• Tedesche@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    No, new parasites would just take their place. The ultra-rich aren’t evil, they’re just a natural byproduct of society, and sometimes we need to do a bit of wealth redistribution.

    • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Which is why we need an update to the tax system to add brackets to cover the entire range of income, then redefine them based on percentages off the median, with the highest bracket set at 95% or more for the highest 5% of earners.

  • ramble81@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    And even better, they’d be absolutely fucked, because they don’t actually have any skills or know how to work, just how to take advantage of others.

  • AllNewTypeFace
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    1 day ago

    “transported by UFO to a paradise planet” is the new euphemism for guillotined

    • jaybone@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      This is when they ride on the bike with ET in the basket and they jump in front of the moon, right as someone yells “pull!”

  • finley@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    The same would be true if we just ate them. No need to bother an alien race with our troubles.

    • don@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      We’d achieve the end result an interstellar fuckton faster, too. Besides, why are they being transported to a paradise planet? So they can fuck that one up as badly as they did ours? Fuck that.

      • fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk
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        1 day ago

        It says “paradise planet” on the marketing material, yes - but it only needs to be as true as the least true thing they ever told us :)

      • MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net
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        1 day ago

        I think there’s been a translation error. Not paradise, pair of dice. There’s 2d6 floating out there at some Lagrange point. The plan is to drop them off with pre-filled Yahtzee scorecards that all have the biggest number to prove they’re the winners. They’ll be the first humans in open space!

  • Tiger@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    You know the remaining elites would step in to the vacant roles, it’s human nature. Half of us that think we’d be better than them if we had all the same wealth and power, wouldn’t be, we’d be just like them.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      That’s why if I won the lottery, I would immediately stick the whole amount into a trust to get the best APY possible, and break it into smaller trusts for myself and my family. The vast majority would be handed over to a trust that I would call, “The Sovereign Fund for Humanity’s Poor,” and go get a fiduciary from LA, a fiduciary from London, and two of the best data analysts from Oxfam that I could get my hands on, and make them the only members of the board. At that point I have it set up to use the APY to grow the fund, and set up retirement funds for the poorest people in the world, first. If I managed to start the thing with a mere $500,000,000, and got close to 11.5%-12% APY, and the population actually caps at 9-10 billion, in 500 years I would have funded UBI

  • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Yeah computers and the Internet were worthless.

    Now somebody your out 4 paragraphs about how computers and the Internet would totally be great with zero commercialism 🙄

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      See, here’s the thing though - it’s not even commercialism or corporations which are targeted here. For all their faults, they do bring value along with their destruction.

      The ultrawealthy, on the other hand, serve no serious economic purpose. Their accumulation of wealth into the billions serves no one but themselves. Their investment patterns do not improve after hitting the billion mark; and in fact, there’s some evidence that the ultra-wealthy contribute to a lower velocity of money than normal multimillionaire investors.

      They literally are just drains, even in a completely capitalist system. Fuck them.

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      No amount of “pretty great stuff” is ever going to overcome the sheer exploitation that Gates himself committed.

      There’s no such thing as a good billionaire. He’s a billionaire with a great PR team. The fact he is trying to assuage his conscience shows that he knows he exploited people to get where he was. And the fact he wants to control his money instead of paying taxes on it shows that he’s still an asshole.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Even before Gates, the rich robber barons have known that PR is their only lifeline. That goes back to Carnegie and Rockefeller. Two of the most hated men in the US for much of their lives. I’m reasonably certain that’s also what motivated Robin Leach and whoever produced Lifestyles of the rich and famous.