only have to, I do physical visit and I don't buy much, I just carry them with my hands to the car, I never had this issue lol.
I think a lot of people, me included, have been cart pushers or other similar minimum wage jobs so it's a bit emotionally charged. For me even if there are staff it's still not nice to pile work on them, you know? Like others in the thread said, I don't value my time more than theirs.
I do understand where you are coming from, and I really hate to sound like that guy who wants the other to do the work for him, but unfortunately a few others (and I think I myself have done a not so great job at conveying what I am really trying to say here) have done a great job at making me sound like that.
What I am just saying is that it is unrealistic to expect that from the majority of the public customers from doing that if there is not enough cart corrals, this is bound to happen until stores take action to make cart returns a must, and add more cart return points in the parking lot for customers with cars.
Again I don't really oppose this, I support this in-fact, I am only saying that we have to address this issue in a way where we are not JUST blaming the people doing this (excluding those who do this despite having a nearby cart corral), we also need to consider the lack of cart corrals issue that some stores have realistically.
Other than that, I really don't want to be that guy who is irresponsible and lets the other guy do the work for him, but if I go do physical grocery shopping on a very busy day with moving cars in the parking lot, asking me to travel to the other side of the parking lot to return a cart seems a little bit unreasonable, and that's if the store is one of those that lack cart return points.
But if there is one near me or even in the next row or after that, I am more than happy to walk there and return the cart, really, I am just talking about stores that have barely cart carrols, and if they do, it's like, on the whole other side of the parking lot, you are basically walking back and forth from one side of the building to the other.
It's interesting how you assume I do it when I am not even exactly arguing for it, you people just can't seem to understand or deal with the fact that some stores out there don't have enough car corrals and practically in real-life out there, people are bound to do this if the stores aren't bothered enough to have enough cart corrals in a big damn parking lot.
Nobody will cross to the other half of the parking lot, especially if it's busy with moving cars, to return a cart, if we can't come to this agreement, those who have been downvoting me are being delusional in my opinion, remember, in my opinion.
And it's wrong to judge someone of doing that just because they are arguing from a different perspective, I am not even saying it's okay to do that when you do have a cart corral nearby, there are people who do that and don't return the cart even they do have a cart corral nearby, but expecting customers to do that even with the lack of cart corrals is nice to hear, but UNREALISTIC.
Not to mention, the damn sun here, it gets absolutely hot here at times, even I don't see myself walking halfway to the other part of the parking lot just to leave a cart when I already walked all the way from the entrance carrying all of my groceries, I don't see myself returning in that case.
Lost me here, nope, nooooope nope nope nope. The weather is the least justifiable excuse -- Someone has to walk all that way to return that cart in the hot sun if you don't. If anything, making someone else do it is worse because of that weather.
I also saw you throwing out "but they have employees who do that" in another part of the thread. You wouldn't throw trash on the ground instead of walking it to a can just because a place has a janitor, I'm sure. It's exactly the same logic, and the reason you wouldn't ruin a janitor's day is the same reason you shouldn't ruin a cart collector's day.
I get that your local shop sucks for only having one corral. I really, truly do. But you know what I do when my closest store has practices I can't deal with? I don't make someone else clean up after me, I take my money elsewhere.
Lost me here, nope, nooooope nope nope nope. The weather is the least justifiable excuse -- Someone has to walk all that way to return that cart in the hot sun if you don't. If anything, making someone else do it is worse because of that weather.
Interesting, you do realize the employee who collects the carts get them when the store closes, hence at night? It would make 0 sense to do that in the morning because customers will keep coming.
I also saw you throwing out "but they have employees who do that" in another part of the thread. You wouldn't throw trash on the ground instead of walking it to a can just because a place has a janitor, I'm sure. It's exactly the same logic, and the reason you wouldn't ruin a janitor's day is the same reason you shouldn't ruin a cart collector's day.
This is a very bad example and a comparison, why? If I have trash, even if there is not a garbage bin nearby, I can keep it with me until I find one or just take it with me to home and throw it there.
Now with carts, that's a whole different story, I wish there was a machine where it could carry it for me until I reach to the whole other side of the parking lot, in a very busy moving parking lot with cars, but such magical machine doesn't exist.
Companies like Walmart earn millions and billions of dollars, maybe they should be installing more cart return points as the customers are the people who are keeping them in business.
