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I'm not sure I'd say the QoL for the ultra-rich has been improved that much. They have a lot more money, but end up spending it mostly on updated versions of t

I'm not sure I'd say the QoL for the ultra-rich has been improved that much. They have a lot more money, but end up spending it mostly on updated versions of the same stuff rich people have always spent money on. There is a serious diminishing returns on how much money can improve your Quality of Life. It can even become a burden as a level of extreme wealth can start to become its own obligation.

znpy 2y ago
> I'm not sure I'd say the QoL for the ultra-rich has been improved that much. It has. What you’re missing is that everybody on this forum is part of the top one percent: it all depends on the scale. On a global scale, if you live in the west, most likely you’re in the top 1%.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  > What you’re missing is that everybody on this forum is part of the top one percent Hardly. People here have a higher-than-one-percent chance of being in the top 1%, but it's a long way from "everyone here". > On a global scale, if you live in the west, most likely you’re in the top 1%. Obviously wrong. The global population is 8 billion; the US plus the EU is about 700 million.
  - thusky 2y ago
    And you have a not insignificant number of 1%ers in Saudi Arabia and China, and scattered around the rest of the world as well. Wasn't the CEO of Alibaba the richest person in the world for a minute circa 2020?
nosianu 2y ago
That's it's not about how much money they use for their lifestyles, it's about how much of the economy you control. The more, the more interesting projects you can do - see Elon Musk. Of course he could live just as well with a fraction of what he owns now, but his control over so much is what allows him to do "cool stuff". Being ultra-rich is more about controlling society's destiny, not about how one lives. Whether that's hood or bad is hard to say without checking what a specific person does with all that control, and what would the others do if the control was not so centralized in so few.
- jandrese 2y ago
  Shame that "cool stuff" is almost always "buy media outlets to propagandize against taxes" and "buy politicians to lower my taxes". `

znpy 2y ago

> I'm not sure I'd say the QoL for the ultra-rich has been improved that much. It has. What you’re missing is that everybody on this forum is part of the top one percent: it all depends on the scale. On a global scale, if you live in the west, most likely you’re in the top 1%.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
> What you’re missing is that everybody on this forum is part of the top one percent Hardly. People here have a higher-than-one-percent chance of being in the top 1%, but it's a long way from "everyone here". > On a global scale, if you live in the west, most likely you’re in the top 1%. Obviously wrong. The global population is 8 billion; the US plus the EU is about 700 million.
- thusky 2y ago
  And you have a not insignificant number of 1%ers in Saudi Arabia and China, and scattered around the rest of the world as well. Wasn't the CEO of Alibaba the richest person in the world for a minute circa 2020?

nosianu 2y ago

That's it's not about how much money they use for their lifestyles, it's about how much of the economy you control. The more, the more interesting projects you can do - see Elon Musk. Of course he could live just as well with a fraction of what he owns now, but his control over so much is what allows him to do "cool stuff". Being ultra-rich is more about controlling society's destiny, not about how one lives. Whether that's hood or bad is hard to say without checking what a specific person does with all that control, and what would the others do if the control was not so centralized in so few.

jandrese 2y ago
Shame that "cool stuff" is almost always "buy media outlets to propagandize against taxes" and "buy politicians to lower my taxes". `