The thing that annoys me the most is the amount of money it takes to protect their wealth.
Even if you factor out thngs like the police and the army, the money paid for private guards and security alone is in the hundreds of millions. Add in the accountants, lawyers, bankers, and associated finance gurus and you've got enough to make college free for everyone on Earth.
That about sums it up. They'll spend a million to prevent giving a thousand to the poor.
And that goes for all of these fucking leeches: The beloved pop star. The legendary athlete. The really nice lady who gave away ten billion. The soft-spoken revered investment guru who cosplays as middle class.
Every damn one of them should be paying 100% in taxes over a billion dollars, but they never will. Their greed is a more important consideration than whether or not you can get health care.
Sure, but it's also proven to be more cost effective to just manipulate people and shift their costs. Some moron was arguing against California's billionaire wealth tax bill because billionaires might have "liquidity problems" lmfao.
I mean to be fair I'd spend a dollar to stop people from asking me to buy some shitcoin.
But I also like, work, and pay taxes and shit.
Paying money to prevent spam is different than paying money to avoid helping people and doing your share in society.
One time I saw NK Jemisen , author of the broken earth trilogy give a talk. Someone asked about climate change and she said something like "there's only a small number of people responsible for most of this problem, and we know where they live"
The audience cheered and clapped. The guy moderating the talk got real flustered.
The audience cheered and clapped.
And that was the full sum of their efforts.
She's a great author and person.
Most of them are multi billionaires, their children will inherit their estates when they pass, and most have more than one child. Which means that, when they do pass, we'll actually have more billionaires than we do now.
Fucking hydras…
So we pass laws regarding inheritance.
If you Internet Tough Guys were ever going to do anything, you would have already. This is nothing more than an impotent circlejerk, not to mention it also violates Rules 3 and 4 of this community.
Is it physically imposing to have body guards, inaccessible private residences, and having all law enforcement agencies specifically care about your wellbeing?
We still outnumbered them, vastly. Let's say each one employs 100 body guards. That's still 303000 against 5.5 billion (adult population).
And?
Organize, is the point they are driving at. We the people have the numbers to be literally unstoppable, the trick is getting all those people moving in the right direction.
the trick is getting all those people moving in the right direction.
Turns out only a handful of things in all of history have pushed people out of social boundaries and into a realm of discomfort and possible consequence:
Fear and hate. Always number one here, if you get enough people scared together, they can be driven anywhere. Most people don't think, they feel. Feelings drive the motions and actions.
A greater discomfort than breaking social norms and potentially going to jail- IE: starvation, homelessness, genocide, etc.
Extremely charismatic people who capture enough political capital that they're given the opportunity to gather large numbers of people for a cause. These are usually politicians who are well trained in how to influence people, and typically use item #1 to enforce their goals.
Right now we don't have any of these things. We also don't have political capital or organized power such as uniting behind nationalism or guns to demonstrate our ability to actually disrupt the system. This makes us a target by the state, and the state protects capital right here, right now.
We can still fix this through political action and organization, and if we do, we can actually create systems that protect the world from more lich-kings rising up and swallowing all of our work and money. It just takes more social involvement than we're doing now... and since just that seems too much for most progressive-minded people, I don't have a lot of hope that we're going to do any of the other, more forceful things that require a LOT more cohesion.
Reality sucks. I know. But we can influence it.
well duh but youre just making my point in a nicer fashion which is those numbers don't do anything if they aren't moving in the right direction
And?
only if we are alone.
What about their private security?
How much do you think those guys really care about keeping some rich fuck safe? Enough to die for? I seriously doubt it.
No but enough to kill you
Do you really believe that the sight of OP is terrifying enough to sow fear into the hearts of ex-military, likely war criminal, murderous mercenaries looking for an excuse to hurt people?
The sudden increase of big talk and calls for violence on Lemmy in the past few weeks is beyond cringey and is no better than the MAGA fucks on Xitter and Truth cosplaying as "Meal Team Six". I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you want to be a "martyr for the cause" by taking out some billionaire or fascist, that's your choice. Buy a rifle, a pistol, and a knife and go train. Just don't get on the Internet and start trying to convince others to do what you are incapable or unwilling to do.
CONTEXT: I used to live in Fort Walton Beach, home of disproportionate number of "private security" guys. I have been part of the tech sector at the executive level for many years, and I currently live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming; home of an unusually high number of billionaires. I have met a lot of private security guys on the job or at the bar. Do not confuse them with rent-a-cops.
I've also worked for and with very wealthy people. The notion that they all have private military goons and secure bunkers is utter nonsense. Elon? Zuck? Sure, maybe. Not the lower level guys. You can literally bump into some of them on the street, because they don't believe they have anything to fear.
Cool beans. Best of luck to you and your endeavors. Just don't ask or incite others to do what you will not.
Yeah but they can hire people at things like Wagner.
They can, but do they? The richest people I knew were proud of being cheap. Drove themselves around, went out of their way to pay less for a can of Coke, that kind of thing. None had private security, and at least two were worth nine figures.
Yeah actually the ones i've known were not in the US, where personnel is cheaper. They had drivers and nannies but no bodyguards that's true. "Problem" is we're in majority decent people who are not going to physically assault someone for being rich. I know I'm not gonna.
The Societal Contract is still in place, and they're counting on it always being in effect. When the day comes that it hits its expiration date, they'll be the last to find out.
Most pieces of shit people, like billionaires and shitty corporate idiots and corrupt politicians, know that most of the rest of the human race are decent. And that the decent people won't track them down and take revenge.
What the world needs right now are some only ever so slightly indecent people to step up, get the guillotines ready, and take out the scum bags.
bullets are the beauty of the blistering sky.
Not too indecent though...
"I am that guy."
We need a national Cousin Eddie to step in.
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.