I get that your local shop sucks for only having one corral. I really, truly do. But you know what I do when my closest store has practices I can't deal with? I don't make someone else clean up after me, I take my money elsewhere.
I already countered the point that I am making someone else do that for me, because first of all, they are just doing their job, and I am not being disrespectful here, but even if you may be okay dealing with the inconvenience the lack of cart return points, I am not, you can't expect everyone to be okay with something just because you are.
Regarding taking my money elsewhere, that'd be travelling twice as much, which is dooable, I have a car, but that just makes 0 sense, i'm wasting double the time of mine, and there is no guarantee walmart has enough cart return points there too, considering another person said walmart has been removing them on california, if they are doing that there, then I don't expect it to be any better.
Also, asking me to do that for a damn cart, seriously? And the employee is just doing their job, they will do it anyways even if I go or not, and please, don't compare that again with trash, it's a whole different story, because you make it sound like I am the type of person who throws trash on the ground wantedly near a place where there is a garbage can, so I can watch the janitor pick it, that is crazy.
I really don't have the desire to deal with this level of unhinge over carts, especially when most of it is self-contradictory, begging the question, and/or straight up incorrect.
If I was willing to meet you halfway with "just irresponsible, not bad" before, this response right here eliminated all that.
I really don't understand you took this so seriously in the first place, and many of the arguments you made make 0 sense like that trash comparison, and the fact that you asked me to go somewhere else so what, I can return a cart? Or the fact that if I don't return the cart, I am making someone else do the work for me when some stores have people PAID TO DO THAT, because they lack cart return points, and how I am making them do it for the same reason I don't want to: climate, when they wouldn't even pick up carts from parking lots till night.
Not to mention how me returning would mean that employee's will be free from getting the carts until that is not true, because people are bound to just let the carts on the sides if the store did not bother to make return points, and literally have someone ready to pick them up at the end of the day, which tells me even they ARE NOT bothered from the store. Even if I stop, that wouldn't matter a bit if others didn't do the same, there are tons of people living nearby, and customers are bound to do this if the store doesn't give proper return points, this is reality.
Man, that's just a whole other level of insanity, glad you can't deal this argument anymore because I am really not interested in this either.
If you think this is bad or irresponsible given a genuine reason, then you haven't really seen the real irresponsible and bad things out there in the world, because this is nothing...
There was once in walmart a year back when they asked us to return the carts properly because it was too windy outside so it won't hit properly
AND WE DID RETURN THE CARTS IN THAT SCENARIO
Again, I find this funny, you sound like an absolute perfect person who wants everyone to be extremely responsible and do it despite inconveniences i've mentioned above...
Look, it's nice to hear that, but in the real practical world, people WILL leave their carts if stores are not bothered or care enough to install return points in the first place.
Incidentally, I've got another measure for when someone is probably a bad person. Someone else in this comment section said it, so I'll quote and link.
Now, see, that up there was me enforcing my boundaries, and you hauled off and insulted my sanity and made all kinds of assumptions about my life experience. Painted yourself into a corner on this one, my dude.
Please don't take this in a different direction against me lol, I am only calling this discussion and your arguements as "insansity" like the trash comparision you made that makes no sense to me, I obviously don't even know you personally, so that no way was mean't to apply for you, just the arguement and some of those points you put forth.
I didn't mean or never called you as a person as insane lol
And it's funny how you left out 90% of my arguements, cherry picked them as per your liking and highlighted them against me.
EDIT: And I just realized you have been cherry-picking since the very beginning, leaving a lot of the good points I put forth, only highlighting some points alone like the weather, making it seem like I am being ridiculous with excuses, although I had a bigger context behind it.
You also said: "I don't really have the desire to deal with this...."
Yet you can't put a full stop and try to understand another perspective rather than your own, you seem to have a very locked and closed mindset, atleast from having this conversation although that may not be the case.
But you need to understand, it's nice to speak like a very responsible person, expecting everyone to be that way, I admire that, but the reality is, people won't go to another store and find a place with huge cart corrals just to be able to return it (I am saying this as you wanted me to take my money elsewhere), that's just not practically possible and it simply isn't convenient out there in the real world,
nobody is going to travel somewhere else that could be much further away just to be able to return a cart, I bet it's not even something people think off when they go do grocery shopping, you have to be considerate when demanding people to be more "responsible".
“Nobody else’s time, wants, needs or desires couldn’t possibly matter more than mine. Because I think and feel this way, no one else feels thinks differently.”
