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Inequality is a strong psychological issue. No amount of correct math and logic can offset that. We're wired to despise those who have more than others, especia

Inequality is a strong psychological issue. No amount of correct math and logic can offset that. We're wired to despise those who have more than others, especially when others are struggling and especially when those who have show off. You can point out objective things like that contemporary billionaires are nothing like super-rich monarchy or noblemen in the past, who literally didn't have to work one day of their lives and could dispose of people around them as they pleased, quite literally. There was no me too, no rape allegations, they just did whatever they pleased with minimal consequences. You can point out all that, but it's irrelevant. Many humans just don't tolerate "rich entitled jerks who show off". Other humans don't tolerate other kind behaviours; humanity is clearly not a uniform bunch.

missedthecue 5y ago
I understand what you're saying, but I don't see why it should be an excuse. After all, xenophobia and racism are natural human behaviours as well, (and not just human behaviour) but they shouldn't be tolerated, and we shouldn't promote policies that encourage them.
- ithkuil 5y ago
  it's not an excuse; as with xenophobia and racism, these are phenomena which have to be understood and not dismissed. You cannot solve racism by just stating "races don't exist, here's the DNA evidence etc etc" perhaps implying that you're just an ignorant redneck if you don't understand science. Even if said science is solid, some people will not be moved by it because their bias doesn't stem from a misunderstanding of science (or math) but from somewhere deeper, and you don't have to excuse it in order to understanding and use that understanding to counter it.
crummybowley 5y ago
I think math can help. Even if we stole 10B from Bezos and gave it out equally to every US citizen... Its ~$30. Is this life changing for anybody in the US? If so what percent. Most beggars on the street clear more than $30 a day, some make $30 a hour! So yeah, common core has failed us, and the inability to understand numbers is a problem. I do this nearly every time somebody is upset somebody else has money. One time it was some Walmart executive. They got some multi million dollar bonus. I did the math, it would have been something like 2.27 a week more for all the employees. Edit: But yet we have folks still going around on twitter saying he could give everybody a million (some even a billion) and still have money left over.
- yellowapple 5y ago
  > Even if we stole 10B from Bezos and gave it out equally to every US citizen... Its ~$30. I mean, obviously it's gonna look small if we fixate on Bezos specifically. If we "stole" a flat $1B from every American billionaire and paid it out equally to every US citizen, that stimulus jumps up to $1,996.70. If we "stole" all the money from every billionaire, that'd jump up further to $12,569.61. We can go further. The top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion. If we "stole" all of that, the resulting stimulus would be a comfy $102,842.28. > I did the math, it would have been something like 2.27 a week more for all the employees. $122.58/year could very well make a considerable difference to someone barely scraping by. And again, you're fixating on one Walmart executive; what about the other executives who likely received similar bonuses? VPs? Middle managers?
  - crummybowley 5y ago
    lol. If you made the top %1 liquidate all their assets to give to others everything would stop working. You would create more problems than ever. Somebody would have to buy the assets, and because we are doing away with anybody who would have the sort of money to buy the assets, you would likely deadlock long before you would get 34 trillion out of the system. Like its mind boggling what you said. Where would this money come from? Other 1%ers who would then have to sale their assets? Folks, Net Worth is not tangible, and even less tangible if you required a mass amount of folks to liquidate. It would simply drive prices down to a point where they were no longer in the 1% and then our economy would simply pop. Every major system that moves money (this is what we want) would grind to a halt, and the folks you want to steal money for would simply have no job and have no cash flow. But beyond that, stealing money assets, or even in this case "net worth" is immoral. Bezos was a nobody driving a Honda Civic, folks just mad he drives a rocket now.
    - brokenmachine 5y ago
      >But beyond that, stealing money assets, or even in this case "net worth" is immoral. 100% agree, so lets tax the fucker, and all the other fuckers.
nullsense 5y ago
>humanity is clearly not a uniform bunch Humanity is not normal, but it is normally distributed!

missedthecue 5y ago

I understand what you're saying, but I don't see why it should be an excuse. After all, xenophobia and racism are natural human behaviours as well, (and not just human behaviour) but they shouldn't be tolerated, and we shouldn't promote policies that encourage them.

ithkuil 5y ago
it's not an excuse; as with xenophobia and racism, these are phenomena which have to be understood and not dismissed. You cannot solve racism by just stating "races don't exist, here's the DNA evidence etc etc" perhaps implying that you're just an ignorant redneck if you don't understand science. Even if said science is solid, some people will not be moved by it because their bias doesn't stem from a misunderstanding of science (or math) but from somewhere deeper, and you don't have to excuse it in order to understanding and use that understanding to counter it.

crummybowley 5y ago

I think math can help. Even if we stole 10B from Bezos and gave it out equally to every US citizen... Its ~$30. Is this life changing for anybody in the US? If so what percent. Most beggars on the street clear more than $30 a day, some make $30 a hour! So yeah, common core has failed us, and the inability to understand numbers is a problem. I do this nearly every time somebody is upset somebody else has money. One time it was some Walmart executive. They got some multi million dollar bonus. I did the math, it would have been something like 2.27 a week more for all the employees. Edit: But yet we have folks still going around on twitter saying he could give everybody a million (some even a billion) and still have money left over.

yellowapple 5y ago
> Even if we stole 10B from Bezos and gave it out equally to every US citizen... Its ~$30. I mean, obviously it's gonna look small if we fixate on Bezos specifically. If we "stole" a flat $1B from every American billionaire and paid it out equally to every US citizen, that stimulus jumps up to $1,996.70. If we "stole" all the money from every billionaire, that'd jump up further to $12,569.61. We can go further. The top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion. If we "stole" all of that, the resulting stimulus would be a comfy $102,842.28. > I did the math, it would have been something like 2.27 a week more for all the employees. $122.58/year could very well make a considerable difference to someone barely scraping by. And again, you're fixating on one Walmart executive; what about the other executives who likely received similar bonuses? VPs? Middle managers?
- crummybowley 5y ago
  lol. If you made the top %1 liquidate all their assets to give to others everything would stop working. You would create more problems than ever. Somebody would have to buy the assets, and because we are doing away with anybody who would have the sort of money to buy the assets, you would likely deadlock long before you would get 34 trillion out of the system. Like its mind boggling what you said. Where would this money come from? Other 1%ers who would then have to sale their assets? Folks, Net Worth is not tangible, and even less tangible if you required a mass amount of folks to liquidate. It would simply drive prices down to a point where they were no longer in the 1% and then our economy would simply pop. Every major system that moves money (this is what we want) would grind to a halt, and the folks you want to steal money for would simply have no job and have no cash flow. But beyond that, stealing money assets, or even in this case "net worth" is immoral. Bezos was a nobody driving a Honda Civic, folks just mad he drives a rocket now.
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    >But beyond that, stealing money assets, or even in this case "net worth" is immoral. 100% agree, so lets tax the fucker, and all the other fuckers.

nullsense 5y ago

>humanity is clearly not a uniform bunch Humanity is not normal, but it is normally distributed!