I really don’t understand your logic, guys. Why would that (supposedly evil) guy give you anything for free? Why are you his responsibility? Why don’t you go and build your own robot? Or maybe you don’t need a robot. Find a land, and start farming your own food.
I really don’t understand this logic… who taught you that you’re entitled to other people’s achievements and successes?!
The rich guy didn’t built the robot by himself. Most likely he only financed by paying the people who actually built it. He didn’t built his business by himself but paid people to built it for him even if he had the idea.
He had an idea because he’s smart and had the education to support his intelligence. He had that education because someone paid for it, either family or the state. Even if he paid for it he had the upbringing that taught him the value of education and had the luck to be born in a country where that education is valued and pays off.
Nothing he has was built by himself only. The only thing we do by ourselves is taking a shit.
Yeah it helps if daddy is rich, like Donald Trump who claims he did it all by himself, on a “small” ($ 60 mill.) loan from his dad, and then he inherited a huge fortune.
Or Elron Musk who grew up on the benefits of daddy owning an emerald mine.
Both are absolutely the worst kind of narcissist sociopaths that come from privilege, so the old claim of the rich having heavy responsibilities they learn to manage, is complete bullshit too.
“most likely”? So basically there’s zero success stories from people who started in their garage and made a multi-billion empire? Go check how Google and Apple started. No one is stopping you from doing something great and becoming a billionaire other than your delusion of entitlement to free money and work from others.
you just drink the kool aid from billionaires thinking you’ll be like one but you never will, the amount of money the 1% has is an amount noone should ever have
The simple fact that Gates’ school even HAD a computer HE COULD RESERVE TIME ON for a personal project really highlights how much wealth he had access to. Gates was never super rich growing up, but he and the rest had access to privileges few had in those days because of the wealth they had access to.
Even if they truly started the business from modest means, they still benefited from living in a strong stable educated society with all the resources and infrastructure etc that provides. There’s a reason you don’t see many entrepreneurs from sub Saharan Africa.
Because rich people don’t cry on social media “the world is not fair, and I’m entitled to other people’s free labor because I’m a loser”. I have people around me from both sides of the aisle, and guess who complains like you are? Hint: It’s not those who have good jobs and rare skills they busted their asses to get.
wtf are you even talking about??
when did I ever say anything like what you said??
I said that the myth that google and apple started in a garage is fake. That’s it. Get the fuck out of your head and learn to read.
And you criticize my sources and provide a video without them.Really smart guy move.
Google began as a research project at Stanford and was funded by over a million dollars from stanford people and family of the founders. The guy who wrote the code wasn’t part of the founding.
Idk much about apple other than the guy who designed the apple 1 wanted to give away the schematics because it came from his time at a computer club but the other guy said no.
Dude, google started in a garage. There was even a story about that lady Suzan who was the YouTube CEO and how she was part of that garage. There are videos out there from the 90s showing how it looked like. Stop making shit up! There are f-ing videos proving you wrong! It was in a garage.
So what, just because there are investors they didn’t start in a garage? Anyone with a good idea and a plan can get funding from VCs after booting up the idea.
What’s wrong with you people? Seriously.
What are you trying to prove exactly? That no one can start a company? Everyone can it costs pennies. No one can get funding with a good idea and hard work? Anyone can and everyone does and I’ve seen this with my own eyes (recently I saw two brothers get 8 million USD funding for a freaking dumb NFT project). That no one can succeed except with connections? Not true, and examples are everywhere, including big tech today. What’s the mission here exactly? Because the mission I see here is encouraging people to not even try and just be lazy because “there’s no point”.
What am I trying to prove? I’m trying to prove that anyone working hard has a chance, but sitting your ass and being lazy will give you no chance.
You said anyone could start a successful company with nothing and used google and apple as examples, using their onetime occupancy of garages to imply that they’re examples of companies starting from nothing.
They’re not examples of people starting with nothing and the presence of garages doesn’t change that fact.
Why not use some different examples to prove your point?
Even those people needed others’ work to start their own company my dude. The chips in Apple computers or servers that Google relied on didn’t grow on trees. Not to mention that the billionaires you mentioned were educated.
Guess who funded their education. Either directly or indirectly.
You’re not gonna convince anyone here that you lack the resources to start a company in your bed room. You’re just lazy and you don’t want to work. It’s that simple.
Evidence? Tons of millionaires don’t even have college degree.
How many of those millionaires contribute something positive to the world? There are some who’ve made systems to automatically reset power breakers on distribution lines, automate management of water flow to large farms, etc.
