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“billionairs”
Can’t we just kill them instead? That would solve the whole getting out issue, AND they’ve already built cute little tombs to use as well
Considering the housing crises in many places, maybe it would be better to just leave their bodies in the forest
The trick is to brick up their bunkers from the outside once they’ve taken themselves inside.
He knows what he did!
And cut the power so the sump pumps fail. Block up the air vents. They will get sent off like the pharaohs.
Block up the air vents
Why waste a perfectly good latrine?
Pour concrete in the air intake and over the entrances and exits
Ah, the ol’ “Cask of Amontillado” trick.
There will always be people who are the smartest and/or shrewdest and/or most ambitious and/or luckiest, in a population. “Just get rid of the people who currently have the most wealth” is extraordinarily naive.
Ok. But what if we keep doing it? It’s good for the environment, and it’s a great source of steady employment opportunities.
There’s kind of a difference between “whoever happens to be wealthiest at the moment” and “The 0.001% of the population that is three times wealthier than the bottom 50% of humanity combined.”
Over the long term, there really isn’t. Outside of a government imposing tyranny-tier control over everyone’s wealth, wealth inequality happens naturally, and inevitably, and the gap widens similarly.
What’s more important is making sure that even the poorest among us can have a decent standard of living. After all, if you waved a magic wand and now everyone in the US, for example, was earning $75,000 a year minimum, no one would be in poverty, right? And yet the size of the ‘wealth gap’ between the wealthiest and the $75k ‘minimum earners’ would effectively be identical; the gap between $0 and billions is basically the same as the gap between $75k and billions.
Toppling the wealthiest just because they’re the wealthiest isn’t going to solve any of the actual problems (especially when politicians get bribed for relatively-measly five figure sums, etc.).
How about changing taxes so that it’s impossible for individuals to have more wealth than entire nations?
Except that the only way you get everyone a baseline income of $75k is by taking it from the billionaires, thus reducing the gap much more substantially
you get everyone a baseline income of $75k is by taking it from the billionaires
Actually, no. That’s a hypothetical for a reason; the entire net worth of all billionaires combined (assuming a magic wand could convert the net worth figure into an equivalent amount of cash, literally impossible in reality) wouldn’t get everyone to $75k for even a single year.
Outside of a government imposing tyranny-tier control over everyone’s wealth, wealth inequality happens naturally, and inevitably, and the gap widens similarly.
Hmm, this tyranny idea sounds pretty interesting then.
Structural solutions are important!
Massive understatement—they’re actually the only things that could truly be “solutions” at all in anything approaching long-term.
Cool so we will remove the impediments of those structural changes (or rather the heads of those impediments) first and then we can have structural change :)
“The Future” by Naomi Alderman goes somewhere along these lines
The death of literacy makes me sad.
Don’t punish someone for practicing their art imperfectly. Instead of improving their craft, that only incentivizes them to stop practicing.
Language evolves. Don’t be sad, be adaptive.
Language needs to be evolved by people who understand it though. Not by people too lazy to proofread.
That shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how language evolves.
None of you dipshits are going to convince me that ‘catastrophy’ is an evolution of the language. You are a fucking idiot if you believe that.
You just don’t understand what I’m saying because I’m using the newly evolved form of the words.
This is funny because it’s true.
Yes please
All right, so that’s Plan A.
In the place of 1000 richest people we will get just new 1000 richest people in that case.
Emergency Skin by NK Jemisin
Come to think of it, this is a wonderful idea…no assassinations needed.
Until they get out.
that’s why we will block the doors
I was hoping for something like:
“You were”, she answered without hesitation.
Also, why would she be afraid of them? Without the system of power that upheld them, they are about as dangerous as the average human. Possibly less.
If anything, they’re the ones who should be afraid. Especially the ones on the Epstein list.
That’s way too on-the-nose.
And she could just be screaming to get people’s attention to an outbreak of vermin. People scream when they see a mouse in their house, and mice haven’t even ruined the world in centuries.
