Should Billionaires Exist?

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@Rhakim is there a 1st world economy today that doesn't exploit as you define exploitation? :ld:
No, the entire world's economy is trapped together. The history of Western imperialism/intervention since the late 1800s has basically been a series of invasions, bombings, or orchestrated coups against anyone who didn't get with the program. That's the literal definition of a "Banana Republic" - it's the term for a country that tried to end the exploitation of its own people and was invaded by the USA and had a puppet government imposed on it for the benefit of Dole bananas instead. Look up the overthrow of the Iranian shah (who was nationalizing oil for the socialist benefit of the people) or the CIA-orchestrated coup against the first free African socialist country in Ghana for more classic examples.
 

Professor Emeritus

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its because I dont see the need to change it.
I agree. Everything in this conversation points to you being completely ignorant of runaway environmental destruction, the state of 3rd-world slums, or the self-defeating requirements of the system.


You keep saying exploitation but never accountability for the purchasers. Their is nothing stopping people from sliding the credit card or dollars back into their wallet and saying "not a necessity"

you look at poor people as a quantity problem. I see it as an education and cultural problem.
This is starting to strike me as a Dunning-Kruger issue. You keep ignoring everything I say, failing to see that the current system literally requires some people to fail and be destitute or it cannot go on. You've completely ignored everything I've said and just keep repeating your same platitudes even though they're at odds with the explicit nature of the system.



folk really think all these business owners are Dr Blight and Loot and Plunder @Rhakim
Once again, you're using mockery because you're unable to respond to a single one of my arguments. I can't even tell if you've understood any of the arguments yet. Again, possibly a Dunning-Kruger issue.



exploitation, corruption of public officials, bribery you name it. Its a disease of the mind. That is what poverty is my friends. The inability to see abundance :wow: but only scarcity

this assumption keeps you poor.
:mjlol:

Don't for a second try to claim that you don't read those get-rich-quick pyramid scheme books/pamphlets. :mjlol:
 

Professor Emeritus

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In Africa...

Life expectancy rose from 54 years in 2000 to 62 years in 2015. Infant mortality declined from 80 deaths per 1,000 live births to 49 deaths over the same time period. When it comes to HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, occurrence, detection, treatment and survival rates have all improved. Food supply exceeds 2,500 calories per person per day (U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends consumption of 2,000 calories) and famines have disappeared outside of warzones. Primary, secondary and tertiary school enrollments have never been higher.

:blessed:
...we are moving in the right direction.
You negative Nancy’s just can’t accept it because it’s under the umbrella of capitalism.

...you want to paint anything short of the goalpost you want us aiming for as a failure.
Disingenuous bullshyt, pulling a comparison to the bottom part of a curve and then pretending we're seeing constant improvement:

images


African life expectancies were completely shot due to the ravages of colonialism, started to rebound towards barely acceptable levels during the freedom era, then crashed again due to AIDS. Now that the AIDS epidemic is coming under control (largely due to a concentrated global effort with LOTS of state sponsorship and "socialism" from the efforts of groups like Paul Farmer's Partners in Health), life expetancies have rebounded back to status quo.

You tried to pull one of those "let's compare to the low point in the curve" bullshyt statistical tactics, you really should apologize for that.

Africa is currently seeing a momentary cash influx as the last of its resources are being sold off. China, India, and the West are paying for oil, minerals, forests, endangered species parts, etc. All of those things are rapidly decreasing. The result of that cash influx? Single-export economies like Nigeria where corruption reigns, conflict diamonds, conflict gold, and conflict oil across the continent, deeper indebtedness to China (you see the port that just got handed over?), massive deforestation in many countries, ongoing wars over resources, and the near-extinction of many of Africa's definitive wildlife.

A small portion of that cash influx momentarily supports increased school and food support. But since the resources are all non-renewable, what happens when they run out?
 

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Those tribes youre talking about are marginal examples in the overall picture.