Then there are morons like you who sell pillows filled with low quality foam out of their garage.
And who decides whether it’s positive… you? You, Mr. Loser on lemmy who wants to quantify value, not based on people’s valuation for it, who freaking paid for it, but based on whatever standard gives you free money so that you don’t feel like such a loser serving coffee in Starbucks? Get out of here!
Uh, moron, look up the difference between “quantify” and “qualify”. You’ve swapped them, but I’m not surprised.
Anyway yeah, in discussions with a large number of people across different walks of life, the important things in life seem to be clean running water, quality food and the ability to make positive change in the world we had no choice being born into.
What is positive change? Slightly nebulous, but it seems to center on making people around them happier and have an easier life. Money doesn’t seem to factor into that, it’s more about “quality” of life. Wouldn’t you want that for your friends and family too?
What kind of logic is that? What’s stopping you from being rich? Did someone assign who gets rich and who isn’t?
Go make a company, build something the people need, and make money!
Did you see how Jeff Bezos looked like in the 90s? He was begging for investment money to create Amazon, while investors asked “what is internet?”. No one is entitled to anything. You work hard and you might succeed if you do it right.
Let’s say this is right. Then you should try to explain this: Why are most people not rich?
Because most people are lazy. This is not only a fact based on anecdote, but it’s a statistical fact even assuming a normal distribution of effort. And while everything I say is up to debate, this fact is absolutely not up for debate. In fact, I don’t waste a single day without learning something new, and I see Every. F-ing. Single. Person… around me not even reading a book and wondering “why do I get paid like shit?”, well, “because you’re replaceable by anyone, dumbass”. Learn a skill that only a small handful can do, and see how the money will fly your way. So, yeah, you guys are lazy. You have no idea how much work success takes on average.
Are they? Or is it because everyone knows their efforts are not compensated properly?
If you want people to not be lazy, pay them. You pay 10 dollars, you get 10 dollars of effort. Blindly labelling this as being lazy is quite a… hear this, a lazy way of thinking. Heh. Millions are studying in university to get a job, I would say that they are working really hard! But are their efforts reciprocated properly?
Effort doesn’t mean shit. I can go to the street, pick a rock, and put back down, and redo that 100 times. That’s huge effort, but it isn’t worth shit. Value isn’t measured like this. People who only know how to do one thing anyone can do and don’t want to improve are lazy. No other label is appropriate. Make something needed that only a handful can do and you’ll be rich.
And btw, learning in a college doesn’t qualify as working hard, and more importantly, learning in college isn’t a requirement for success. Your whole worldview needs shaking… I feel bad for this generation!
All my friends, including myself, make shit loads of money because we do things that are rare in the economy, and our skills are rare. So don’t bother being valuable with skills, I guess you better keep serving coffee in Starbucks and wonder why you get paid so little. You are ignorant and hopeless as hell.
And just FYI, I grew up in the gutter and learned alone. Go read a f-ing book instead of complaining on social media.
You’ve gotta stop thinking people serving coffee at Starbucks are inferior. They may not make giant contributions to society, and that’s their prerogative. They should still have a nice life, since you still need coffee made by someone else.
If you don’t need coffee, cool. Low quality morons like you are just background noise to the rest of us living in harmony.
Kind of makes it easier if you can get a 60 million dollar loan from daddy like Trump did.
Or if White Daddy owns an Emerald mine in Black South Africa, taken by force by military from Europe, like was the case for Elron Musk. So how was that fair to all South Africans?
You are completely blind if you think there is an even playing field.
Yes there may be the occasional anecdotes, like Jeff Bezos who weren’t born rich, but for them it requires both insanely hard work and luck.
Anecdotes are not a statistic that proves anything. And the statistics clearly say that if you are rich, chances are overwhelming that you were born into it.
Yet the rich have a sense of entitlement that they somehow deserve to be rich, but not the people who have to work two jobs, and never have a vacation. How do you arrive at that is a fair system?
I never said he would give you anything for free. I said quite the opposite. Idk how you interpreted “everyone will have nothing and fight over garbage to eat” as “we’ll be given free stuff”. It seems you’re arguing a point I never made.
It starts with a basic idea like all people should have access to food, clean drinking water, shelter, healthcare, and a basic minimum quality of life. For most people, access to these things are currently granted by working and earning a wage.
Wealth and resources are finite. As a company generates profits and it gets hoarded by a minority of people, that means there are less and less resources every single day for the rest of the population.