I know someone (in California, for added context) who works as a shopping cart collector at Target during open hours, so this isn’t the case everywhere.
I actually took the five minutes to look at all 10 Walmart stores in Tampa on Google Earth, and I can see more than one cart corral from space... How are you missing them in person?
Sigh, I live near Tampa, I don't live there, not in the main city/area (outer part near to Tampa for added context. I don't think Ill give my exact location here though.
What error, exactly? If someone makes a choice and doesn't take responsibility for that choice, there's no error in judgment calling that person irresponsible. Mitigating circumstances like a person's childcare situation are only mitigating circumstances because there was irresponsibility in the first place to mitigate. It's still irresponsibility. There was no error.
. Mitigating circumstances like a person's childcare situation are only mitigating circumstances because there was irresponsibility in the first place to mitigate. It's still irresponsibility.
I took the cart into the store to shop with my cognitively disabled child. This was a responsible decision.
Due to my child's medical disability and changing circumstances resulting in a behavior meltdown, I had to take him back to the car and stay with him, to prevent elopement that could put him and others at risk. This was a responsible decision. Due to the changing circumstances, I can't return the shopping cart to a particular location.
At no point do I abdicate responsibility. My first responsibility is to the safety of my child, and others who might suffer if he elopes. If you think I'm a bad person who "gives zero shits" because I put that first, then I call that error.
If you want to live in you self-righteous bubble and judge people from afar without knowing jack squat about their circumstances, I call that error. I'm sure my situation is not unique; issues must come up all the time with children, pets, the elderly that necessitate putting a shopping cart aside and attending to the needs of others, and it's not always possible to return the shopping cart.
I can't stop you from making an error, of course, but I'd hope than when the error is explained to you, you'd commit to avoiding it.
Red flags aren’t always accurate. That’s the point, it’s a quick gut check, not a foolproof way to analyze someone’s worth. Your neighbor who stares too long and had red stains on his shirt could be a surgeon with myopia, but there are some red flags.
I had this discussion on here a week or so ago. I guess I’m just lucky enough to live somewhere where the summers are mid 80s and the winters are high 50s. My three friends who got jobs at the local Target all said that the best part of their day was collecting carts.
They still collect carts if you put them where they’re supposed to be, it’s just a safer job, because they are where cars expect them to be instead of all over the parking lot fishing lone carts out of bushes and off medians
There are two main reasons you wouldn’t return carts to a cart return location:
Fuck them people
My time is worth more than this
At the very least the person is inconsiderate, and worst a complete psychopath. Both are not great signs, and all the ones between are also not positive aspects.
You’d think something that small wouldn’t be much of an indication on a person’s overall nature, but it’s nearly always the little things that add up to the whole thing.
I understand where you are coming from, but most people who do this at times are more likely just ignorant than even "fuck them people". In-fact, the walmart near me has a guy waiting outside along with the security most of the time to collect carts once the store closes, so many people are like "he is going to collect all the leftover carts anyways".
Especially for those who have parked their cars a bit away, I really doubt such people are going to return all the way just to put a cart on the cart return location, rather than just putting the car on the side and just take off with their car.
To make things worse, there are staff on stores often these days that organize and collect leftover carts, so it's been a while since I have seen a good chunk of people return their carts to their return location, especially from parking lots, unless they are close to that return spot.
Most if not all big box stores have cart corrals out in their parking lots where you are meant to return the carts so that they can be collected more efficiently without having some employee run all over collecting carts. Andtheres the matter of run away carts especially if it’s a windy day. Those carts can really get moving and cause some damage to cars parked out in the lot. No one is saying to take them back to the entrance of the store, simply to put them in the collection point so they don’t wander.
I stand corrected especially on one area, I just remembered that there are indeed cart corrals out there in the parking lots, unfortunately my walmart has like 1 on a huge parking lot which is really not enough, but it is true that most stores do have a lot of them, if they are nearby a car and that person still doesn't return the cart, then that's a problem.
Maybe that's why I see staff collecting carts, due to the lack of cart corrals, maybe stores that lack enough of them do this instead, but I am also debating within myself about the fact that there are tons of people that still do this mistake with enough cart corrals.
So I personally think the right conclusion would be, such people are not bad, but not responsible and are ignorant. When possible, returning would make life easier for staff that do collect carts too, they don't have to go all the way to collect all of them. And of course, avoiding the risks of the carts hitting other cars in-case of natural wind, great points that didn't come to my mind at first.
