8 ms·

This is exactly why individuals should not be allowed to have tens (let alone hundreds!) of billions of dollars in wealth - they become all-powerful and too eas

This is exactly why individuals should not be allowed to have tens (let alone hundreds!) of billions of dollars in wealth - they become all-powerful and too easily subvert the will of the people. They become their own ruling class, which is unacceptable in a functioning democracy.

rwmj 4y ago
That, or they piss it away on vanity projects like this and level themselves downwards in the process.
hatsubishi 4y ago
- akie 4y ago
  It seems to me that you are actually the one who doesn't understand how extreme concentration of wealth has the potential to steer and disrupt societies.
- CoastalCoder 4y ago
  Your comment seems to cover a lot of territory, but it's not very specific. If you'd like to go deeper on a single line of criticism of the GP, I'd be interested in reading it.
misiti3780 4y ago
If you were our supreme leader, how would you prevent private individuals like Musk, Bezos, etc from acquiring their wealth, given it is tied up in the value of very useful companies they created ?
- matsemann 4y ago
  Perhaps by sharing that value with others in the company, thus diluting it from any one person. Like, there are tens of thousands slaving for these big companies, and a few on top reaping the rewards.
  - misiti3780 4y ago
    Wait, I thought every Tesla employees has to ability to buy the stock at a discount? https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/automobile/do-tesla-employees-make-more-than-their-other-ev-industry-counterparts-7771041.html https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/automobile/do-tesla-employ... Also, your solution is now how risk/reward works. The employees starting at Tesla today are not entitled to large amounts of the company because they are coming in on a sure thing. The early employees did get a lot of stock. I personally know someone that worked for tesla in sales in 2008 who walked way from 200K shares because he thought they were worthless.
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
      Not a Tesla employee, but I bought thousands of TSLA stocks since 2012. Why? Because I was already a spoiled child whereas my coworkers haven't inherited shit and had to pay for their education. I'm a multimillionaire, just from TSLA. Now, my wealth is mostly financial so my tax rate is coming down as I get richer because I earn far more from the stock market than from work. How stupid and unfair is this? We're always focusing on those who earn more their hard work but most people winning are just benefiting from unfair advantages. It's so obvious when this happens to you but I guess few admit that in order to keep some pride in their situation.
      - SuoDuanDao 4y ago
        but your parents (or their parents if this goes back a number of generations) already did a lot of hard work to make that possible no?
        rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
        No. You can go back 600 years (!) and find that things don't change much: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wealthy-in-florence-today-are-the-same-families-as-600-years-ago-1463662410 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wealthy-in-florence-today-a...
- akomtu 4y ago
  No need to speculate. The US Dept. of Treasury has just created the Office of DEI and that's not an April 1st joke. Musk is simply going to get a low diversity score from that high office and prohibited, by a new statute, from owning more than 10% in a public company.
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    >Musk is simply going to get a low diversity score from that high office Musk is, bona fide, 100% African American. Checkmate, atheists.
- cellar_door 4y ago
  Don't worry, it'd just be seized and put in control of very competent and qualified "elected" members of The Party.
- Phenomenit 4y ago
  Progressive taxation to hundred percent for both individuals and corporations.
  - godshatter 4y ago
    Well that's one way to get them to leave the country, I guess.
  - sakopov 4y ago
    That's straight up fucking stupid. 100% tax is not a tax. That's theft.
    - misiti3780 4y ago
      the OP isnt serious.
- andbberger 4y ago
  snap my fingers and turn all corporations into worked owned cooperatives
seanw444 4y ago
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  > Also, for the love of God, stop calling it a democracy. The US is a democracy though
  - seanw444 4y ago
    It's a Constitutional Republic.
    - ickwabe 4y ago
      That's semantic sleight of hand. The US is clearly a representative democracy. One related opinion on this topic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/yes-constitution-democracy/616949/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/yes-consti...
      - throwaway2048 4y ago
      - seanw444 4y ago
        Yes, republics utilize some democracy. Are republics == democracy? No. Otherwise one of the two words wouldn't exist.
        the_only_law 4y ago
        If you’re only allowed a single word to represent anything, I’m afraid much of your sentence is incomprehensible because o many of those words simply can’t exist.
        colinmhayes 4y ago
        It's a square and rectangle situation. Republic is a subset of democracy.
ambrozk 4y ago
Exactly. It's sickening to see a billionaire like Elon Musk push around the ordinary people who currently own Twitter! (The ordinary people are Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, and State Street Corp.)
- honeybadger1 4y ago
  Lol, People don't care about facts brother, some people are just jealous and love to hate.
colordrops 4y ago
What is "the will of the people" with regards to Twitter?
- jdrc 4y ago
  The will of twitter employees
  - darthg0d 4y ago
    Do you think all Twitter employees have a say in how Twitter is run?
    - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
      I mean it's pretty obvious which side they're on: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/summary?id=D000067113 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/summary?id=D0000671...
      - kdtsh 4y ago
        Well, no, that just shows it’s obvious which side they’re not on. The Red and Blue are two very large tents.
- swalsh 4y ago
  You're only a people if you have a blue checkmark.
- Kye 4y ago
  Twitter couldn't exist in its current form without billions from billionaires carrying it through years of not being able to fund itself. It would have had to grow slowly, probably in some decentralized form like Mastodon did with people and organizations funding their own instances and linking up through a common protocol. The world would have been better for it. In a different universe, (for example) branches of governments run their own instances for politicians and candidates to speak on without having to worry about clashing with moderation policies that serve other use cases on other instances.
systemvoltage 4y ago
Zero to Tesla. It's not like he has hundreds of billions of dollars sitting in cash. Almost all of his wealth is in Tesla/SpaceX. He created value from basically zero. Didn't steal it from anyone.
krrrh 4y ago
Democracies are great, but they become weak when the majority crushes minority opinion and the chilling effects of a singular ideology makes it difficult for those without resources to speak their minds and openly engage in debate [1][2][3]. And this is even more true when there are few alternate centres of power outside of the state. Billionaires, along with NGOs, unions, etc, provide these alternative centres of power that are essential when a perspective or ideology becomes too hegemonic. This is even more obvious when the whole point of what Elon is doing is trying to do right now is to make twitter a more free, fun, and open platform for people who don't have the fuck you money that he has managed to earn. Of course the other utility of billionaires is that when they've earned it themselves they have shown some skill at allocating capital, and can pursue important societal goals that government or existing corporations have proven incapable of, like space flight, electric cars, better urban mass transit, brain-computer interfaces, etc.. None of those achievements seem important to people who have decided that Elon == bad for whatever transgression they believe is more important. [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-shows-people-have-never-been-more-afraid-to-speak-their-minds-301420083.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-shows-peo... [2] https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-th... [3] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/12/22/cancel-culture-what-views-are-britons-afraid-expre https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/1...
- colechristensen 4y ago
  You can't just have two possible opinions in society, we've been going more in that direction and it is quite hostile to freedom. Love him or hate him, Elon adds value because he has a lot of power which isn't at all aligned with either of the two dominating opinions in America.
- seoaeu 4y ago
  Important to whom? The same power that lets a billionaire develop spaceflight can also be used to instigate an ecological disaster, roll back human rights, or unleash killer robots.
cwkoss 4y ago
Bold of you to think the US has a functioning democracy
annexrichmond 4y ago
How is this argument relevant? What difference is it whether person A with billions of dollars or person B with billions of dollars of net worth owns Twitter? Democracy? No one is forcing anyone to use Twitter. Current users are free to leave.
hstan4 4y ago
Shouldn’t be allowed? What’s the magic number the government will stop allowing one to accrue wealth?

