The problem is if you aren’t exploitative then you aren’t being as “efficient” (in a capitalist sense) so you’ll be out-competed. The system is designed to incentivize exploitation. It’s mis-aligned to do anything else.

Her ex-boyfriends.

She didn’t (maybe). Record labels did.

her little private jet already put out more CO^2 this year alone than everyone on lemmy combined

billionaires are shitty people, period.

Simply by having a billion dollars means they have decided to hoard that wealth. They could give away 90% of it, leaving them with $100 million, it wouldn’t impact their quality of life in any way, and still leave them with more wealth than 99.9% of the planet. Imagine the good that $900 million could do if it was put to good use rather than sitting in a bank account as a status symbol - having the capability to do that good with no impact on yourself or your family and choosing not to makes you an immoral person.

Billionaires shouldn’t exist. At all.

Let’s reformulate. No single individual gets to a billion dollars of net worth without someone getting fucked over in the process. The very concept of any one individual having a net worth of hundreds of times the one of the next 99.9% is fucking absurd, regardless of what they did. Nobody “deserves” multiple lifetimes worth of wealth while half of the world’s population is living with dollars a day. It would take collectively for this world’s billlionaires, the equivalent of us foregoing buying a gaming PC (in relative terms) to get rid of world hunger, yet they choose not to. So, yes, they are actively fucking people over by having so much wealth in the first place.

McCartney and Swift ‘exploit’ tons of people as well. They might flagship their music artist operation themselves and kind of ‘be’ the product (or rather the brand), but there are lots and lots of people involved to make tours and shows possible, recording, production and especially distribution of music and merch involves labour as well.

In addition to that: I don’t think they store all that money on a nice little heap in their backyard. It usually gets invested into some sorts of corporations, be it through the stock market, where it will accrue revenue, that comes as the result of more exploitation.

That being said: the term ‘exploitation’ carries a much more negative connotation than would be beneficial for the conversation. It’s concept of marxist economics, and the term ‘Ausbeutung’ = exploitation was used by Marx himself to describe how capitalists benefit from the surplus that workers produce. I like the term ‘reaping the surplus’ better because it doesn’t carry as much of a negative connotation. The criticism of capitalism shouldn’t barely rely on the fact that surplus is being taken away from the workers, but from the consequences to society and the political system that inevitably follow when that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a minority.

Thats a fair point, but money changes people. That kind of money is obscene because it effectively puts you above most laws. I, too, would like to believe that the folks on this list would do only good with the money; but the longer the list, the more likely you witness the “Bad Change!” At the end of the day, most folks have families and other concerns outside of their public pursuits. That kind of money, while bringing its own problems, can get rid of just about any “normal people” worries (obviously not something like inoperable cancer)!

right, Swartz totally cared about no one else…

I heard of a shorter way of saying that: There is no ethical billion dollars.

Whew! Dodged that bullet.

Imagine 5 thousand times that amount, like bezos or musk

I love how so many of them demand love and acclaim for claiming they will give their money away… when they die.

You want me to sing your praises because you won’t use the money you made exploiting countless laborers and lobbying government to benefit yourself above society to anoint a handful of nepo babies to wield that power after you as some part of a new nepo dynasty? Gee thanks?

Its like a serial killer promising not to train his children in the family business. Its not doing good, just doing slightly less bad. Except billionaires cause damage on a far greater scale.

As if a good person would’ve married him in the first place.

If he’s willing to trample all over people, exploit them, and have them die for his sake, then absolutely.

Billionaires don’t care about people. They don’t view others as human. To them workers are robots, a statistical means to an end. Who cares if someone dies in some factory/warehouse somewhere? There’ll be another to replace them before the end of the day.

A billionaire gladly takes the effort of others and claims it as their own. They go out of their way to do it.

That’s not to say that every evil person acting like this will automatically become a billionaire, but you need to be OK with doing these things in order to get there. A billion USD is such an insane sum you cannot legitimately accumulate that without hurting people in the process. Like there’s no logical way of actually earning that amount of money. That’s money you take.

Hoooo boy people here get angry when you remind them of Stallman being outspokenly pro-paedophilia.

That’s worse. You see how that is worse right?

That seems worse because it means they went out of the way to get so rich, rather than just having it handed to them.

People should indeed be seen in their entirety, the failure of this is why so many people get upset about Stallman.

The guy is routinely portrayed as a bastion of righteous good will, championing the little guy against the evil corporations. The hero worship is real.

Some of us see Stallman as a misogynistic asshole who routinely belittles people on mailing lists when they don’t agree with him and publicly defends people who sexually abuse children.

For some of us, it feels like we need to go out of our way to point this out because we don’t want a guy like that as the public face of something we care about.

to me, a person should be seen in his entirety. because only fictional characters are without flaws.

There are “flaws” like adding pineapple to pizza, and there are “flaws” like defending and encouraging sex with minors. Fuck Richard Stallman.

you can read everything in great detail and with citations here if you have the bandwidth.

but I’m not sure if the commenter is mixing two unrelated accusations towards him.

stallman is known for his fixation on certain choice of words, which is the reason most people get him wrong. that’s why I shared the link to read his exact words and make up your mind by yourself.

Richard Stallman on paedophilia:

“The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”

RMS on June 28th, 2003

"I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing. "

RMS on June 5th, 2006

"There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed participation, a different issue. "

RMS on Jan 4th, 2013

Why don’t you link his exact words, then?

I mean when wealth reaches levels beyond material comfort, needs, and wants, when it becomes easy to warp society. Billionaire’s lifestyles doesn’t change AT ALL between 1 billion and 2, its about expanding power. That is what capital becomes at those levels.

Politicians swoon over you for “donations” (bribes), you begin to see regulations over the industry you exploit your profit from as amendable through lobbyists you can hire to represent your interests over society. Meanwhile that billionaire’s factory workers, customers concerned with product safety, our shared commons, and our communal environment have no advocates with such massive influence to counter them, when the needs of the many shouldn’t just balance the needs of the interests of the wealthy few at the top, they should far outweigh them. As it is, its the other way around. The billionaires have the resources to take care of themselves and protect themselves, most of society does not.

No one should have enough wealth to have more influence over society than your single vote allows. If you want more power, that should come by selling your ideas to society that votes on them by putting you into a political office, with ALL of the rules and accountability that comes with that office.

The White House and Senate often invites the billionaires of industries to be the authority on how those industries should be regulated, and it’s perverse. The Foxes advising on hen house security.

Recently saw a post somewhere proposing a new style of Government, where we just give the money to Dolly Parton and just kinda let her do her thing with it.

With elections that monied interests can no longer purchase and disproportionately propagandize with their essentially limitless power/capital.

They have politicians work against the people, then buy enough ad propaganda to convince people that was a good decision in their interests without that, politicians would rise and fall moreso on what they do in office.

We are the weird ones in the developed world for allowing unlimited private money to pollute our politics, elections, and even buy sitting politicians though legalized political bribery superpacs. It got this way because of the influence of the wealth class being allowed in the first place using that in to expand its own power and ability to bribe, culminating in Citizens United.

I think our eventual collapse will be tied directly to that SCOTUS decision.

Because in countries with functioning democracies, political power is narrowly scoped (your electors give you a mandate to do certain things, and if you act contrary to those interests you loose your power) and fleeting (you only have power as long as your electors continue to entrust that power to you, and can remove that power if they decide you are no longer fit to wield it).

Money, by contrast, is permanent (capital breeds capital) and unaccountable (you can choose to use the power your wealth grants without any regard for what others think - even if people disapprove, they can’t stop you spending it)