I think this one wouldn't go under bad though as I said, it has to be a lot more than not returning cart back to the car corrals to be a bad person....right??
Yeah, I can see it being an issue when there’s a massive parking lot and no return locations. I’m sure some stores did the studies on how much time and workforce it saved to put those corrals out in the lot as most people are inclined to do a bit to help out others.
For reasons that I can't quite fathom, they've been taking them away in California. Stores that used to have them, don't any more.
Often there isn't even a safe place outside. You could put them up on to the sidewalk in front of the store, but is that the best place? It's convenient for the workers but it also gets in the way.
I view not returning carts as inconsiderate or lazy, but most employees I’ve heard discuss this say they don’t mind going out to get carts, because they get the chance to be out of the store for a while.
“he is going to collect all the leftover carts anyways”.
This mentality is just selfishness and self-centeredness. This is the same mentality of people who cause a huge mess at restaurants or movie theatres because “it’s their job, I’m giving them work to do.” It shows an extreme lack of empathy, and it’s very much a “they’re beneath me, I’m helping them” disgusting mentality.
I'd say it's conditional. At a certain point, it's on the business themselves. For example, a giant parking lot with one or two cart returns only, in a front corner.
A massive sprawling Walmart parking lot with only one return, and I had to park really far away, and it's super busy and trying to get the cart to the return requires going through multiple rows? I'm a goodie two shoes who will clean up after others, and tries to improve places... but I've got limits with time, effort, and desire to deal with crowds of people in parking lots.
If they have good placement though, then yes, it's absolutely on the individual.
Not disagreeing with you here, but just for fun, what would you say about a restaurant asking you to wash your own dishes when you’re finished with your meal?
I’d say, if they make it clear that you don’t need to use their dishes, but if you do, you have to wash them, that you’re an asshole if you don’t wash your dishes afterwards.
Oh man. I live not too far from a Walmart (about 3 miles by car, but 1 by foot with shortcuts). Recently, someone in my neighborhood has started walking to Walmart, filling their cart, then just bringing the cart home with them and abandoning it on the access road in our neighborhood. We are 6 carts deep and my anger towards the perpetrator grows every day.
This is such a strange phenomenon to me. In all the countries I've lived in, all but a few select stores have a dongle on each cart that takes a coin to unlock it from the chain of other carts. It's perhaps the cost of a back of toilet paper, but that seems to be sufficient for it to be exceedingly rare to see an abandoned cart. One can only imagine that any such carts are quick prey for enterprising teens looking for a quick boost to their candy fund.
I think I figured it out immediately after posting this, lol. If there's a red line next to this comment, then I think that's to highlight OP's comments in their own thread.
It’s great you are looking out for your friend’s well-being, at the same time unless they are causing harm to themself or others I think it can come across as insensitive to try and tell them their spiritual beliefs are “wrong” even if they seem new or unusual. Would you stop a friend from praying even if they think that it’s a literal attempt to get a higher power to intervene on their behalf? Is casting a spell really that much different?
Thank you for this perspective I hadn't considered. No harm is being done as far as I know, to himself or others. He does have a history of self harm but he's beyond that now, and is thankfully in a much better place emotionally.
Not a supernatural creature, but I've never seen someone so committed to something, let alone pretending to be a character, like a friend I have.
So, for context, I have a friend who disagreed with his Dramatic Arts professor on how a character had to be played (or something like that) on the first class of the year, and apparently after some arguing, the professor challenged my friend to attend to any business he needed to do in the campus as normal, but portraying a character, any of his choosing, for the rest of the year. And god damn, he did. For the rest of the year, he bought a Victorian era costume, complete with cane and top hat, learned many quirks of the language at the time, and many of the behaviors of society. And Sir Marcus Godwin was born.
He went full in-character mode. He talked using the time's English, walked like a gentleman, and behaved like he was a Victorian era man who was time travelled into the present. It was really hard not to laugh, specially when he spoke, with professors trying REALLY hard not to laugh. I think the DA professor must have warned all other professors of the classes my friend had, because I'm surprised he wasn't expelled of any of them. But he made it to the end of the year nonetheless and not only did he get the max grade on that class (which apparently was nearly impossible with that professor), but also got a fuck ton of money on bets he made along the year.
I bet you have more food than some people. Are you giving it to them?
You have a roof over your head, other people don’t. Are you giving it to them?