Egyptian pharoahs didnt have slaves build their empire? or other countless dynasties? It has always been enslaved people building the kingdom. Look at recent times, Dubai. That entire place was built on slave labor/indentured servants. Were talking the last few decades, look of videos of how dubai was built and now its one of the biggest cities in the world. No one said shyt. Even the the term billionaire might be new its not different. Technology and society has evolved to the point where you actually believe you can make a difference.

Im not saying I agree with it, Im not saying its good. Im just saying you cant change human nature. And I see so many people on here think they have all the answers. think that voting or raising taxes will do anything. Even if you got rid of all the billionaires new ones would take their place.

Breh, tribes like that were the vast majority of human society for the vast majority of the history of the species. It's the Egyptian pharoahs you speak of that were a blip on the map. The Pharoahs were one of very few societies of their time who were organized on that level, and "their time" was just a few thousand years ago while the human species in hundreds of thousands of years old.

Homo sapiens is the only extant human species. The name is Latin for "wise man" and was introduced in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus (who is himself the lectotype for the species).

Extinct species of the genus Homo include Homo erectus, extant from roughly 1.9 to 0.4 million years ago, and a number of other species (by some authors considered subspecies of either H. sapiens or H. erectus). The age of speciation of H. sapiens out of ancestral H. erectus (or an intermediate species such as Homo antecessor) is estimated to have been roughly 350,000 years ago. Sustained archaic admixture is known to have taken place both in Africa and (following the recent Out-Of-Africa expansion) in Eurasia, between about 100,000 and 30,000 years ago.[4]

When you claim that "human nature" is something that has only existed for the last few thousands of years, while our species is hundreds of thousands of years old, it is clear that you're being short-sighted. It's actually most innately "human" to be social and to cooperate, that's the only way that our relatively physically weak species could survive against all the far nastier creatures we've had to deal with. If human tribes from most of human history had practiced cutthroat competition they would have torn themselves apart from the inside....which is, in the long run, exactly what happened to the Egyptians, Mayans, Inca, and all the other large hierarchical societies - they became weak and fell easily to outside threats due to their inherently corrupt structure. Even the Romans fell to simple tribal barbarians in the end.

I highly recommend reading Jared Diamond's "Collapse". You too @DEAD7. It points out why faulty societies always appear to be at their zenith at the exact moment before their downfall, and draws out how our current situation has parallels to previous collapses.a

The only thing that has placed cutthroat competition on top in recent history has been the advent of advanced technology, which gives small groups of people much more power to exert control over far larger groups. This is NOT impossible-to-overcome human nature, it is simply an aspect of human sinfulness that has always been there, was always fought against, and is simply more powerful for the moment due to the ability of the wealthy to wield artificial power.

Why Technology Favors Tyranny

But the fact that technology has made shyt worse doesn't mean we cannot fight it. We have to fight it if we want a better future than our past.
 

MMS

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I agree. Everything in this conversation points to you being completely ignorant of runaway environmental destruction, the state of 3rd-world slums, or the self-defeating requirements of the system.



This is starting to strike me as a Dunning-Kruger issue. You keep ignoring everything I say, failing to see that the current system literally requires some people to fail and be destitute or it cannot go on. You've completely ignored everything I've said and just keep repeating your same platitudes even though they're at odds with the explicit nature of the system.




Once again, you're using mockery because you're unable to respond to a single one of my arguments. I can't even tell if you've understood any of the arguments yet. Again, possibly a Dunning-Kruger issue.




:mjlol:

Don't for a second try to claim that you don't read those get-rich-quick pyramid scheme books/pamphlets. :mjlol:
this is what happens when you're guilty of your own accusations :dead:

like i said: you never sold nothing in your life and couldnt be bothered to try. Surely asking for more will work :feedme: ....:mjlol: good life strategy

i got to give that civic dude credit cause his flat earth argument tactics have become normal now :skip: just ignore whats said and assume your position must be correct
 

rapbeats

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That would be nice but it's naive. Most honest "joe/jane" just want to live a normal life and the ones who aspire for political office are typicaly bad human beings. There have been studies about why so many narcassist and psycopathic people run for office.

and it has always been the way. A kingdom or empire ruling over a region of enslaved people, or those that pay tribute. Maybe in small pockets you have tribes and communities that lived different but for thousands of years that was the case. So anyone that says they are going to make it different by "voting" sounds ridiculous to me.



but it does exist, its en-grained in the human species. Humans are a warlike species and while YOU might be enlightened and civilized the vast majority of others on the planet will kill and rape and war over resources. No amount of laws and legislation is going to change thousands of years of human instinct.