As companies implement more automation, there are fewer jobs. With fewer jobs, that means there are fewer people who can afford the basic necessities of life. As companies introduce technology which can work faster than humans, it devalues a humans value to companies meaning less pay for employees, many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck as it is.
Furthermore, with these reductions in cost to produce a product through automation and robotics we do not see a related decrease in consumer prices.
In short, a person earns less while prices of goods continue to rise. The quality of life of the vast majority of the populace is continually going down.
Not everyone can be a CEO, executive, or high earner. It’s just a physical impossibility. In addition, these same people weild disproportionate power in the legislature. They are able to manipulate the rules that increase the barrier of entry into a business as well as manipulate markets to prevent my goods from generating a significant profit, if they so desires.
So while I do not feel entitled to what they produce, finding land and starting a farm would not secure those basic necessities of life and the opportunities to do so decrease daily.
It starts with a basic idea like all people should have access to food, clean drinking water, shelter, healthcare, and a basic minimum quality of life. For most people, access to these things are currently granted by working and earning a wage.
No one is entitled to anything. You’re confusing what “would be great” with what reality is.
Again, no matter how much automation there is, you can always build your own thing. You don’t need a job under anyone. You can go start on your own, fail 100 times, and succeed at time 101. I’ve seen tons of people do that, including millionaires.
So while I do not feel entitled to what they produce, finding land and starting a farm would not secure those basic necessities of life and the opportunities to do so decrease daily.
What you call “basic necessities” aren’t really basic. You want to enjoy modern civilization without contributing to it. Find a way to be part of it, or go back to farming and no one will have beef with you. Your health care today is better than the richest elite 100 years ago. Never forget that, and never forget you’re not entitled to any of it.
In short, a person earns less while prices of goods continue to rise. The quality of life of the vast majority of the populace is continually going down.
Because you keep voting for governments that keeps increasing government spending and printing money. You refuse personal responsibility and you think the government should solve all your problems. You can’t have it both ways. Either solve your problems by yourself to have a deflationary economy with less government spending, or make the government spend more and enjoy more inflation. It’s simple math.
All these are problems you’re creating. You’re still free to leave to another country to farm your own land.
How? By coercing them to give up their success? Hell no. I’m not gonna be part of this! If someone gives up something voluntarily, that’s cool. Otherwise I’m against it.
No, you should stop telling people what to do just because you’re not even trying. You’re free to be the failure you always wanted to be, but you’re also free to do the same and build your own empire with hard work.
You’re way off. I already got mine, thanks to my own hard work and the support of friends, family, and the free gifts of civilisation in which we all partake.
I don’t deny that I got help to get where I am, and that’s it’s only right that I pay back into the system that has helped me prosper. It would be criminal not to pay back what I can easily afford. It should be criminal IMO.
Ps if you’re seriously interested in continuing this convo in good faith I am too. I promise I’ll be less chirpy and more open minded.
A. All humans exist on the virtue of other’s achievement except for Mowgli, and even he was raised by wolves.
B. The social contract between citizens and the sovereign means that the people give up freedom so that the sovereign will provide - thus bringing order into chaos. If a nation fails to provide said order to an individual, he is right to be mad.
I mean, unless you’re talking about authoritarian government, in which case… well… no, you aren’t entitled to anything the government doesn’t allow and you do as you’re told.
Governments are not a bunch of benevolent gods. It’s a bunch of people seeking their own interest (like everyone else), and they will do everything they can to keep the racket going. This idea that the government is there to solve your problems is ridiculous. Especially that the primary cause of the whole economy being in the gutter comes from money-printing by the government. When people predicted inflation because of all the “stimulus checks” in 2020 and printing over 60% of the money supply in a fe months, they were called conspiracy theorists. Look at where we are now. The economy is going to shit and no one cares, including your “non-authoritarian government”.
No one is there to save you or help you. Get this out of your head. There’s no “social contract” except for what you believe to keep you tamed.
I’m from Germany. Would you like to talk about the energy policies in Germany that have caused inflation to sky rocket? Or maybe the ECB printing money to oblivion? You wanna talk about how business are getting wrecked with electricity costs?
Governments are people, no matter where. They have their agendas, and they’ll do what it takes to achieve them whether alone or by coordinating with the devil. If you agree with them, it’s a coincidence. One day you’ll disagree with them and they’ll screw you over and throw you under the bus. It’s a matter of time.
During crisis times that are severe enough, everyone becomes animals. That’s an extreme moral judgement.