You most likely have more money than others, considering your access to the internet and ability to think up this post - are you donating all of your excess that isn’t going to your bills and food?
Calling it “hoarding” is just intentionally vilifying having money. Are some rich people bad? Absolutely. Are they bad because they’re rich? No. Do they have an obligation to give their money away? Also no.
I think you're missing the points about scale and marginal utility. If you have more food than 3 generations of your family will ever eat, and continue to take more while others are starving, you can make a moral argument that maybe you shouldn't have so much food. Much less continue to try and get more. It becomes more egregious when you, say, take food from your employees who don't always have enough.
Agree with this. We should remember that doctor-making-150k is far closer to being homeless than they are to a billionaire, with their individual wealth rivaling small countries.
Bear with me here, I’m thinking about all this as a thought experiment…please don’t jump on me all at once :)
I don’t disagree with you, there is a difference in utility, however what would you say to someone who has two homes? Say a vacation home on a lake? This wasn’t uncommon for persons of older generations (before shit got expensive). Because while two homes may not seem egregious to citizens of highly developed countries, it is, relatively speaking, a true extreme luxury in many parts of the world, perhaps even obscene if you consider those who live in shanty towns or those who are homeless.
And what about extra cars? Or any other luxury for that matter? Anything that explains why those in less developed countries see middle-class individuals in developed countries as “rich”?
Now these are nothing in comparison to the several orders of magnitude greater that a billion dollars is, but take them as the best examples I can think of off the top of my head lol.
Remember marginal utility is relative. My point is that, who decides what defines excess to the point where you’d make the argument you just made? where is the line? Certainly billionaires qualify, but how many millions does one need to hit that threshold? And who makes that determination? The individual with the extreme wealth will have warped perceptions (“It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?”), so then it must be the non-wealthy who have insight, if any, or is it all relative?
I’m not trying to defend or apologise for the ultra-rich, but I think about these things in the sense of: what would I do if I won the mega-millions? Or had some secret unknown relative bestow obscene wealth on me? Never in a million years of course, but I’m the kind of person who likes to have positions that don’t change situationally, I’d like to be confident enough of my beliefs that I’d know what I’d do if the situation were reversed.
Anyway, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk lol. Again please don’t think i’m trying troll or something, this is a philosophical question for me.
It's important to recognize just how much more billionaires make than millionaires, but at the same time, no, neither of them are good or can be while maintaining that amount of wealth, and the reason is because you cannot make that much money by working. The ONLY way to make that much money is by making profit off of others.
Idk man in some areas a house costs a million. If two people go into debt their whole life and work their butts off to pay for a house that now costs a million, I still think of them as normal people somehow yaknow
A lot of that is because we're in the middle of a housing crisis thanks to enormous companies buying up all the property, pushing normal people out of the house market to renting. On top of that, buying a 1 million dollar house doesn't make one a millionaire.
Most of us don't pay off a million dollars in one payment??? Paying off mortgages takes a long ass time, In smaller increments. You might "technically" be a millionaire, but you won't be comparable to the kind of "rich" we're talking about here. You can make that kind of money by working.
I remember often being confused why I was being treated weirdly when I was teaching in a east-central African country.
The disparity of wealth, in absoulte terms, was not that high - I got a middle salary for that country, because I lived on what my country gives for a volunteer. Back home that would be way below substance limit bit there it was a medium salary at that time. But the perception that was prevalent made it so that most people thought that I was, in some abstract order, richer than them. It wasn't really clear by how much or what order - factor 1, factor 10, factor 1000?
I noticed how people who didn't know me or how I lived would always treat me weird and I came to the conclusion that them thinking about this - what order of magnitude is it? - made people treat me weird
Now for the bezos of the world and me, I know exactly what order of magnitude it is. But from which order would I start to see it as obscene?
I could live with someone earning double from me. 10x would start to feel unfair. But that is far far far removed from the reality of the global super rich. That factor is way higher, and it's easy to focus on this really really high factor, but finding the low border up until which it is ok might be hard.
And I remember how people looked at me, trying to figure out exactly this
I hop I explain myself, it's late here. If not I will retry tomorrow
Not looking to be combative, I’m curious: where is your moral line where the scale is too great, and why is it there? A lot of these comments read that that line should be “above me somewhere”.