Those tribes youre talking about are marginal examples in the overall picture.

Egyptian pharoahs didnt have slaves build their empire? or other countless dynasties? It has always been enslaved people building the kingdom. Look at recent times, Dubai. That entire place was built on slave labor/indentured servants. Were talking the last few decades, look of videos of how dubai was built and now its one of the biggest cities in the world. No one said shyt. Even the the term billionaire might be new its not different. Technology and society has evolved to the point where you actually believe you can make a difference.

Im not saying I agree with it, Im not saying its good. Im just saying you cant change human nature. And I see so many people on here think they have all the answers. think that voting or raising taxes will do anything. Even if you got rid of all the billionaires new ones would take their place.
actually you're telling a small part of the truth not the entire truth. truth is PEOPLE in general are not a WARING PEOPLE. SOME are, and some are not.

It is true, early stages on earth, there were tribes here in america, in africa, probably in the cold parts as well. where some were mild mannered, that were the money/barter and trade types, you then had the types that shared everything with everyone no questions asked, then you had the ones that would only fight when forced to(i call them defender tribes), and then you had the war lovers(the fighter tribes, going on the offense all the time.) everyone has never been the last version of humanity. we're all different.


you say the TYPE of people that go into politics are a certain type. not true either. there are different levels of politics, you're only thinking about someone who would run to be president. you're not talking about people that run for local office that are a lot different than those people you speak of. But here's the thing, the local people never want to move up for a few reasons. #1 they dont want the headache. #2 the headache comes from being bombarded to sell out by most involved, while those that dont want you to sell out are few. so if you're not a natural sell out you will have a very rough time in DC. this is what AOC has been talking about in her early months in DC.


Its not that sensible people that are not out to cheat people would run to be in congress or the president. its that they dont think they ever have enough people that think like them around. but thats slowly but surely becoming less of the case. it is voting. the reason we get the kind of scum we get is because not enough of the voting age people actually pay attention nor vote. and its a bad cycle. they dont believe in the "system" because they have never seen a 90% voting turnout to realize you can fix your own broke system by paying attention and voting for people that has your best interest at heart and will fight for you .but they also know they're no longer alone in the fight because there are millions of you supporting them vs a few thousand.
 

rapbeats

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here's the thing, on the surface the tweet is correct. Bezos is a citizen of the USA. he has a right to his opinion and he has ONE vote. so he can choose to vote for whoever he pleases. thats true democracy. The problem is, when you have billions and you start courting politicians, you're one vote starts turning into a vote of 1000's, 100's of 1000's of people to millions of people. we cant have that. one vote for each person, no matter what they make or earn or businesses are worth.
 

rapbeats

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I was questioning the pie/correlation.
More people have access to food and water than ever before, Moore people have access to proper sanitation than ever before, more people are literate than ever before, more people have access to the internet than ever before...
The speed of poverty alleviation(however you wish to define it) in the last 25 years has been historically unprecedented, as has the increase in billionaires.
This is in spite of adding 2 billion to the worlds population.

...and no one lives in extreme poverty in America which has by far the most billionaires.
This fixed pie, ‘were losing because they have billions’ just doesn’t ring true.

:picard: And leftist are openly calling for their murder in this thread.
Ya’ll wanna kill Jay-z and Oprah:mjcry: they just need to be taxed more ...
jayz sold drugs to hold himself down until his rap career took off. he then put that money up to pay DJ's to play his music(payola) and then used some of that blood money to back rocafella. and I glad to see a hood nucca go legit? YEP. But lets not fool ourselves. look at what he had to do to make it. and these are the only things we know happened. so a person had to kill his own community in order to get into the game. think about that for a moment. who gets a billi without harming people in the process? i bet you i can find some skeletons in Harpos closet to.
 

