Should billionaires exist?
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@evan No, but if they were some comical vehicle for actual redistribution of wealth, like an extravagant "grand seigneur" that goes around the villages and "generously" offers arbitrary people money, but in fact is forced to do so by the culture itself and in reality is the poorest person out there (because he can't keep any of the billions for himself, the wealth just flows through him because he is so compulsively generous), then I don't mind. A bit of cultural weirdness is good.
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@evan No, but if they were some comical vehicle for actual redistribution of wealth, like an extravagant "grand seigneur" that goes around the villages and "generously" offers arbitrary people money, but in fact is forced to do so by the culture itself and in reality is the poorest person out there (because he can't keep any of the billions for himself, the wealth just flows through him because he is so compulsively generous), then I don't mind. A bit of cultural weirdness is good.
@evan I'm reminded of the tribal chiefs in tupi-guarani people as described by Pierre Clastres where the chief was often the poorest person in society, because while a lot of material goods often accumulated on the chief, he was also the only one who could not deny requests on his belongings. So society was constantly robbing him, which made his riches very fleeting indeed. If there was a "billionaire" version of that, I would actually like to see it.
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@evan so many good 'but's for the "yes, but..." option. I like @malte's idea of billionairism being a fleeting condition that's disappeared through generosity (or maybe @ghostdancer's more violent version?)
But maybe the more reasonable answer is what @screwturn and @ted said: let it be allowed in theory without artificially denying it, but treat it as an error condition —i.e. if any actually pop up then there's a flaw in the system we've got to fix
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@evan so many good 'but's for the "yes, but..." option. I like @malte's idea of billionairism being a fleeting condition that's disappeared through generosity (or maybe @ghostdancer's more violent version?)
But maybe the more reasonable answer is what @screwturn and @ted said: let it be allowed in theory without artificially denying it, but treat it as an error condition —i.e. if any actually pop up then there's a flaw in the system we've got to fix
️@badrihippo Oh yes, this sums up clearly what I wasn't quite thinking so crisp and clear when I voted "no, but ...".
If I'll rephrase what I was kind of thinking, helped by what you said, billionaires are a problem indication, but directly suppressing them is suppressing a symptom rather than a root cause.
@evan @malte @ghostdancer @screwturn @ted -
@badrihippo Oh yes, this sums up clearly what I wasn't quite thinking so crisp and clear when I voted "no, but ...".
If I'll rephrase what I was kind of thinking, helped by what you said, billionaires are a problem indication, but directly suppressing them is suppressing a symptom rather than a root cause.
@evan @malte @ghostdancer @screwturn @ted@notclacke ah yes, symptom but not the root cause: that sums it up for sure! Billionaires shouldn't exist, but artificially restricting won't really help
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@notclacke ah yes, symptom but not the root cause: that sums it up for sure! Billionaires shouldn't exist, but artificially restricting won't really help
@badrihippo Since I'm still being mentioned in this thread, I'll chip in and say that treating symptoms is vastly underrated among radicals in my experience
Almost by definition, the trap of focusing solely on "root causes" is you can miss the obvious stuff to deal with right in front of you, like those actual billionaries - assholes that have a name and an address. E.g. going after Bezoz at his wedding in Venice can have structural effects too @notclacke @ted @evan @ghostdancer @screwturn