This! It’s like having an outbreak of a long forgotten disease in this scenario, won’t end humanity, but not great either.
If you know the TV series “Billionaires’ Bunker”, why not take inspiration from that? Rip them off buildinga fake nuclear shelter, create a fake narative and lock them up for good.
Billionaires are the result of Capitalism, change the system, no more parasitic billionaires. Also chop off their heads.
So who runs shit in utopia?
Godlike AIs of course.
Anyone but the ones doing it for profit.
I’d be up for a technocratie
And you think somehow the ones running it aren’t going to concentrate wealth and power for themselves?
we the people
A bunch of nerds who only cared about perfection.
That way the idea can’t be corrupted cause a nerd’s obsession is more powerful than anything.
That’s basically how the bureaucratic class aka. the states middle management works.
But what is perfection?
System version 1.7.586 is coming out tomorrow.
Still better than the bs we are all running now.
autonomous collective
seriously though, are you saying capitalism is the best humans can ever have?
Also chop off their heads.
That’s where you lose. Keep it vague like “eat the rich”
But I’m not into vore.
We don’t have to totally change the system. They can keep making billions of dollars, we can just tax 99% of it. Maybe they’ll pay their employees more, if they know it’s only going to get taxed away anyhow. And if they don’t, well just take it from them.
Yes this is the answer. No single persons should have this much money. Instead collectives like governments, corps and holdings should have the money. By doing so the governments are also able to control money flow and restrict unethical use cases.
But this would require governments working for the people, people voting parties that are doing stuff for them and not for corruption. Also media outlets need a proper source of independent income to that opinion is not monopolized, which is the hardest in my opinion, because how most outlets are making money is by writing emotional articles so that they are clicked.
My issue is when these people get so much money that they can start cutting personal deals with other nations that aren’t in alignment with their own nation’s values.
And what happens when a few trillionaires decide to form an alliance and create their own army, conquer territory, and create their own Libertarian Dream/Nightmare?
“Billionaires” existed before capitalism, they were just called “Kings” or “Lords” or “Emperors” or “High Priests” or whatever.
The difference is that with capitalism at least they’re producing something. Often they become billionaires because the regulations break down and they become monopolists. But, they’re still producing something and selling it to someone.
“Billionaires” of the past were rich because they won the parental lottery and inherited vast amounts of land, and the people that worked that land. Or, occasionally, because they won a war against someone else who held land and now owned the people that other “billionaire” used to own.
I’m not saying capitalism is a great system. But, it didn’t create wealth disparity. That has existed since even before agriculture. So, getting rid of capitalism isn’t going to get rid of billionaires because they’re a problem in every other system. In theory, you might not have billionaires under communism, but communism in theory doesn’t seem to work. In practice, it results in billionaires too. In theory capitalism shouldn’t have billionaires either because the government was supposed to regulate businesses to force them to continue to compete. But, wealth disparity is something that no political system has ever managed to actually get rid of.
There’s wealth disparity and then there’s the wealth chasm of today, the disparity has grown so much in the last couple of decades beyond anything in human history.
The only reason it can is because of capitalism (neoliberalism, late stage capitalism).
The system incentivises and rewards the horrific behaviour that results in the disparity.
Also, pray tell, what are inheritocrats who made all their non-inherited money through stock markets producing?
As far as I can see, they’re not producing anything, but are profiting off the backs of, and at the expense of, those that are producing the value.
There’s wealth disparity and then there’s the wealth chasm of today,
You think the chasm today is as big as the gap between Augustus Caesar and a slave in Rome, or even a Roman plebian? Augustus Caesar’s wealth is estimated at around $5 trillion in today’s money.
The only way in which capitalism is responsible for wealth gaps is that it is tied to technological developments. In the modern world technology allows 1 farmer to feed hundreds of people. One century ago (also under capitalism) it was only about 4 people. More people who aren’t farming means more labour to allocate to other things, which means more wealth can be concentrated at the top.