rwmj 4y ago

That, or they piss it away on vanity projects like this and level themselves downwards in the process.

hatsubishi 4y ago

akie 4y ago
It seems to me that you are actually the one who doesn't understand how extreme concentration of wealth has the potential to steer and disrupt societies.
CoastalCoder 4y ago
Your comment seems to cover a lot of territory, but it's not very specific. If you'd like to go deeper on a single line of criticism of the GP, I'd be interested in reading it.

misiti3780 4y ago

If you were our supreme leader, how would you prevent private individuals like Musk, Bezos, etc from acquiring their wealth, given it is tied up in the value of very useful companies they created ?

matsemann 4y ago
Perhaps by sharing that value with others in the company, thus diluting it from any one person. Like, there are tens of thousands slaving for these big companies, and a few on top reaping the rewards.
- misiti3780 4y ago
  Wait, I thought every Tesla employees has to ability to buy the stock at a discount? https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/automobile/do-tesla-employees-make-more-than-their-other-ev-industry-counterparts-7771041.html https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/automobile/do-tesla-employ... Also, your solution is now how risk/reward works. The employees starting at Tesla today are not entitled to large amounts of the company because they are coming in on a sure thing. The early employees did get a lot of stock. I personally know someone that worked for tesla in sales in 2008 who walked way from 200K shares because he thought they were worthless.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
    Not a Tesla employee, but I bought thousands of TSLA stocks since 2012. Why? Because I was already a spoiled child whereas my coworkers haven't inherited shit and had to pay for their education. I'm a multimillionaire, just from TSLA. Now, my wealth is mostly financial so my tax rate is coming down as I get richer because I earn far more from the stock market than from work. How stupid and unfair is this? We're always focusing on those who earn more their hard work but most people winning are just benefiting from unfair advantages. It's so obvious when this happens to you but I guess few admit that in order to keep some pride in their situation.
    - SuoDuanDao 4y ago
      but your parents (or their parents if this goes back a number of generations) already did a lot of hard work to make that possible no?
      - rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
        No. You can go back 600 years (!) and find that things don't change much: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wealthy-in-florence-today-are-the-same-families-as-600-years-ago-1463662410 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wealthy-in-florence-today-a...
akomtu 4y ago
No need to speculate. The US Dept. of Treasury has just created the Office of DEI and that's not an April 1st joke. Musk is simply going to get a low diversity score from that high office and prohibited, by a new statute, from owning more than 10% in a public company.
- TMWNN 4y ago
  >Musk is simply going to get a low diversity score from that high office Musk is, bona fide, 100% African American. Checkmate, atheists.
cellar_door 4y ago
Don't worry, it'd just be seized and put in control of very competent and qualified "elected" members of The Party.
Phenomenit 4y ago
Progressive taxation to hundred percent for both individuals and corporations.
- godshatter 4y ago
  Well that's one way to get them to leave the country, I guess.
- sakopov 4y ago
  That's straight up fucking stupid. 100% tax is not a tax. That's theft.
  - misiti3780 4y ago
    the OP isnt serious.
andbberger 4y ago
snap my fingers and turn all corporations into worked owned cooperatives

