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the wealth piled up with people like elon musk and jeff bezos indicate this is not what is being solved or handled here. The 188b$ of Bezos and 264b$ of Musk ar

the wealth piled up with people like elon musk and jeff bezos indicate this is not what is being solved or handled here. The 188b$ of Bezos and 264b$ of Musk are clearly not dedicated to providing me with hamburgers and sleeping quarters. If I divided those 452b$ amongst 334m americans, I'd get around 1300$ per head. Though net worth is not the same as yearly income, I note that Musk's 264b$ represent 5.600 times the average american's yearly income. As I see it, a lot of that "necessary work to provide food and shelter", that you refer to, is not spent doing that, but instead spent piling money on top of people like Musk and Bezos. I agree with the people that think we could still handle the work required for 'food and shelter', without all the necessary work yielded to enrich our billionaires. What we currently have, and have had for most of human history, is feudalism under many different names. We may currently have a much more humane treatment of our thralls, but we have an entitled 'nobility' profiting off the work of others, as much as at any time. It is much like peasants 500 years ago, who could handily themselves live off what their farms produced, but for some reason had to pass on the major part of what their work produced, so that the lord could 'protect' them against being beaten up by the neighbour lord (and, incidentally, against being indiscriminately beaten by his own men, too). Currently we organise our Lords through capitalism.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago
>Currently we organise our Lords through capitalism. And that's how I want it. I may have a low chance of winning but nobody argues against my right to throw my hat in the ring if I want to rise above my station. Nobody but the anticapitalists that is.
- mlatu 5y ago
  That's what they want you to believe, but your hat needs to be at least THIS big in order to not just evaporate when it lands in the ring. Good luck playing against the house. I'd much rather demolish this casino and put up a soupkitchen instead. I'd rather have everyone fed, clothed, housed and medically taken care of than having a low chance of "winning". What do you win anyways? Can you hug your profits? Can they thank you for your efforts? I'm not convinced that capitalism is the best way to run this planet, but certainly one of the better ways to ruin it, this way at least those already well off, will have it nice until the end, hordes of immigrants fleeing from droughts and >50°C around the equator? who cares, they'll drown in the mediteranean sea or otherwise be hindered from reaching the "good" parts in europe.. The world is fucked, if you dont see it already as such: capitalism is barbarism. You don't really need to involve immigrants even, just look at industrial livestock farming. There was an article recently, that at least 65 different species of animals can laugh. I used to laugh at vegans not eating meat, I mean, it's just animals..., but now? What makes US so special? Why is the laughter of our children worth more than that of some cows or chicken? How can I enjoy a steak without thinking about whether or not this animal had a good life? It died so i may eat it, but why did it live in the first place? Just to be eaten? A horrible thought. And then, why do i live? Just so I can feed my landlord? Are we just here to produce abundance for those who have all the money/power/assets/rights? I want to see the (capitalist) world burn and I want you to want that too, so we can build a better world together
  - Infernal 5y ago
    > I'd rather have everyone fed, clothed, housed and medically taken care of than having a low chance of "winning" Where do you believe the food, clothing, housing, and medical care/technology will come from in this hypothetical?
    - mlatu 5y ago
      Where do you believe the food, clothing, housing, and medical care/technology is coming from in the current world? Same people, except in my hypothetical the workforce would be a tad bigger: Bezos, Musk and Gates, like the Kennedies, Rothschilds and Murdochs would (like everyone else on the planet) put in their own ~4 hours of daily work (4 out of 7 days should be plenty) towards feeding/clothing/housing/caring-for the People. Who needs military if the whole world was one? All those poor souls "defending" your freedom? Would work the fields or whatever. Who needs newspapers that only print what their owner wants to be printed? Who needs X privately owned space programs if the whole world would profit the most from a single public one? Yes, competition can drive innovation but we have arrived at a time where we innovate solely to: - dazzle others we call users into spending more of their precious time and money on our shit-websites... - improve surveilance tech - improve weaponry - improve schemes to extract value from our workforce And competition by cooperation is by far better anyways than competition led by self-interest: If your idea is better than whatever is being already produced, since everyone is a worker and cooperating, there would be little to no friction to improve stuff. Actually, improvements would be shared freely rather than kept as a secret. Money and Power are keeping us so busy we barely look up to see if what we are doing is hurting the planet... and thus have to go. And designs/blueprints/recipees and other similar (not art) intelectual property should be in some sort of commons. I dont know about art, it's important, but how to reimburse for it? idk. but you cant ask for money in return, since it was already deprecated... so i guess it also goes into the commons, and rightfully so: we produce for everyone to enjoy.
      - ryan93 5y ago
        If you want everyone to give up wealth you will have to do it at gun point.
yesenadam 5y ago
> Musk's 264b$ represent 5.600 times the average american's yearly income By my reckoning, $ 264,000,000,000 / 5600 = $ 47,142,857.14 Maybe you meant to say it's 5,600,000 times the average US yearly income?
tapas73 5y ago
> What we currently have, and have had for most of human history, is feudalism under many different names. True. Though this is the only stable outcome. Even in communist country there are positions of power (which can be symbolically equated to lords). Given group of people there is hierarchy. Given selfishness, people tend to use control to ensure more control.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago

>Currently we organise our Lords through capitalism. And that's how I want it. I may have a low chance of winning but nobody argues against my right to throw my hat in the ring if I want to rise above my station. Nobody but the anticapitalists that is.

mlatu 5y ago
That's what they want you to believe, but your hat needs to be at least THIS big in order to not just evaporate when it lands in the ring. Good luck playing against the house. I'd much rather demolish this casino and put up a soupkitchen instead. I'd rather have everyone fed, clothed, housed and medically taken care of than having a low chance of "winning". What do you win anyways? Can you hug your profits? Can they thank you for your efforts? I'm not convinced that capitalism is the best way to run this planet, but certainly one of the better ways to ruin it, this way at least those already well off, will have it nice until the end, hordes of immigrants fleeing from droughts and >50°C around the equator? who cares, they'll drown in the mediteranean sea or otherwise be hindered from reaching the "good" parts in europe.. The world is fucked, if you dont see it already as such: capitalism is barbarism. You don't really need to involve immigrants even, just look at industrial livestock farming. There was an article recently, that at least 65 different species of animals can laugh. I used to laugh at vegans not eating meat, I mean, it's just animals..., but now? What makes US so special? Why is the laughter of our children worth more than that of some cows or chicken? How can I enjoy a steak without thinking about whether or not this animal had a good life? It died so i may eat it, but why did it live in the first place? Just to be eaten? A horrible thought. And then, why do i live? Just so I can feed my landlord? Are we just here to produce abundance for those who have all the money/power/assets/rights? I want to see the (capitalist) world burn and I want you to want that too, so we can build a better world together
- Infernal 5y ago
  > I'd rather have everyone fed, clothed, housed and medically taken care of than having a low chance of "winning" Where do you believe the food, clothing, housing, and medical care/technology will come from in this hypothetical?
  - mlatu 5y ago
    Where do you believe the food, clothing, housing, and medical care/technology is coming from in the current world? Same people, except in my hypothetical the workforce would be a tad bigger: Bezos, Musk and Gates, like the Kennedies, Rothschilds and Murdochs would (like everyone else on the planet) put in their own ~4 hours of daily work (4 out of 7 days should be plenty) towards feeding/clothing/housing/caring-for the People. Who needs military if the whole world was one? All those poor souls "defending" your freedom? Would work the fields or whatever. Who needs newspapers that only print what their owner wants to be printed? Who needs X privately owned space programs if the whole world would profit the most from a single public one? Yes, competition can drive innovation but we have arrived at a time where we innovate solely to: - dazzle others we call users into spending more of their precious time and money on our shit-websites... - improve surveilance tech - improve weaponry - improve schemes to extract value from our workforce And competition by cooperation is by far better anyways than competition led by self-interest: If your idea is better than whatever is being already produced, since everyone is a worker and cooperating, there would be little to no friction to improve stuff. Actually, improvements would be shared freely rather than kept as a secret. Money and Power are keeping us so busy we barely look up to see if what we are doing is hurting the planet... and thus have to go. And designs/blueprints/recipees and other similar (not art) intelectual property should be in some sort of commons. I dont know about art, it's important, but how to reimburse for it? idk. but you cant ask for money in return, since it was already deprecated... so i guess it also goes into the commons, and rightfully so: we produce for everyone to enjoy.
    - ryan93 5y ago
      If you want everyone to give up wealth you will have to do it at gun point.

yesenadam 5y ago

> Musk's 264b$ represent 5.600 times the average american's yearly income By my reckoning, $ 264,000,000,000 / 5600 = $ 47,142,857.14 Maybe you meant to say it's 5,600,000 times the average US yearly income?

tapas73 5y ago

> What we currently have, and have had for most of human history, is feudalism under many different names. True. Though this is the only stable outcome. Even in communist country there are positions of power (which can be symbolically equated to lords). Given group of people there is hierarchy. Given selfishness, people tend to use control to ensure more control.