Maybe you should step back and realize you’re defending billionaires. Idk if you realize just how much money a billion dollars is. No single person should ever have that much material power, that is an insane amount of money.
I’m not defending billionaires. I just don’t care about them because of the amount of money that they have. If they are assholes, then I judge them based on that. Maybe in order to become a billionaire, you have to be an asshole, in which case they are all assholes. I just don’t see the very act of being a certain amount wealthy as itself in itself issue. If Bezos were to wire a billion bucks into your account right now, would you instantly become an asshole? Of course not, that’s absurd.
Life sucked more for everyone before there were billionaires, so who am I to say that I know for sure that they make life worse for everyone? Maybe life would be better in a system in which they can’t exist, I don’t know, and to act like I do know 100% would be disingenuous. Sure, I get that people claim they can perfectly imagine how life in completely different complex systems with billions of individuals would be, but I just don’t choose to give such high regard to my own very hypothetical imaginations. I’m suspicious of people who claim to have such a perfect ability to simulate possible alternate realities in their minds. Especially when they also can’t seem to be able to use their incredible mental powers to get their life comfortable enough to be able to see just what an incredible time it is to be alive.
The immense majority of extremely wealthy people had to be assholes in order to accrue that much money, but even if that wasn’t the case, I would still argue against that much unequality. Why? In a market system, offer of goods and services is determined by how much money each layer of society has: if the poorest people have very little money in comparison with the richest people, the market is going to put less resources and work into providing for cheap, basic needs in comparison to offering vastly luxurious, expensive high tier items.
If everyone alive today could all of a sudden live with the comfort and security that they would have with an extra 3 zeros at the end of their bank statement, but the richest .01% get to have an extra 9 zeros at the end of theirs, should we do it? Would you like to increase inequality in this way, or do you prefer things the way they currently are?
Again: Money is relative. If everyone gets 3 extra zeros on their total money, everyone has the same purchasing power than they had before, so prices would multiply by 1000 and no one would be any richer or poorer. If on top of that, the richest .01% get 6 or 9 extra zeros, then everyone else is getting poorer.
That wasn’t my question. Of course, money is relative. I’m saying if the quality of life were to increase for everyone as if they all had an extra 3 zeros with today’s spending power. Would you like this to happen even if the richest got the spending power or an extra 9 zeros. Inequality would be greater, but we would all be better off. Would you like things to be less equal if this is the case?
Inequality isn’t the worst possible thing. We all almost all way better off than the richest people 100 years ago. Things are way better than ever before, that’s fantastic. If a side effect is that I have to know that Bezos can buy ten story yachts, IDGAF.
We are all getting better off at a very rapid pace. There will always be outliers that got lucky, worked harder, or outsmarted the rules. If we let jealousy consume us, then it does us no favors. When we have a problem is when things are actually getting worse for us. It’s no big deal if there are some people who have things that we don’t. It’s not so unlikely that in our lifetimes, we will be able to do all the things that billionaires get to do today anyway.
Maybe you should step back and realize you’re defending billionaires. Idk if you realize just how much money a billion dollars is. No single person should ever have that much material power, that is an insane amount of money.
I’m not defending billionaires. I just don’t care about them because of the amount of money that they have. If they are assholes, then I judge them based on that. Maybe in order to become a billionaire, you have to be an asshole, in which case they are all assholes. I just don’t see the very act of being a certain amount wealthy as itself in itself issue. If Bezos were to wire a billion bucks into your account right now, would you instantly become an asshole? Of course not, that’s absurd.
Life sucked more for everyone before there were billionaires, so who am I to say that I know for sure that they make life worse for everyone? Maybe life would be better in a system in which they can’t exist, I don’t know, and to act like I do know 100% would be disingenuous. Sure, I get that people claim they can perfectly imagine how life in completely different complex systems with billions of individuals would be, but I just don’t choose to give such high regard to my own very hypothetical imaginations. I’m suspicious of people who claim to have such a perfect ability to simulate possible alternate realities in their minds. Especially when they also can’t seem to be able to use their incredible mental powers to get their life comfortable enough to be able to see just what an incredible time it is to be alive.
The immense majority of extremely wealthy people had to be assholes in order to accrue that much money, but even if that wasn’t the case, I would still argue against that much unequality. Why? In a market system, offer of goods and services is determined by how much money each layer of society has: if the poorest people have very little money in comparison with the richest people, the market is going to put less resources and work into providing for cheap, basic needs in comparison to offering vastly luxurious, expensive high tier items.
If everyone alive today could all of a sudden live with the comfort and security that they would have with an extra 3 zeros at the end of their bank statement, but the richest .01% get to have an extra 9 zeros at the end of theirs, should we do it? Would you like to increase inequality in this way, or do you prefer things the way they currently are?
Again: Money is relative. If everyone gets 3 extra zeros on their total money, everyone has the same purchasing power than they had before, so prices would multiply by 1000 and no one would be any richer or poorer. If on top of that, the richest .01% get 6 or 9 extra zeros, then everyone else is getting poorer.
That wasn’t my question. Of course, money is relative. I’m saying if the quality of life were to increase for everyone as if they all had an extra 3 zeros with today’s spending power. Would you like this to happen even if the richest got the spending power or an extra 9 zeros. Inequality would be greater, but we would all be better off. Would you like things to be less equal if this is the case?
Inequality isn’t the worst possible thing. We all almost all way better off than the richest people 100 years ago. Things are way better than ever before, that’s fantastic. If a side effect is that I have to know that Bezos can buy ten story yachts, IDGAF.
I would accept the trade, but it’s a nonsensical one. The economy isn’t a zero sum game, but unequality does harm the economy.
We are all getting better off at a very rapid pace. There will always be outliers that got lucky, worked harder, or outsmarted the rules. If we let jealousy consume us, then it does us no favors. When we have a problem is when things are actually getting worse for us. It’s no big deal if there are some people who have things that we don’t. It’s not so unlikely that in our lifetimes, we will be able to do all the things that billionaires get to do today anyway.
Keep telling yourself that, buddy.
At what point should we defend someone’s weath?
100m?
10m?
1m?
100k?
10k?
1 dollar?
How about never?