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jayz sold drugs to hold himself down until his rap career took off. he then put that money up to pay DJ's to play his music(payola) and then used some of that blood money to back rocafella. and I glad to see a hood nucca go legit? YEP. But lets not fool ourselves. look at what he had to do to make it. and these are the only things we know happened. so a person had to kill his own community in order to get into the game. think about that for a moment. who gets a billi without harming people in the process? i bet you i can find some skeletons in Harpos closet to.
So we should kill them...:picard:
 

rapbeats

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So we should kill them...:picard:
i never advocating for killing anyone. and taking them out wont stop another from sprouting.
we need to change the way we think of these things. you can see in this thread how warped peoples ideas are due to the last 30+ years of billionaire brainwashing. all the brokees siding with the ballers when they wont do the same for them. all due to that brainwashing and this idea that ONE day I'll be rich too and i dont want anyone to mess with my imaginary money.
 

EndDomination

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Looks like the French Revolutionary wannabes have arrived. “If we just kill all the rich people, all the problems will be fixed” headass :mjlol:
Went and brought in Napoleon right after :mjlol:
I don’t think you know what went on through the French Revolution, it’s motivations, it’s factions, or it’s result.
In theory, why not? But in their current form I wouldn't be sad if they were wiped out in some manner. I'm sure they think of us in much the same way.

Millionaires and billionaires aren't bad because of their wealth, but how they USE their wealth. Ultimately it leads to the masses being overworked and starved. It doesn't have to be that way either. How much money would they lose if there was less of a wage gap? The fact that many in that wealth class think that $15 an hour is a premium wage for low skilled work but any money that flows into their coffers, by fair means or foul, is never enough and should always be more as they have "worked hard" and "earned" it.

Most don't hate these idiots because they are rich, it's because they are just horrible people in general.
Acquisition of their wealth is just as horrid as their actual use of wealth.
Manipulation of our channels of commerce and communication, monopolization, destructive policies to bleed nation-states of their capital, etc.
Is there a functioning present day system anywhere(preferably in a 1st world country) that doesn’t exploit? :leostare:
Or are you continually comparing reality to an idea in your head?
I’m not comparing, the point is to advance beyond blanket exploitation.
I was questioning the pie/correlation.
More people have access to food and water than ever before, Moore people have access to proper sanitation than ever before, more people are literate than ever before, more people have access to the internet than ever before...
The speed of poverty alleviation(however you wish to define it) in the last 25 years has been historically unprecedented, as has the increase in billionaires.
This is in spite of adding 2 billion to the worlds population.

...and no one lives in extreme poverty in America which has by far the most billionaires.
This fixed pie, ‘were losing because they have billions’ just doesn’t ring true.

:picard: And leftist are openly calling for their murder in this thread.
Ya’ll wanna kill Jay-z and Oprah:mjcry: they just need to be taxed more ...
Quite a bit of this is incorrect; I don’t think a greater percentage of people have access to food and water, or the methods to produce food and capture water; and access to Internet is a recent phenomenon and that we are technologically capable of making to virtually every person on the planet with no “extreme methods.”

There are plenty of people that live in extreme poverty here in the US.
 

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But is there a functioning example of an exploitation free economy demonstrating its compatibility with human nature?:ld:
That's like claiming in 1944 that all mankind knows is war.

Every day there are myriad examples of "human nature" where people engage in business with each other without meaningful exploitation. The number of people who actually engaged in the nasty shyt is a very small portion of the human species. The problem is that we have a global economic system that gives all the power to those people and all the incentives to trying to become like those people. The way the vast majority of members of the human species actually treat the majority of people they interact with (especially in relatively closed or smaller systems where the people in question know each other) shows that exploitation is not a required part of human nature.
 
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