Have you looked up how much a Billion dollars really is? Billionaires are not living paycheck to paycheck. They could do so fucking much with their money and resources, but they choose to invest in shitty submarines and privatized space travel. I am all for pursuing advances in tech and life, but let's solve the issues with earth first like world hunger, homelessness, and climate change.
I suggest to scroll the entire page. Including the 3.2 trillion of the richest 400 americans. And remember that the tiniest scroll you can make would lead to you becoming a multi-multi millionaire that never has to look at their bank account ever again.
There's a huge difference between having food to eat
And having millions of dollars doing nothing
Or me living in an apartment
And someone living in a building that could take up a whole city block
It's not the fact that they have money. It's how they get it and what they do with it.
I have money, but I don't have enough to save. I don't make enough to do much outside of maybe buy a small amount of food for a homeless person. I'm not solving shit. However, living in the city I have had people ask for some change, and I've done it. But I can't do shit.
However, there are people who can actually help that won't. They get more money than they need and then just sit on it. Many of them get it through exploiting others.
But if we want to ignore things scaling and just reach, if I give a homeless person a dollar, should he not share that?
I'll add on here that there's a major difference between
being able to give a resource and be completely unphased
And
Being able to give a resource and now either having to make do without that resource, or be on the edge of insolvency because you gave away the resource.
Even for Americans who are living a little better than paycheck to paycheck, I have read something like 30% of them are one personal disaster away from homelessness, themselves.
If you don't distinguish between having "more food than some people" and being a billionaire, there's something inside your brain that isn't functioning the way it ought to.
I don't think everyone should be forced to give away everything they don't need to survive, I just think (in America's case) if you have enough wealth for several generations to live in luxury while our people are dying from inaccessible medicine and healthcare and more than half of our country has no savings living paycheck to paycheck, we've massively failed as a society to provide basic needs for our people. You could fund universal healthcare with just a tax on billionaires and they wouldn't have to change their lifestyle at all. If I had enough money that I lost 90% of it and I literally couldn't notice the difference, I'd be full of guilt every night watching people die because they rationed their insulin.
Even without a tax in place (and I seriously and truly support putting a tax in place), millionaires and billionaires could take relatively small steps to improve life for a lot of people.
Do you remember last year that news story where a church used the donations from the collection plate to buy up the medical debt for some people? If I'm recalling correctly, the church bought up the debt, pennies on the dollar, and with like $50k were able to help over 100 people. I may have wrong figures for the money value and the number of people impacted, but I think the point remains that a lot of people's lives got better without the medical debt, both financially and emotionally.
Billionaires have the capacity to do this same type of thing. Just pick any city and throw money at a major problem that directly impacts citizens. You don't even need to work with the city or state government there! Get together with your other billionaire friends and strategize to pick a variety of cities. Make a game out of it about who can afford to pay off the problems in Los Angeles or Chicago, and who can only afford to pay off the problems in Sacramento or Springfield.
I 100% agree they could and should, but I don't think it should be made their responsibility. You also wouldn't have to tax very drastically, because replacing the healthcare system with something like Medicare for All would cost less than the overall cost of our current bloated system, so the money could just get reallocated and the tax increases would just shift the responsibility slightly to the wealthiest of us. It should be popular with the "party of small business" and "lowering tax for the middle class" since it would cost businesses and workers both less money for better outcomes, but they only pretend to have principles when it can be leveraged for power. Health insurance is a fucking scam, and the fact that we can't unanimously agree companies making money extorting us with our lives aren't beneficial to society is bleak.
Yeah this is missing magnitudes of scale here. Someone with 100,000 and someone with 1,000,000,000 are wildly different scales of magnitude. It's like people who look at a mag-4, mag-5, and mag-6 earthquake. Each of those is on a log scale, so while you're just going form 4 to 5, the scaling means that's a massive amount of change.
Same diff here. The economy is mostly based around the buying power of the median. So every log₁₀ past that point means massive change. So going from 100,000 to 1,000,000 is a pretty big change in the amount of security one has. So going from 1e5 to 1e9, that's a change of 1000 on the scale. The level of change between those two is absolutely astronomical.
I get this facet of mathematics eludes folks. All the while the whole "double the number of grains per square on a chessboard" thing we all like to play with because it's interesting. But this is that IRL. The average person and the average billionaire are on two totally different scales. It's like saying, "why a beetle doesn't glow when the sun does?" Like you can't reasonably compare those two things. Yeah, both contain hydrogen at some level but in massively, massively different quantities. It's like saying, your computer is just an overgrown abacus. It's just ignoring scale so much that it veers into very wrong.