And Europe as a whole definitely screwed up by drinking cheap Russian gas for heating, instead of investing in more localized, sustainable energy production. That is true and valid criticism.
It is crippling Europe right now, and makes the closure of all those nuclear power plants seem so wrong…
However, your assumption that governments only work as the devil or with the devil are wrong, or we wouldn’t have days off, public healthcare, right to unionize, or even the famous German tap water.
0.5 Euro per kWh is ridiculously high, but people aren’t killing each other for water. Missiles aren’t in the air.
It is not so black and white. It is not all doom and gloom.
Health care? Don’t make me laugh. At times we waited 6 months for a doctor’s appointment to the point where we had to book based on an emergency to just see the freaking doctor. Another story, my mom was almost hooked on morphine because the doctor wasn’t authorized to prescribe MRI after MONTHS of treatment because of the dumb regulations in health care. Taking an xray is an appointment. Give me a break!
You know how long it takes an xray where I live? 10 minutes. MRI never took more than a few days. I can’t tell you where I live, obviously. But hey, I got out of that freaking hell in Germany.
Crisis, huh? You know, when the covid “crisis” was going on, my company was begging me to stay when I was quitting to leave Germany because I’m very skilled and productive. They told me “don’t worry, the covid crisis is almost over”, you know what I told them? I told them “you still don’t understand politicians, do you? Do you know how politicians make you forget a crisis? With another crisis”. And see how right I was. I’m the best at predicting the future, not because I’m smart, but because I’m not brain-washed, and your future isn’t so bright. So, enjoy the series of crises in your “democratic socialist” countries.
Anyway, besides all that, you’re just pawns. The “government” doesn’t really care about you except to vote for them to stay in power, and they’ll do the bare minimum to win that. The time will come when food becomes unaffordable with all these businesses closing and the Euro inflating. I assure you, the pawns will justify it with another “crisis”.
I used to think this way. But when tens of millions of people are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, and buy medicine, it becomes that rich guy’s problem. In general you really don’t want huge chunks of your population to be desperate with nothing to lose. That’s bad news.
If you want to talk economics, this isn’t the rich guy’s problem. This is the problem that the government is so huge and that it’s printing money so much that it’s causing inflation to fill the pockets of big corporations. The ethos in lemmy, apparently, is communism due to ignorance, more than understanding economics and trying to implement self-responsibility to fix these problems.
Like I told another guy here: You either shrink the government to get a deflationary economy and make your money better, or you expect your government to solve all your problems and face inflation. You can’t have it both ways.
It’ll become the rich guy’s problem when tens of millions of desperate Americans with nothing to lose grab their pitchforks. We are slowly but surely getting there.
I really doubt it. Have you seen the movie Elysium? It’s gonna be the same, except that the ending isn’t gonna be that nice because all those with power will side with those who can fund them.
Except that they have planes now. They can fuck things up so bad while accumulating wealth, then fly away and deal with none of the consequences while they spend money from their vast bank accounts in Switzerland.
No, it means you won’t be able to work and will now have to fight over garbage to eat if you want to survive.
I really don’t understand your logic, guys. Why would that (supposedly evil) guy give you anything for free? Why are you his responsibility? Why don’t you go and build your own robot? Or maybe you don’t need a robot. Find a land, and start farming your own food.
I really don’t understand this logic… who taught you that you’re entitled to other people’s achievements and successes?!
The rich guy didn’t built the robot by himself. Most likely he only financed by paying the people who actually built it. He didn’t built his business by himself but paid people to built it for him even if he had the idea.
He had an idea because he’s smart and had the education to support his intelligence. He had that education because someone paid for it, either family or the state. Even if he paid for it he had the upbringing that taught him the value of education and had the luck to be born in a country where that education is valued and pays off.
Nothing he has was built by himself only. The only thing we do by ourselves is taking a shit.
Yeah it helps if daddy is rich, like Donald Trump who claims he did it all by himself, on a “small” ($ 60 mill.) loan from his dad, and then he inherited a huge fortune.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/trumps-small-loan-from-his-father-was-more-like-60point7-million-nyt.html
Or Elron Musk who grew up on the benefits of daddy owning an emerald mine.
Both are absolutely the worst kind of narcissist sociopaths that come from privilege, so the old claim of the rich having heavy responsibilities they learn to manage, is complete bullshit too.
