this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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This feels like kindergarten, but with billions of dollars. Gotta love capitalism
These guys would get expelled from kindergarten for antisocial behaviour!
The amount of people you have to exploit to make that much money guarantees all billionaires have some form of sociopathy and lack of empathy.
Never let anyone try and tell you otherwise. 100% Imagine having everything to keep you alive and still wanting to take more.
The way companies and ownership work that's actually quite possible and reasonable.
The count of shares you have represent how much control you have over a company.
If you own a company private or public that does well and you want to retain control of it, you need to own at least over 50% of the voting rights.
Wanting to control your company isn't that outlandish a desire. There have been plenty of stories of people getting ousted over the years.
Simply owning a company that does well could result in you becoming a billionaire.
And I'm not arguing against what the other poster said, to get to that point there's gotta be some level of ruthlessness, disregard for others etc.
Just that there is actually a reason to desire more even if you have all your needs met. Being rich shouldn't mean you have to give up control, and its really hard to change corporate structure once public.
Facebook for example is set up where Zuckerberg has >50% voting rights. Is that bad? Probably. But it's his company, and I don't fault him for wanting to keep it that way.
Edit: and yes I'm aware of Zucks fuckery to get / maintain that share and his co-founders
all billionaires have some form of sociopathy and lack of empathy
Sure. But that doesn't negate a real motive/desire for more thats unrelated to that.
So a sociopath with little empathy is allowed to have insane power because we don't want to negate what you think is a natural human desire for more? That same desire which we are arguing is sociopathic? You are empathizing with billionaires and defending disparity because we don't want to dampen the human spirit which you feel is centered around desire? I'm not baiting you anymore just curious how you end up with such a different view, unless you are a billionaire... You crafted this odd story of ownership to illustrate a point and its only providing me evidence of the sickness that started this conversation...
A natural desire to manage what they created or regain that control if they (willingly) gave it up and regret the decision.
The idea that people have that they can just rip away control of a company from someone because it made them rich is frankly, disgusting.
There's really only two ways to become a billionaire, and that's investing, or owning a company, so it's not really a odd story to come up with.
Glad I'm not you... all I can say... see ya around
How can we control a kindergartener with unlimited money and ressources just to, you know, make sure they don't destroy everything around them? Like little kids do?
That is my biggest fear for our future. It's not a grumpy AI-engineer or evil dictator who wants to destroy humanity. It's a handful of people with unlimited ressources who can decide if we go forward or not. And total power corrupts, that's just a fact.
None of us will never be truly free as long as they exist
Welcome to the whole history of humanity.