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No billionaire will ever be a net positive to society. The wealth he accrued was literally stolen from the labour of millions of people. No token donations at t

No billionaire will ever be a net positive to society. The wealth he accrued was literally stolen from the labour of millions of people. No token donations at the end of your life will ever remediate that situation.

bombcar 1y ago
I don't even think you need to go that far - nobody who is not at least somewhat sociopathic will even become a billionaire (Buffett, that includes you) - because they'll happily step off the rat race at 10 or 100 million.
gambiting 1y ago
>> The wealth he accrued was literally stolen from the labour of millions of people. It's such a weird take I don't even know where to begin. Are you suggesting that all people who worked at Microsoft to make Windows and IE and all their other products had their labour "stolen" from them? If yes, can you expand on that? What do you do for a living? Do you perform some kind of a job that you get compensated for? If yes, do you also feel like you're being stolen from?
- Nullabillity 1y ago
  > It's such a weird take I don't even know where to begin. Are you suggesting that all people who worked at Microsoft to make Windows and IE and all their other products had their labour "stolen" from them? If yes, can you expand on that? We have a metric for the difference between what you charge for something and what you paid to provide it, it's called net income. Here's Microsoft's: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/net... Elsewhere, we tend to call that embezzlement.
  - gambiting 1y ago
    That's not embezzlement by any definition of the word. >>What do you do for a living? Do you perform some kind of a job that you get compensated for? If yes, do you also feel like you're being stolen from? Care to reply to this?
    - Nullabillity 1y ago
      > That's not embezzlement by any definition of the word. This is just mental gymnastics on the level of "it's not murder when the military does it!". > Care to reply to this? No, because it's not relevant to the discussion.
      - gambiting 1y ago
        >>This is just mental gymnastics on the level of "it's not murder when the military does it!". What definition of embezzlement includes both parties willingly engaging in exchange of labour for financial compensation? I think you are right, there is mental gymnastic happening, just not where you think it is. >>No, because it's not relevant to the discussion. How so?
cjustin 1y ago
I often see this sentiment whenever a billionaire is in conversation, but I don't understand. Can you elaborate on how his wealth was "stolen" from people? The way I see it, he's wealthy because he founded a wildly successful technology company by first creating something of value (MS-DOS). Microsoft has since grown to be one of the largest companies in the world, which hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily work for in exchange for a high salary, at least for engineers.
- vinceguidry 1y ago
  Billionaires become billionaires because of preferential treatment by governments, not out of any kind of merit. There are lots of better things the world could have had, Linux and the software commons would be much much much better if Microsoft hadn't hired all the best software engineers to make proprietary software and if the federal government hadn't coddled it and overlooked its monopolistic practices. The Internet would be a much better place without the likes of Google and Microsoft throwing their weight around. It's perfectly accurate to say that billionaires steal from the public, it's just that what's being stolen isn't easily quantifiable because it's effectively 'potential'. Think of the constant enshittification of everything and you get a sense for what's being stolen.
  - Lalabadie 1y ago
    Correct. When billionaires gain money, they gain it personally. When several billionaires start losing money, it's a recession.
  - Rebelgecko 1y ago
    Why did Bill Gates get preferential treatment for his operating system over others like Steve Jobs or Vinod Khosla? Government connections?
    - vinceguidry 1y ago
      Sure. They ask him for government backdoors, to add stuff to it for military purposes. It's quid pro quo. Bill Gates gets to capture the lion's share of the wealth from his government-protected monopoly with all its anti-competitive practices and the public is left out in the cold.

bombcar 1y ago

I don't even think you need to go that far - nobody who is not at least somewhat sociopathic will even become a billionaire (Buffett, that includes you) - because they'll happily step off the rat race at 10 or 100 million.

gambiting 1y ago

>> The wealth he accrued was literally stolen from the labour of millions of people. It's such a weird take I don't even know where to begin. Are you suggesting that all people who worked at Microsoft to make Windows and IE and all their other products had their labour "stolen" from them? If yes, can you expand on that? What do you do for a living? Do you perform some kind of a job that you get compensated for? If yes, do you also feel like you're being stolen from?

Nullabillity 1y ago
> It's such a weird take I don't even know where to begin. Are you suggesting that all people who worked at Microsoft to make Windows and IE and all their other products had their labour "stolen" from them? If yes, can you expand on that? We have a metric for the difference between what you charge for something and what you paid to provide it, it's called net income. Here's Microsoft's: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/net... Elsewhere, we tend to call that embezzlement.
- gambiting 1y ago
  That's not embezzlement by any definition of the word. >>What do you do for a living? Do you perform some kind of a job that you get compensated for? If yes, do you also feel like you're being stolen from? Care to reply to this?
  - Nullabillity 1y ago
    > That's not embezzlement by any definition of the word. This is just mental gymnastics on the level of "it's not murder when the military does it!". > Care to reply to this? No, because it's not relevant to the discussion.
    - gambiting 1y ago
      >>This is just mental gymnastics on the level of "it's not murder when the military does it!". What definition of embezzlement includes both parties willingly engaging in exchange of labour for financial compensation? I think you are right, there is mental gymnastic happening, just not where you think it is. >>No, because it's not relevant to the discussion. How so?

cjustin 1y ago

I often see this sentiment whenever a billionaire is in conversation, but I don't understand. Can you elaborate on how his wealth was "stolen" from people? The way I see it, he's wealthy because he founded a wildly successful technology company by first creating something of value (MS-DOS). Microsoft has since grown to be one of the largest companies in the world, which hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily work for in exchange for a high salary, at least for engineers.

vinceguidry 1y ago
Billionaires become billionaires because of preferential treatment by governments, not out of any kind of merit. There are lots of better things the world could have had, Linux and the software commons would be much much much better if Microsoft hadn't hired all the best software engineers to make proprietary software and if the federal government hadn't coddled it and overlooked its monopolistic practices. The Internet would be a much better place without the likes of Google and Microsoft throwing their weight around. It's perfectly accurate to say that billionaires steal from the public, it's just that what's being stolen isn't easily quantifiable because it's effectively 'potential'. Think of the constant enshittification of everything and you get a sense for what's being stolen.
- Lalabadie 1y ago
  Correct. When billionaires gain money, they gain it personally. When several billionaires start losing money, it's a recession.
- Rebelgecko 1y ago
  Why did Bill Gates get preferential treatment for his operating system over others like Steve Jobs or Vinod Khosla? Government connections?
  - vinceguidry 1y ago
    Sure. They ask him for government backdoors, to add stuff to it for military purposes. It's quid pro quo. Bill Gates gets to capture the lion's share of the wealth from his government-protected monopoly with all its anti-competitive practices and the public is left out in the cold.