“most likely”? So basically there’s zero success stories from people who started in their garage and made a multi-billion empire? Go check how Google and Apple started. No one is stopping you from doing something great and becoming a billionaire other than your delusion of entitlement to free money and work from others.
neither really started in a garage: https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/05/steve-wozniak-apple-starting-in-a-garage-is-a-myth
https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/5/17823490/google-20th-birthday-anniversary-history-milestones#:~:text=Initially known as BackRub%2C Google,on the World Wide Web.
you just drink the kool aid from billionaires thinking you’ll be like one but you never will, the amount of money the 1% has is an amount noone should ever have
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
The simple fact that Gates’ school even HAD a computer HE COULD RESERVE TIME ON for a personal project really highlights how much wealth he had access to. Gates was never super rich growing up, but he and the rest had access to privileges few had in those days because of the wealth they had access to.
Even if they truly started the business from modest means, they still benefited from living in a strong stable educated society with all the resources and infrastructure etc that provides. There’s a reason you don’t see many entrepreneurs from sub Saharan Africa.
There are videos out there showing this, so, don’t believe the bullshit you read online to rile you up.
And in fact, if your sources on company success is random articles online, you do deserve to stay poor. Mission accomplished.
why do you think I’m poor? what videos? I provided sources you just pretend to be smart.
Because rich people don’t cry on social media “the world is not fair, and I’m entitled to other people’s free labor because I’m a loser”. I have people around me from both sides of the aisle, and guess who complains like you are? Hint: It’s not those who have good jobs and rare skills they busted their asses to get.
Videos: Off the top of my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOtlSM9eehc
wtf are you even talking about?? when did I ever say anything like what you said?? I said that the myth that google and apple started in a garage is fake. That’s it. Get the fuck out of your head and learn to read.
And you criticize my sources and provide a video without them.Really smart guy move.
Google began as a research project at Stanford and was funded by over a million dollars from stanford people and family of the founders. The guy who wrote the code wasn’t part of the founding.
Idk much about apple other than the guy who designed the apple 1 wanted to give away the schematics because it came from his time at a computer club but the other guy said no.
Dude, google started in a garage. There was even a story about that lady Suzan who was the YouTube CEO and how she was part of that garage. There are videos out there from the 90s showing how it looked like. Stop making shit up! There are f-ing videos proving you wrong! It was in a garage.
google started as a Stanford research project: In their own words.
google started with a million dollars from family, friends and investors
Are you doing an elaborate bit?
So what, just because there are investors they didn’t start in a garage? Anyone with a good idea and a plan can get funding from VCs after booting up the idea.
What’s wrong with you people? Seriously.
What are you trying to prove exactly? That no one can start a company? Everyone can it costs pennies. No one can get funding with a good idea and hard work? Anyone can and everyone does and I’ve seen this with my own eyes (recently I saw two brothers get 8 million USD funding for a freaking dumb NFT project). That no one can succeed except with connections? Not true, and examples are everywhere, including big tech today. What’s the mission here exactly? Because the mission I see here is encouraging people to not even try and just be lazy because “there’s no point”.
What am I trying to prove? I’m trying to prove that anyone working hard has a chance, but sitting your ass and being lazy will give you no chance.
You said anyone could start a successful company with nothing and used google and apple as examples, using their onetime occupancy of garages to imply that they’re examples of companies starting from nothing.
They’re not examples of people starting with nothing and the presence of garages doesn’t change that fact.
Why not use some different examples to prove your point?
Even those people needed others’ work to start their own company my dude. The chips in Apple computers or servers that Google relied on didn’t grow on trees. Not to mention that the billionaires you mentioned were educated.
Guess who funded their education. Either directly or indirectly.
You’re not gonna convince anyone here that you lack the resources to start a company in your bed room. You’re just lazy and you don’t want to work. It’s that simple.
Evidence? Tons of millionaires don’t even have college degree.
How many of those millionaires contribute something positive to the world? There are some who’ve made systems to automatically reset power breakers on distribution lines, automate management of water flow to large farms, etc.
Then there are morons like you who sell pillows filled with low quality foam out of their garage.
And who decides whether it’s positive… you? You, Mr. Loser on lemmy who wants to quantify value, not based on people’s valuation for it, who freaking paid for it, but based on whatever standard gives you free money so that you don’t feel like such a loser serving coffee in Starbucks? Get out of here!
Uh, moron, look up the difference between “quantify” and “qualify”. You’ve swapped them, but I’m not surprised.
Anyway yeah, in discussions with a large number of people across different walks of life, the important things in life seem to be clean running water, quality food and the ability to make positive change in the world we had no choice being born into.