I get what you're trying to say. But you've got to acknowledge the vast difference of scale here and that your point is not just oversimplification of an issue, but a gross by planetary magnitudes oversimplification of an issue. Just mathematically speaking, the average person and the average billionaire are not even close to the same kind of person in economic terms. It's just completely unreasonable to even remotely think they are. The numbers are just too far apart, to even attempt this argument in good faith.
This is a great point, and the same logic applies to someone who's destitute vs someone with the median net worth of about $100,000. The average person could give away half of their net worth to feed a bunch of people in the developing world and it wouldn't ruin their life, but we don't. We're all less guilty of ignoring the suffering of others that a billionaire is, but not without blame.
If the average American gave away half their net worth they would be giving away any hope of retirement. If the average billionaire gave away half their net worth they would still be a billionaire.
This is a great point, and the same logic applies to someone who's destitute vs someone with the median net worth of about $100,000.
See this is where you failed logarithms. Let's talk domestic and then we'll move on to developing world. To explain it a bit better here's a breakdown. Let's say I take all my net worth and sell it. Lock, stock, and barrel. Convert it to cash and then take 50% of that dollar amount and hand it to someone. That value will allow a single person to have an apartment, furnish it, and pay rent for about 48 months. Now take the same billionaire and put it towards that same person. That 50% of that dollar amount is 43 times more money than if you completely liquidated the entire town of 12,000 in middle of nowhere Tennessee I live in. The billionaire could purchase forty-three of my towns. I can grant someone an apartment for maybe four years.
It's all the same 50%, but because of MATH, it's wildly different in what is possible with that same 50%. That's the "great point" you should be walking away with. Logarithms and orders of magnitude are wild things!
Now let's move to international. Minus the whole point I just made, one would think, oh if I give some money overseas, they'll be able to go to Walmart and grab some rice. Well they don't have Walmart. If I gave them $50k it is about as worth $0 because there's nowhere for the money to go that'll directly help them. It's not till I give them enough money to actually build the Walmart (or whatever shopping center, or you can call the Walmart farming equipment, or access to seed and fertilizer, or whatever basically enough money to grant them access to a resource that is just removed completely from them).
That's the thing people forget about abject destitution. They are so poor and exist in an environment that is so resource poor, handing them $100,000 might help keep them warm at night by burning the cash. But they are SO poor, you need a massive injection of funds to literally kick start their economy, and surprise $100,000, a quarter million, or half a million ain't going to cut it. You need nine figures to even get started and that massively ignores the complexities of the geopolitics and the fun details of despotism. But I side step all of that for simple fact that we just need to keep this to math and what I had previously indicated.
The economy is mostly based around the buying power of the median. So every log₁₀ past that point means massive change.
A developing nation's economy is in 1e-n territory for the median buying power relative to the US dollar. So for large n, you need large positive exponents to compensate. If some economy relative to the US dollar is 1e-6 for purchase power, then me sending 1e5 in funds is still fractional buying power on the order of like 0.1 relative to the dollar.
to feed a bunch of people in the developing world and it wouldn't ruin their life
The feeding you have to remember is someone here in the US buying the food and then sending the food. We buy the food at US prices, so it'll feed at the same rate it feeds a US mouth, because we didn't buy it at developing world nation price, we bought it at US price. We buy the food in the US because those nations are so poor, they do not even have food to buy for them to eat, you have to bring all the money required to invent all of that there.
So like I said, that whole 50% means vastly different things in terms of different log base. It's all the same 50%, yes, but it's wildly different values.
I have nothing new to reply to this with because others who have replied to you have already said what I would have said perfectly. I do want to say I find your reply incredibly ignorant and I hope the other replies have opened your eyes a bit.
are you donating all of your excess that isn’t going to your bills and food?
My 'excess' that doesn't go to bills and food is like 15 bucks, while theirs is several hundred million. Great comparison 👍🏼
Why aren’t you giving yours away? Same reason as the rest of us. Pretty disingenuous and hypocritical to call people out on that.
The majority of people of adequate means have more than the vast number of people below that status. Most of them are probably hedging their bets against misfortune or retirement, and the former can wipe out most of the advantages they had, and the ability to actually attain the latter is pipe dream for most people.
