Yeah it’s a shitty system. But it is objectively the best system. All the other systems lead to massive death. Like, lots and lots of death.
Implying capitalism… hasnt?
Capitalism has led to more death than any other system we’ve come up with. It is a useful intermediary step between feudalism and socialism and instead of progressing we’ve stalled here and slowly but steadily turned it back into feudalism.
You’re right, taxing the rich to pay for common-sense social programs is going to lead us straight to the gulags.
I do somewhat disagree with this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much on the eat the rich train. But, while not due to elons personal “brilliance” space x has cut the cost of going to space by a huge amount. And so many amazing things have come out of the space program
Why can’t we do both? How many billionaires are there? How many of them have their own space company? I’m no mathologist but something doesn’t add up.
The fact is, one thing has pretty much nothing to do with the other. The wealth gap between the wealthiest individuals on Earth and the rest of us is not the cause of poverty; in fact, as you go back in time long term, the wealth gap shrinks, while overall poverty goes up.
And what you mention about Space X is one example of the ‘rising ride lifts all ships’ phenomena that makes things better for all of us overall long term.
The fact that fulfilling three extremely-doable conditions: graduating high school, not getting married before the age of 21, and not having children before getting married, make your chances of being impoverished as an adult next to nothing, makes it even more obvious that billionaires are not the cause of poverty.
Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of increases in net worth of billionaires is created wealth (as in, if it didn’t happen, that wealth wouldn’t belong to someone else, it just wouldn’t exist at all).
The real issue is the eradication of poverty. It’s impossible to prevent someone from being at the top, and that top being exponentially higher than the average, in a society where wealth is so ‘create-able’ (and the fact that it is is a good thing, imo!), that position is always going to exist. But as we’ve seen over the past 50-100 years, it is very possible for that wealth gap to not only exist, and grow, and have the percentage of human beings who are impoverished shrinking, at the same time.
Add be born in a rich country and don’t be mentally ill to your list.
Sure, if by “Elon’s brilliance” you mean decades of Congress forcing NASA to outsource plus a whole lot of engineers none of whom are also CEO
while not due to elons personal “brilliance”
One might say it’s better than a system where everyone starve…
Which system are you speaking of?
Systems without exploitation
Are you actually arguing exploitation is necessary? That any system treating all people fairly will result in everybody starving?
Feel free to let others exploit you, I will keep trying for the fair system
Do you know of example of a thriving human society not based on exploitation?
Do you think humans can never try something new?
Sure they can, but it’s an imaginary future right now…
Yes, trying something new does require imagining a future where that new thing is going on. Your point?
This is not the best we can do and anyone who believes it is must have a very defeatist and cynical attitude towards humanity.
Why would a system without exploitation be worse rather than better? Can you give an example from the real world, or is this hypothetical?
Is that system in the room with us right now? 🙄
Says while paying money to the person they’re telling about for a blue marker
You have to be in a position to be heard. You could literally be the most popular account on lemmy, but you’d still be yelling down or laterally at people who already support you.
To punch up, you have to be on their stage.
No, paying Elon for a check mark wont make him read your stupid tweets.
it’s not him you need to reach, it’s his many supporters
It’s him you’re giving money to.
if you want to talk to the devil, you have to bargain with your soul yes
That’s deep
How many Lemmy instances are hosted on AWS?
All these people shitting on you acting like there aren’t a bunch of easy-to-use alternatives. This is one of those cases where a boycott is actually feasible. So many people here with more opinion than knowledge.
My biggest annoyance with Lemmy is the complete lack of self awareness.
I also got the “I am very smart” reply. lol
Curious! I am very intelligent.
Americans be like
As long as a single human being is homeless or hungry, billionaires should not exist.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist. Period.
Technicaly That is very dependent on the value of currency current or future one
I guess it could be said that the sort of wealth disparity that we have shouldn’t exist
what if we didnt have money and cooperated (fucking impossible though because of greed)
what if the return to monke meme wasnt a meme
We would need a fundamental DNA shift in the population to get rid of money. Humans are wired to compete with each other.
We’re wired to cooperate. Not compete. That compete part is a relatively recent thing. Last couple thousand years. And not everywhere.
Humans are wired to cooperate mainly if it helps them compete. Basically they cooperate more than any other animal. But cooperation is a means to the end of out competing other groups. That said, there doesn’t seem to be any hard science either way, so this is just my opinion, and your opinion holds equal value.
what if we didnt have money
It’d immediately be re-invented.
Money is a unit of measure, a necessary go-between because barter just doesn’t work on any but the smallest scales. If I need a root canal and I don’t possess any goods or access to any services the dentist wants/needs, what am I supposed to do?
How incredibly naive.
sorry im a bit retarded :[
/gen
Billionaires and starving people tend to live in different countries though. What ever makes someone a billionaire in the US isn’t probably the same thing that makes someone else starve in Africa. One could even say that thanks to the wealthy westerners there’s less and less starving people in those places. There’s been a huge decrease in world wide poverty over the last few decades.
Username checks out.
Sharing twitter posts in a meme sub isn’t the best system either. Don’t expect anything to change with the current quality of discussion.
It’s Neo, also I kinda agree. Though how to fix it is the tricky part.
Well if it isn’t the best system why is it the system we have? Survival of the fittest, duh!
I know it’s hard to hear, but nobody is starving in the USA.
I know it really sucks because it would be so satisfying to say people are starving, but I’m sorry to inform you that it is not happening.
Honestly, I think we’ve surpassed the point where obvious trolling and alt-right propaganda are indistinguishable, and this comment proves it.
Its working
Well, death by malnutrition is what they call it. But it does still happen in the US. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-04-13/deaths-from-malnutrition-have-more-than-doubled-in-the-u-s
That said… the USA is just a small part of society.
From that article:
Malnutrition is particularly common among older people, especially those who are ill, low-income, homebound, or without reliable access to healthy food or medical services
Notice how they keep referencing “healthy food”.
Starvation is not a lack of access to “healthy food”. Starvation is a lack of access to “any food”. Insufficient calories.
Starvation looks like this: https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:460/1*CdO7eSjb3Qsn-MN16cbZ3w.jpeg
In this case that is a distinction without a difference. People are still dieing.
12% of the population of the US would like to have a word with you.
They are suspiciously silent on the issue. Wonder why that could be?
“Starvation” is a very specific thing which is not referred to by “food insecurity”.
You are just being pedantic. Food insecurity is the term used for people who may have to skip meals because they lack money to but it, it is not provided by programs in schools/communities, or they have food but it is inadequate to meet their dietary needs to grow/develope or even live.
So yes you could not be “starving”, as you put it, because you can go to the corner store or whatever and buy a candy bar, but that doesn’t mean that same candy bar is going to sustain you. You body will starve because it lacks vital nutrients.
Do better.
Be the change you want to see! Load up on cold cathode tubes and shove them in your PC or wherever else you can think of!
The plan is going well. Now all we gotta do is convince all those sonobabiches to get on a Tesla rocket to Mars. As soon as that shit is outta here, we cut off communication and problem solved.
I hate to burst any utopian bubbles out there, but the problem with society ultimately isn’t capitalism, or communism, or socialism, or fascism, or any other system of government or economics. The problem with society is people. We are the problem. While some systems of government are certainly better than others at protecting us from our ourselves, eventually they all crumble and succumb to our depravity.
“We have met the enemy, and they are us” -Pogo
So we’re going to support a democratic system to tax people and service the underprivileged, right?
We’re going to do that, right?
No objections here
Sounds good to me
