4 ms·

I'm not considering US to be a moderately sized country. While you are technically correct (the best kind of correct), this was kind of a brain-fart on my part

by ohyes 10y ago

I'm not considering US to be a moderately sized country. While you are technically correct (the best kind of correct), this was kind of a brain-fart on my part and not really important to the point. The point is that net worth includes the assumption of future earnings in the valuation. GDP is just one year's production. Bill gates is orders of magnitude less wealthy than Ukraine, for example, even though his net worth is similar to Ukraine's GDP.

SwellJoe 10y ago
I think it is important to the point, that one man is worth the annual GDP of countries that have millions of people. A country is not a person...it's millions of people, and it's nonsensical to say, "Oh, it's not such a big deal, because a nation of millions makes as much in a year as this guy's whole net worth." That's a terrible argument for why the amount of money Bill Gates has is not absurd.
- ohyes 10y ago
  I'm not saying it isn't absurd I'm saying it isn't comparable to feudalism. (It is indeed a terrible argument for the point I'm not making). In feudalism a single person is the entire state. His wealth isn't comparable, disregarding the extra rights that are conferred from literally being the law of the land as a monarch.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    Eh, I guess...but a feudal lord oversaw hundreds, maybe thousands of people. I'm not suggesting feudalism was better than what we have now, or necessarily agreeing with the argument made above about this being feudalism. Let's just all agree that Bill Gates isn't a feudal lord and this isn't feudalism, but rather something else that is probably bad, but it may take us a few generations to figure out exactly why it's so bad and how to avoid it.
  - milesrout 10y ago
    >In feudalism a single person is the entire state. His wealth isn't comparable, disregarding the extra rights that are conferred from literally being the law of the land as a monarch. No, that's not true. That's not at all true.

by ohyes 10y ago

SwellJoe 10y ago

I think it is important to the point, that one man is worth the annual GDP of countries that have millions of people. A country is not a person...it's millions of people, and it's nonsensical to say, "Oh, it's not such a big deal, because a nation of millions makes as much in a year as this guy's whole net worth." That's a terrible argument for why the amount of money Bill Gates has is not absurd.

ohyes 10y ago
I'm not saying it isn't absurd I'm saying it isn't comparable to feudalism. (It is indeed a terrible argument for the point I'm not making). In feudalism a single person is the entire state. His wealth isn't comparable, disregarding the extra rights that are conferred from literally being the law of the land as a monarch.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Eh, I guess...but a feudal lord oversaw hundreds, maybe thousands of people. I'm not suggesting feudalism was better than what we have now, or necessarily agreeing with the argument made above about this being feudalism. Let's just all agree that Bill Gates isn't a feudal lord and this isn't feudalism, but rather something else that is probably bad, but it may take us a few generations to figure out exactly why it's so bad and how to avoid it.
- milesrout 10y ago
  >In feudalism a single person is the entire state. His wealth isn't comparable, disregarding the extra rights that are conferred from literally being the law of the land as a monarch. No, that's not true. That's not at all true.