3 ms·

Earning a livelihood under the constraints of capitalism is hardly the same as hoarding wealth.

• philipallstar 1mo ago
  > under the constraints of capitalism What does this mean? Was life better in soviet Russia under Communism, or as a serf in feudal England? > hoarding wealth The claim was that they were motivated by greed because they weren't doing things for zero benefit. My challenge was that it's normal to do things for pay and it shouldn't be evidence of being motivated by greed.
  • danaris 1mo ago
    It means we live in a world (especially in the US) where if you aren't earning money, you die within months. Unless you are one of the tiny fraction of people who have enough wealth to live without an earned income—like the heads of all the LLM companies are. Anyone who has enough wealth to maintain roughly their current standard of living for the rest of their life, and still works in a job with a 6+ figure compensation, is doing it out of greed.
    • philipallstar 1mo ago
      > It means we live in a world (especially in the US) where if you aren't earning money, you die within months What are you talking about? 11% of Americans (or rather, people in America) are on SNAP benefits[0]. And that's just food; there are lots of other benefits as well. America spends the most in the world on welfare, as a real number and as a % of GDP. [0] https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-receive-government-assistance https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-receive-govern...
      • danaris 1mo ago
        Benefits which are laborious to apply for, many who should don't qualify, structured to make you feel ashamed of having them, and getting cut repeatedly by the GOP.