Point being, there’s a huge difference between someone with multiple lifetime’s worth of money hoarded that would afford food and shelter to tens of thousands of people and still not hurt their ability to enjoy life vs the person who is trying to shore up the minimum barrier between themselves and poverty and prepare for the day they can’t work anymore. For a lot of us that’s a pretty tough goal to reach.
I'm sorry, but being able to feed yourself and dedicate decades of your life saving for a home, is not comparable to having multiple homes, and going on holidays for half of the year.
How is the take hypocritical? Having a roof over your head and money to spend on nice things isn't the same as having enough money to live 10 lives and never run out. You've drawn parallels that quite literally don't exist.
I have all these things because of subsidies and welfare, or I'd be out on the street because I'm a disabled older person on SSDI. And even these things are a pittance, barely allow me to make ends meet, and are always in danger of being cut or completely gutted by the rich fucks hoarding all the money. So yeah, I think multi millionaires and billionaires are bad people by default.
Can there be good billionaires? Maybe. Are there any? Not that I know of. It is conceivable that somebody inherited their wealth and elect to invest it altruistically- in a manner that at least sees it not degrade but still beneficial to everyone else.
I do not see any billionaire acting in such a manner, and “hoarding” is would seem to be an accurate description
Considering that the big majority of Threads' users are cringe influencers, brands that are ads themselves, and celebrities who don't want to interact with anybody but their bootlickers (who are also celebrities), I would say it's detrimental to the fediverse.
You're judging the platform based on the earliest of early adopters. Yes, people with nothing to lose and everything to gain by being on the ground floor of the platform have joined, but general adoption will take a little while. It will grow and normalize. They do have an uphill battle convincing people to leave Twitter, and frankly, ActivityPub isn't a big selling point. Being able to talk to nerds who left Twitter and Reddit isn't going to drive the average Instagram user or current average Twitter user to a platform - or else they'd be here. Yes, that's the side many of us know, but we are not average users.
Yes, people with nothing to lose and everything to gain by being on the ground floor of the platform have joined, but general adoption will take a little while. It will grow and normalize.
So the folks who decide to leave the latest dumpster fire of a mismanaged tech company that shits all over its users (Twitter/Reddit) to intentionally choose to move to a company that has been shitting all over its users (and worse) for years and years, are going to be the ones that will make Threads better, and that we should eventually hope to federate with? Am I reading you right?
Judging a platform by its users or vis versa is really shitty unless it's something truly extreme like Nazi's. "Do we really want normies who mostly follow celebrities and l brands?" Yes, we do. I'd love to follow Matt Mercer and Wizards of the Coast on here. I'd love to follow my favorite youtubers and politicians and game studios. That probably sounds pretty palatable to many users here, but if my mom follows movie stars, TV networks, and crafting influences because those are her interests, how is that any less legitimate? And is it wrong for me to want the accounts she's interested in to join the fediverse so we can have a common platform to share things with eachother?
If you want what facebook has, just use facebook. No snark intended. Anyhow, in my view the fedipact gets us all what we want anyhow.
With the fedipact in mind, we end up with a big chunk of fediverse who are at a minimum like minded enough that they recognize and reject the influence of Meta and others like them, and another big chunk of fediverse where folks don't really mind everything that sort of influence brings, and can wallow in it all they like.
I've spent a fair number of time in computer and photography shops, and also been in the retail side for the latter. Here're my tips for retail stuff!
Always know what you're looking to get. Do your own research first. If you need to rely on the sales person to make a recommendation, you've already lost. There's always a community of enthusiasts to rely on. Find them.
Always do a price check with various reputable sources first. That way you have a rough idea of the price range.
If add-ons of any kind are being recommended, say no and research first. Don't fall to pressure tactics to get them. If the salesperson is geniunely being helpful with the add-ons, they'll be happy to let you come back another day to get it. If they're saying you have to act now, it's a high-pressure tactic to sell higher-margin products to pad their bottom line.
If a similar but alternative product is being hawked at you, again, do research first then come back. There's always a motive behind that. Sometimes it's just a need to clear stock of an otherwise decent product, but usually it's because the profit margin is higher, there're sales targets to hit etc.
This is great advice. If you walk in somewhere with no real idea what you want and no research to back it up, you’re subject to the bull shit the sales person might tell you. They could also be 100% totally honest as well but, you have no way of knowing that. Do you research.
Yes, even when I dabbled in customer-side of retail, there's alway some pressure to sell the more profitable stuff, even when I wanted to help the customer. Many places will have even less scruples.
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