seanw444 4y ago

colinmhayes 4y ago
> Also, for the love of God, stop calling it a democracy. The US is a democracy though
- seanw444 4y ago
  It's a Constitutional Republic.
  - ickwabe 4y ago
    That's semantic sleight of hand. The US is clearly a representative democracy. One related opinion on this topic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/yes-constitution-democracy/616949/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/yes-consti...
    - throwaway2048 4y ago
    - seanw444 4y ago
      Yes, republics utilize some democracy. Are republics == democracy? No. Otherwise one of the two words wouldn't exist.
      - the_only_law 4y ago
        If you’re only allowed a single word to represent anything, I’m afraid much of your sentence is incomprehensible because o many of those words simply can’t exist.
      - colinmhayes 4y ago
        It's a square and rectangle situation. Republic is a subset of democracy.

ambrozk 4y ago

Exactly. It's sickening to see a billionaire like Elon Musk push around the ordinary people who currently own Twitter! (The ordinary people are Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, and State Street Corp.)

honeybadger1 4y ago
Lol, People don't care about facts brother, some people are just jealous and love to hate.

colordrops 4y ago

What is "the will of the people" with regards to Twitter?

jdrc 4y ago
The will of twitter employees
- darthg0d 4y ago
  Do you think all Twitter employees have a say in how Twitter is run?
  - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
    I mean it's pretty obvious which side they're on: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/summary?id=D000067113 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/summary?id=D0000671...
    - kdtsh 4y ago
      Well, no, that just shows it’s obvious which side they’re not on. The Red and Blue are two very large tents.
swalsh 4y ago
You're only a people if you have a blue checkmark.
Kye 4y ago
Twitter couldn't exist in its current form without billions from billionaires carrying it through years of not being able to fund itself. It would have had to grow slowly, probably in some decentralized form like Mastodon did with people and organizations funding their own instances and linking up through a common protocol. The world would have been better for it. In a different universe, (for example) branches of governments run their own instances for politicians and candidates to speak on without having to worry about clashing with moderation policies that serve other use cases on other instances.

systemvoltage 4y ago

Zero to Tesla. It's not like he has hundreds of billions of dollars sitting in cash. Almost all of his wealth is in Tesla/SpaceX. He created value from basically zero. Didn't steal it from anyone.

krrrh 4y ago

Democracies are great, but they become weak when the majority crushes minority opinion and the chilling effects of a singular ideology makes it difficult for those without resources to speak their minds and openly engage in debate [1][2][3]. And this is even more true when there are few alternate centres of power outside of the state. Billionaires, along with NGOs, unions, etc, provide these alternative centres of power that are essential when a perspective or ideology becomes too hegemonic. This is even more obvious when the whole point of what Elon is doing is trying to do right now is to make twitter a more free, fun, and open platform for people who don't have the fuck you money that he has managed to earn. Of course the other utility of billionaires is that when they've earned it themselves they have shown some skill at allocating capital, and can pursue important societal goals that government or existing corporations have proven incapable of, like space flight, electric cars, better urban mass transit, brain-computer interfaces, etc.. None of those achievements seem important to people who have decided that Elon == bad for whatever transgression they believe is more important. [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-shows-people-have-never-been-more-afraid-to-speak-their-minds-301420083.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-shows-peo... [2] https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-th... [3] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/12/22/cancel-culture-what-views-are-britons-afraid-expre https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/1...

colechristensen 4y ago
You can't just have two possible opinions in society, we've been going more in that direction and it is quite hostile to freedom. Love him or hate him, Elon adds value because he has a lot of power which isn't at all aligned with either of the two dominating opinions in America.
seoaeu 4y ago
Important to whom? The same power that lets a billionaire develop spaceflight can also be used to instigate an ecological disaster, roll back human rights, or unleash killer robots.

cwkoss 4y ago

Bold of you to think the US has a functioning democracy

annexrichmond 4y ago

How is this argument relevant? What difference is it whether person A with billions of dollars or person B with billions of dollars of net worth owns Twitter? Democracy? No one is forcing anyone to use Twitter. Current users are free to leave.

hstan4 4y ago

Shouldn’t be allowed? What’s the magic number the government will stop allowing one to accrue wealth?