What is positive change? Slightly nebulous, but it seems to center on making people around them happier and have an easier life. Money doesn’t seem to factor into that, it’s more about “quality” of life. Wouldn’t you want that for your friends and family too?
What makes the rich guy entitled to be rich?
What kind of logic is that? What’s stopping you from being rich? Did someone assign who gets rich and who isn’t?
Go make a company, build something the people need, and make money!
Did you see how Jeff Bezos looked like in the 90s? He was begging for investment money to create Amazon, while investors asked “what is internet?”. No one is entitled to anything. You work hard and you might succeed if you do it right.
Let’s say this is right. Then you should try to explain this: Why are most people not rich?
Did everyone just collectively decide “nah I want to be poor, be stressed and live paycheck to paycheck”? No, of course they don’t. No one does.
Your logic is idiotic because you don’t realize the rich became rich by exploiting other people, namely the working class.
Because most people are lazy. This is not only a fact based on anecdote, but it’s a statistical fact even assuming a normal distribution of effort. And while everything I say is up to debate, this fact is absolutely not up for debate. In fact, I don’t waste a single day without learning something new, and I see Every. F-ing. Single. Person… around me not even reading a book and wondering “why do I get paid like shit?”, well, “because you’re replaceable by anyone, dumbass”. Learn a skill that only a small handful can do, and see how the money will fly your way. So, yeah, you guys are lazy. You have no idea how much work success takes on average.
Are they? Or is it because everyone knows their efforts are not compensated properly?
If you want people to not be lazy, pay them. You pay 10 dollars, you get 10 dollars of effort. Blindly labelling this as being lazy is quite a… hear this, a lazy way of thinking. Heh. Millions are studying in university to get a job, I would say that they are working really hard! But are their efforts reciprocated properly?
Effort doesn’t mean shit. I can go to the street, pick a rock, and put back down, and redo that 100 times. That’s huge effort, but it isn’t worth shit. Value isn’t measured like this. People who only know how to do one thing anyone can do and don’t want to improve are lazy. No other label is appropriate. Make something needed that only a handful can do and you’ll be rich.
And btw, learning in a college doesn’t qualify as working hard, and more importantly, learning in college isn’t a requirement for success. Your whole worldview needs shaking… I feel bad for this generation!
Why don’t you tell that to the HR departments then? Oh I feel bad for your generation - when basic critical thinking doesn’t exist.
Imagine thinking we live in a meritocracy. You are naive as hell.
All my friends, including myself, make shit loads of money because we do things that are rare in the economy, and our skills are rare. So don’t bother being valuable with skills, I guess you better keep serving coffee in Starbucks and wonder why you get paid so little. You are ignorant and hopeless as hell.
And just FYI, I grew up in the gutter and learned alone. Go read a f-ing book instead of complaining on social media.
You’ve gotta stop thinking people serving coffee at Starbucks are inferior. They may not make giant contributions to society, and that’s their prerogative. They should still have a nice life, since you still need coffee made by someone else.
If you don’t need coffee, cool. Low quality morons like you are just background noise to the rest of us living in harmony.
Kind of makes it easier if you can get a 60 million dollar loan from daddy like Trump did.
Or if White Daddy owns an Emerald mine in Black South Africa, taken by force by military from Europe, like was the case for Elron Musk. So how was that fair to all South Africans?
You are completely blind if you think there is an even playing field.
Yes there may be the occasional anecdotes, like Jeff Bezos who weren’t born rich, but for them it requires both insanely hard work and luck.
Anecdotes are not a statistic that proves anything. And the statistics clearly say that if you are rich, chances are overwhelming that you were born into it.
Yet the rich have a sense of entitlement that they somehow deserve to be rich, but not the people who have to work two jobs, and never have a vacation. How do you arrive at that is a fair system?
Wait… being rich requires hard work and luck? Too bad. No one can do that. So go to bed and keep begging for money.
And what does? Your own interpretation of your own anecdotes that no one succeeded around you?
Having a better chance doesn’t mean others don’t have a chance. Do you even understand statistics?
You don’t have any influence on luck. So yes, nobody can do that, that’s something you may or may not get.
I never claimed any such thing, you are arguing a Straw Man.
So basically you don’t want to take the chance because there’s a chance you’ll fail. This is hilarious! No question you’re a failure.
Here’s a life pro tip: If you don’t try, your success chance is 0%. If you do try, its larger than 0%. Simple math.
You guys are really a broken generation! Social media broke you.
I never wrote anything of the kind, you are arguing another straw man.
