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this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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Put simply, there are no "good billionaires".
The irony of "all billionaires bad" is that Taylor Swift earned that money through album sales and live touring. She wasn't actively exploiting the labor of workers in order to be rich, she is just that popular.
And before everyone jumps down my ass about my opinion sounding too conservative for Lemmy, I invite you to check out my post history.
The thousands of people making those records sell and shows happen:
There is no self made billionaire, a billion is an absurd amount of wealth a singular person cannot actually earn or be worth.
"To make apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe" ~Carl Sagan
People payed $2,000 a ticket to see Taylor perform... that was their decision.
He's talking about all the people working at the label and concert agency. Do you think the technicians and riggers whot take care of all the audio, light and show effects get more money at her concerts? What about the people doing the security, check-in, cleaning and so on?
Try having a concert without any of these. There is hundreds of people working to make stadion concerts happen.
... they do that for all the acts... doesn't have much to do with how rich any particular performer is.
it absolutely does. every single worker that works under any labor agreement is making less than what their labor is worth. capitalism only works when you can make money off of how much someone is worth and not pay them the full amount. there is no incentive in capitalism to pay people what they are truly worth because that would mean no profit. she also profits off of countless years of technological advancements made by underpaid workers that allow her to have the production value and presence she has. i really find it hard to believe that people can't just see the plainness of how this labor thing works. why would anyone start a business if they couldnt profit off of their workers?
What you are saying is generally true in practice, but not an absolute feature of labor agreements. In the simplest case, two people working together can create more value/profit than each working individually.
A genius programmer and a genius game designer will do better together than apart, and there are a lot of reasons why they might organize so that one owns the business and the other takes a paycheck. Add in a graphic artist, an audio engineer, etc, and they are probably not all interested in becoming part of the business.
On the other side of the scale are publicly owned corporation where holding stock has nothing to do with generating value or profits. That is the heart of what makes capitalism capitalism, when the possession of sufficient capital produces leverage over workers and inherently unfair compensation.
Your arguement was, she wouldn't exploit other peoples labor. But in fact she does very much so.
She would be nothing without the labor of all those people, yet they see scarps of what she makes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2023/08/04/taylor-swift-says-thank-you-to-eras-tour-workers-by-handing-out-checks/
She has a specific reputation for supporting the workers who work her shows.
She gave checks to 50 truckers and not the thousands of people making it happen.
She in fact didn't pay the people working her shows but the people driving her show around.
With just seconds of followup research into a link in that same article you would have found: "..initial report states that Swift's benevolence has extended to every corner of her touring ensemble. From backup dancers to caterers and audio technicians, it seems the singer was good to everyone working on the shows."
I know it's very easy to hate her but she is about the most generous of them.
You don't amass a billion dollars by being the most generous. She can give money to everyone on tour with her and not get all of the people not on tour with her. What about the people working parking at the stadiums? What about the construction workers who built the structures she uses? What about the people creating the equipment she uses?
She gives money to the people she sees and you give her accolades for hoarding wealth.
So she went from taking advantage of all workers to not giving bonuses to enough workers even though she has been more generous than any other performer. Why is she even being talked about in this context when she should be the last to be mentioned on this subject? Pick literally any other performer and they have treated their workers "worse".
I never said all workers. I commented that your source was about 50 truckers and not as many as you implied. You then later talk about how it's just so many but again it's a fraction of the labor she leverages to make millions.
She's not going to send you feet picks for defending her on Lemmy. I'm used to billionaire boot lickers on Reddit but here it's just fucking cringe.
you think she get's that $2000? how naive.
Does she get more than a performer who's ticket is $100?
i have no idea, but it's not Taylor swift that's selling those tickets for that much, it's ticketmaster/stubhub and the like. she likely gets X amount from the venue to play there and the ticket sales all go to the venue. that's the way it worked at the 4 day music festivals I've worked at. we paid the performers X amount, that had ZERO to do with how much we were charging for tickets. They got no portion of our sales.
That's how it is. Artists from the calibre of TS get a fixed amount of money for a complete tour contract from the tour management. Regardless how many tickets are sold or whatever the tickets cost. The tour management is responsible to manage everything with the venues, the ticket sale companies, and all subcontractors like stage riggers etc.
What a sad state of affairs that you feel the need to "defend" yourself by claiming you're not conservative. What the hell happened that we can't have differing opinions without making blanket disclaimers?
At least here in the US, conservatism is associated with pretty much nothing good. Elimination of trans people (and then da gays after that), more guns, less healthcare, less education, less vaccines, less social responsibility, more taxes for the poor, less taxes for the rich, jailing people for getting abortions, furthering wars that we can feed our soldiers to for money, insurrection and fascism, fox news.
Distancing yourself from that dumpster fire is prudent.
Edit: The social responsibility thing was a dumb one. I was thinking of something else. Disregard that one point.
No, you were right about the social irresponsibility; it's covered by the christofascist element
lumping everyone who believes part of those is not prudent either. I believe in thinking for one's self. I believe in live and let live. You have ever right to be offended, but being offended means fuck all. I believe 2A is integral to our country and protects the rest of the constitution. I believe in more healthcare. our system is broken. but you can't just flip a switch either. the system would collapse. I believe vaccines should be up to the individual, but the people making the vaccines shouldn't make record profits off of them. They should also publish all their testing data and what EXACTLY is in them. We shouldn't be forced to take anything. I don't know what you mean about less social responsibility. I don't know a single conservative that preaches more taxes for the poor. I think there needs to be a closing of tax loopholes so corporations pay their share, and the rich are not able to 'hide' money offshore. abortions should be legal up until the third trimester, except in cases of danger to the mother. If you simply can't make up your mind in 6 months, then you likely have bigger issues. I think we shouldn't hand out money in foreign aid and we should use that money to house, feed and educate our own population before we hand it out willy nilly all over the globe. if we are going to use the farce that our tax dollars are for defense, then let's DEFEND our country, not bomb brown people and let any Juan, Mohammed, and Larry walk across our southern border in hordes and droves. Immigration is fine, but there's a reason we have a limit. I think you should have to show a govt issued ID to vote IN PERSON and I think that ID should be free. I think there should be voting stations in every HS auditorium. Legalize 420, and let's consider legalizing all drugs. Let the gays be gay, idgaf who you marry. While I think 90% of 'trans' people have a mental condition, who am I to tell them what to do with their body? I think it's dumb af to cut off your tits or dick. But hey, it's your body. But if you present as a man, but "identify" as a woman, how the fuck is anyone supposed to know? Put some effort into it Ze, Zam, Chaz, whatever. The world doesn't revolve around you and your pronouns, get over it. I think pedophiles should be executed on public television. I think the people that brazenly do these "smash mob" style thefts should be put in stocks and publically humiliated. I think people like you misuse words like "fascist", "Nazi", "Insurrection", and "Racist" not because you understand the meaning of them, but because they illicit a response that gives you the feeling of moral superiority.
Ultimately I believe that MOST people fall somewhere in between the left and right and it's just the screaming extremes that make each side look terrible to the other. It's also that screaming extreme on either side that shames people into agreeing with them, exactly how you seem to be doing in your post. Calling a group of people a "dumpster fire" because they have an R or a D next to their name is extremely naive and childish and just as dangerous and you seem to think people that don't think like you are.
In full recognition that I am similarly guilty, bullet points would make that digestible. Just a consideration.
So lets both distill this down. I can kinda spot a few agreement points in there (taxes, don't be a dick to LBGT folks) and a dissonance between the voter and the representative (see: the last time R's got a big tax bill. More taxes for the poor, fewer taxes for the rich) which is similar for both parties (arguably more severe on one side, but I digress).
2A, immigration, taxes. These are all legit political discussion points and would be so much better to discuss than whatever culture war nonsense is going on. That don't actually get addressed by legislature (see: R's, this week, throttling their own border bill to make Biden look bad. They explicitly described it as such, so clearly they don't actually care, but when did we expect them to).
There is no conspiracy to place Taylor Swift at the super bowl. Fauci did not do... whatever it was the crazies accused him of (D's had a good number of crazies there to be fair). The border crisis is a nothing burger (not to say immigration reform isn't a thing, just the hype). These are the talking points I hear from the R's. How am I supposed to take them seriously. Especially when I, as a gay man, am expressly on the list of things they want to make illegal?
I watched January 6th. On their streams, it was right there. I imagine it was a big day for Twitch and others like it. There was no question what was happening, and many people have explicitly gone to jail for insurrection. This is not debatable. It has been adjudicated in court. And Trump told them he loves them and that they should "stand by". I watched it live. Some number of them were rubes that were tricked* but there were people setting up a damned gallows and shouting for Pence's neck. Even if the rubes didn't like it, mob mentality is a well studied and powerful thing. It was an insurrection. A relatively pitiful one, but that's what it was.