Yet another straw man, that’s 3 in a row now. Tell me don’t you know what a straw man argument is, since you continue to use them?
Jeff Bezos was given nearly half a bil to start amazon. GIVEN, not earned. You have no clue what you’re talking about.
This is pure bullshit.
You have no idea you’re talking about. The only thing you know is failure.
Maybe this would work in middle ages when there was some untaken land to settle on.
It still works today. Lands exist, and they’re even very cheap. A couple 10k USD and you get yourself farmable land. But it needs real hard work.
I never said he would give you anything for free. I said quite the opposite. Idk how you interpreted “everyone will have nothing and fight over garbage to eat” as “we’ll be given free stuff”. It seems you’re arguing a point I never made.
It starts with a basic idea like all people should have access to food, clean drinking water, shelter, healthcare, and a basic minimum quality of life. For most people, access to these things are currently granted by working and earning a wage.
Wealth and resources are finite. As a company generates profits and it gets hoarded by a minority of people, that means there are less and less resources every single day for the rest of the population.
As companies implement more automation, there are fewer jobs. With fewer jobs, that means there are fewer people who can afford the basic necessities of life. As companies introduce technology which can work faster than humans, it devalues a humans value to companies meaning less pay for employees, many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck as it is.
Furthermore, with these reductions in cost to produce a product through automation and robotics we do not see a related decrease in consumer prices.
In short, a person earns less while prices of goods continue to rise. The quality of life of the vast majority of the populace is continually going down.
Not everyone can be a CEO, executive, or high earner. It’s just a physical impossibility. In addition, these same people weild disproportionate power in the legislature. They are able to manipulate the rules that increase the barrier of entry into a business as well as manipulate markets to prevent my goods from generating a significant profit, if they so desires.
So while I do not feel entitled to what they produce, finding land and starting a farm would not secure those basic necessities of life and the opportunities to do so decrease daily.
No one is entitled to anything. You’re confusing what “would be great” with what reality is.
Again, no matter how much automation there is, you can always build your own thing. You don’t need a job under anyone. You can go start on your own, fail 100 times, and succeed at time 101. I’ve seen tons of people do that, including millionaires.
What you call “basic necessities” aren’t really basic. You want to enjoy modern civilization without contributing to it. Find a way to be part of it, or go back to farming and no one will have beef with you. Your health care today is better than the richest elite 100 years ago. Never forget that, and never forget you’re not entitled to any of it.
Because you keep voting for governments that keeps increasing government spending and printing money. You refuse personal responsibility and you think the government should solve all your problems. You can’t have it both ways. Either solve your problems by yourself to have a deflationary economy with less government spending, or make the government spend more and enjoy more inflation. It’s simple math.
All these are problems you’re creating. You’re still free to leave to another country to farm your own land.
They’re entitled if we say they are, just like all the other rights. It would be great, I agree. So let’s work on that.
How? By coercing them to give up their success? Hell no. I’m not gonna be part of this! If someone gives up something voluntarily, that’s cool. Otherwise I’m against it.
Well they should stop voluntarily taking more token value than they’re actually producing if they don’t want to share
No, you should stop telling people what to do just because you’re not even trying. You’re free to be the failure you always wanted to be, but you’re also free to do the same and build your own empire with hard work.
You’re way off. I already got mine, thanks to my own hard work and the support of friends, family, and the free gifts of civilisation in which we all partake.
I don’t deny that I got help to get where I am, and that’s it’s only right that I pay back into the system that has helped me prosper. It would be criminal not to pay back what I can easily afford. It should be criminal IMO.
Ps if you’re seriously interested in continuing this convo in good faith I am too. I promise I’ll be less chirpy and more open minded.
A. All humans exist on the virtue of other’s achievement except for Mowgli, and even he was raised by wolves.
B. The social contract between citizens and the sovereign means that the people give up freedom so that the sovereign will provide - thus bringing order into chaos. If a nation fails to provide said order to an individual, he is right to be mad.
I mean, unless you’re talking about authoritarian government, in which case… well… no, you aren’t entitled to anything the government doesn’t allow and you do as you’re told.
Governments are not a bunch of benevolent gods. It’s a bunch of people seeking their own interest (like everyone else), and they will do everything they can to keep the racket going. This idea that the government is there to solve your problems is ridiculous. Especially that the primary cause of the whole economy being in the gutter comes from money-printing by the government. When people predicted inflation because of all the “stimulus checks” in 2020 and printing over 60% of the money supply in a fe months, they were called conspiracy theorists. Look at where we are now. The economy is going to shit and no one cares, including your “non-authoritarian government”.
No one is there to save you or help you. Get this out of your head. There’s no “social contract” except for what you believe to keep you tamed.
If you’re an American and are talking about America, sounds fair.
Some people live in socialist democracies, and we like having healthcare, pensions and other such protection from our governments.
Sure, they’re not perfect, but safer. Saner. Happier. I rather die a happy millionaire then a self-made billionaire.
I’m from Germany. Would you like to talk about the energy policies in Germany that have caused inflation to sky rocket? Or maybe the ECB printing money to oblivion? You wanna talk about how business are getting wrecked with electricity costs?
Governments are people, no matter where. They have their agendas, and they’ll do what it takes to achieve them whether alone or by coordinating with the devil. If you agree with them, it’s a coincidence. One day you’ll disagree with them and they’ll screw you over and throw you under the bus. It’s a matter of time.
During crisis times that are severe enough, everyone becomes animals. That’s an extreme moral judgement.
And Europe as a whole definitely screwed up by drinking cheap Russian gas for heating, instead of investing in more localized, sustainable energy production. That is true and valid criticism. It is crippling Europe right now, and makes the closure of all those nuclear power plants seem so wrong…
However, your assumption that governments only work as the devil or with the devil are wrong, or we wouldn’t have days off, public healthcare, right to unionize, or even the famous German tap water.
0.5 Euro per kWh is ridiculously high, but people aren’t killing each other for water. Missiles aren’t in the air.
It is not so black and white. It is not all doom and gloom.
Health care? Don’t make me laugh. At times we waited 6 months for a doctor’s appointment to the point where we had to book based on an emergency to just see the freaking doctor. Another story, my mom was almost hooked on morphine because the doctor wasn’t authorized to prescribe MRI after MONTHS of treatment because of the dumb regulations in health care. Taking an xray is an appointment. Give me a break!
You know how long it takes an xray where I live? 10 minutes. MRI never took more than a few days. I can’t tell you where I live, obviously. But hey, I got out of that freaking hell in Germany.
Crisis, huh? You know, when the covid “crisis” was going on, my company was begging me to stay when I was quitting to leave Germany because I’m very skilled and productive. They told me “don’t worry, the covid crisis is almost over”, you know what I told them? I told them “you still don’t understand politicians, do you? Do you know how politicians make you forget a crisis? With another crisis”. And see how right I was. I’m the best at predicting the future, not because I’m smart, but because I’m not brain-washed, and your future isn’t so bright. So, enjoy the series of crises in your “democratic socialist” countries.
Anyway, besides all that, you’re just pawns. The “government” doesn’t really care about you except to vote for them to stay in power, and they’ll do the bare minimum to win that. The time will come when food becomes unaffordable with all these businesses closing and the Euro inflating. I assure you, the pawns will justify it with another “crisis”.
As a brainwashed pawn, I will respond with the following:
What you say exists everywhere, so you’re doomed to be a nomad, surfing the tides of capitalist succeess, constanty.
Your political philosophy is akin to anarchy, and is just extreme. “Why bother? Everyone is shit, and everything will collapse in the end.”
Should we stop trying to find what works, then?
I used to think this way. But when tens of millions of people are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, and buy medicine, it becomes that rich guy’s problem. In general you really don’t want huge chunks of your population to be desperate with nothing to lose. That’s bad news.
If you want to talk economics, this isn’t the rich guy’s problem. This is the problem that the government is so huge and that it’s printing money so much that it’s causing inflation to fill the pockets of big corporations. The ethos in lemmy, apparently, is communism due to ignorance, more than understanding economics and trying to implement self-responsibility to fix these problems.
Like I told another guy here: You either shrink the government to get a deflationary economy and make your money better, or you expect your government to solve all your problems and face inflation. You can’t have it both ways.
It’ll become the rich guy’s problem when tens of millions of desperate Americans with nothing to lose grab their pitchforks. We are slowly but surely getting there.
I really doubt it. Have you seen the movie Elysium? It’s gonna be the same, except that the ending isn’t gonna be that nice because all those with power will side with those who can fund them.
No I haven’t, but you better hope you’re right, because historically it doesn’t go well for the aristocracy when the peasants revolt.
Except that they have planes now. They can fuck things up so bad while accumulating wealth, then fly away and deal with none of the consequences while they spend money from their vast bank accounts in Switzerland.
Didn’t this happen in Sri Lanka a few months ago?