Trump has expressly stated he wants to be a dictator 'just for a few days' at the start of his term. Because that's how that works... He wants to jail reporters and political opponents. There is no shortage of statements that are about as undemocratic as you can possibly be. Tell me how he isn't a fascist?
Even if you don't like Trump, the R's have fallen in line behind him. I'm not talking average people, plenty of people are conservative and don't support all that nonsense. But the legislature isn't the people. And it's full of people that are challenging each other to duels on the floor of congress and shit (I think it was a state congress, but still). MTG and Boebert eat up air time with their crazy. Gym Jordan is a crazy fucker who was an accessory to sexual assault. The current speaker sends notifications to his son every time his masturbates. This list goes on.
So yeah, in normal times, I'd agree that judging by R or D is a bad move and that generalizations are bad as a rule. Both sides are using their positions to enrich themselves so it's not like there's any high ground to go around. But damn me if I'm not voting for anyone that associates with the side that would rather my loving committed relationship to another man be illegal for... reasons?
Side note: neopronouns are a non-issue. I'm an active member of my LGBT community in a major city and I've never met one. And using someone's new pronouns (on the subject of trans folks) is just a matter of being polite and is not onerous, most only get pissed if you purposefully use their pronouns incorrectly. Worst I've had is being corrected when the wrong word slipped.
When you state something that is in line with the statements of terrible people it is prudent to denounce those people or otherwise say you are unaffiliated with their overall platform.
Yes, people shouldn’t assume that you are saying more than you are, but it is still prudent to understand that people will make those assumptions. It shows self awareness.
Normally, I would agree with you. But conservatives have been getting more fascist and have been making more calls for violence over the past decade. It’s a good idea to separate yourself from them if you don’t agree with those points.
how many riots were carried out by conservatives in the last 10 years?
The most well knows is the January 6th riot in DC. But I don’t think that’s the best metic for violence.
How many rioters have actually killed people?
Then how many conservative police officers have killed unarmed suspects? What about during liberal riots? How many women’s lives have been lost due to abortion bans because of conservatives? How many people have died because of lethal measures taken at the us/mexico border because of conservative policies? How many Palestinians have been killed by conservative Israeli Zionists? How many Ukrainians have been killed by conservative Russians? How many people have been killed by conservative Filipino police? How many Rohingya have died in Myanmar?
No bearing at all in this conversation. We can do nothing about those in other countries. But good job deflecting the question.
You are the one limiting this to the US
well we cant very well legislate other countries so yeah.
Yes, ignore that people other than Americans participate in discussions on this website.
But America constantly meddles in the affairs of other countries. And it’s routinely the conservatives who vote to fund wars and destabilization efforts.
are you sure about that? there's one side funding war right now and it isn't republicans.
Mainline democrats in the US are conservative.
If this one action makes her a bad person, then there are no good people, which then of course would mean there are no good billionaires.
"that one action" lol
She is basically the worst case of private jet usage and leading the list of such individuals, while somehow advocating for the environment.
This is just ridiculous.
And she is trying to fuck that guy up for "stalking" and "harassment", just for showing public data.
On top, for whatever reason, she had 2 private jets flying around until now. Seems like she sold one this month.
I'm don't want to defend her use of a private her, but it seems like a ridiculous puritan test if that this makes her a bad human.
Just such an incredibly weird statement to make that Taylor Swift of all people is the threshold for finding any good in the world, and if she's not it then no one is.
This is not at all what I said. I said the metric used here to paint Taylor Swift as a bad person requires a level of pureness that would mean pretty much everyone is a bad person.
I have no idea whether she is a good perspn, but I do know that "she flies in a private jet and her lawyers sued someone because they claim it is a threat to her safety... So she's a bad person!" Is a terrible argument.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
We all suck, there's no good in humans. Maybe we should stop looking at humans, dogs might be a good place to start after all the comments I've heard about us not deserving them.
Where we disagree is that I don't think all humans are bad. We all do sucky things from time to time; no one is pure. Additionally it's often hard to see why someone might do something if you don't share the same experiences, so it might seem evil to you.
What I see happening here is that people want to hate her because she's rich, and by golly anything they can latch onto to confirm that desire to be true will be trotted out.
But we certainly agree dogs are pimp.