> is a race to the bottom; a tragedy of the commoners
And here I was thinking it was kind of a free market of governments helping keep politicians honest and competitive. You know, less like the two wolves and a sheep voting what to have for dinner.
> yacht building is one of the least morally defensible industries
Please enlighten us: in what “moral” way do you think people should be allowed to spend their own money?
There is a wonderful little story in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in which an highly productive essential worker kept receiving the smallest salary in the factory because his expenses (music records were his guilty pleasure) were deemed unimportant compared to the other workers' issues - until he just quit and the factory ran out of business.
> Please enlighten us: in what “moral” way do you think people should be allowed to spend their own money?
However they like - if it doesn't harm others.
> There is a wonderful little story in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
... Ewww.
So, tax-avoiding billionaires spending their ill gotten gains on giant sinkholes of money reminds you of a productive factory worker in a fictional story by a world renowned hypocrite?
I'm very confused why you think there's a connection, but I'd encourage you to think a little deeper and broader.
> That's an interesting mindset making you immediately assume that about billionaires.
Yes. I do assume that. It's one of the most clear and unambiguous assumptions that could possibly be made.
Ask Warren Buffett; he'll tell you - it's outright outrageous how little tax he pays.
Ask Trump - he'll tell you all about how he navigates a rigged system, and how the entrenched political types will never allow that to change.
Ask people who study inequality at the highest levels, like Rutger Bregman or Hans Rosling. It's basically impossible to become a billionaire without massive exploitation and damage.
> Again, your mindset. How is it working for you? Are you happy with your life so far?
Ayn Rand being a hypocrite has nothing to do with mindset; it's just a fact. You can look up the details of her life yourself, and how radically it diverged from her written work.
Perhaps you've hung your conscience on her just-so stories, as many of the world's most destructive people have before you.
> If you don't see the connection, it's you who should think deeper and broader.
Happy to - if you can explain to me how underpaying a productive factory worker is like preventing a billionaire buying a yacht.
Because it seems to me that you're making the comparison without accounting for scale, without accounting for negative externalities, and without an ounce of discernment of your own. Please, explain it to me - I can be slow.
Even if I had the time and the talent, still I wouldn't change your mind. If Ayn Rand couldn't, what chance do I have?!
I will just tell you that, as an old(ish) Eastern European I lived under both systems: with and without (official) rich people. And I know which one is better, both for me personally and for the society as whole.
I could tell you that same rules apply for both poor and rich and a system allowing the latter will motivate the former. That all people are selfish and want better and for them and theirs and allowing that desire to work will raise the whole society and benefit us all. That the value created for the society by a successful person is of an order of magnitude larger than the fraction they capture. That the world of plenty we are enjoying right now is owed to people doing everything to get ahead themselves.
But I think it would be better for you to just visit countries like Cuba, Venezuela, China or Russia and see for yourself how the quest for inequality only manages to spread unhappiness and misery equally. See how rich people will still exist but they will get there by illegal means while the society will be poorer in the process. How nature and the poor suffer even worse as the result.
Travel. Visit. See with your own eyes and think with your own brain. Apply those learnings in your own life and only then tell others how to spend their own hard-earned money.
Congratulations on what might be the weakest way to concede a debate I've ever seen.
> I lived under both systems
This isn't an either/or thing. Binary thinking is a terrible trap to fall into.
> Apply those learnings in your own life and only then tell others how to spend their own hard-earned money.
Hard earned? Billionaires?
... Do you think those billionaires are working literally millions of times harder or smarter than nurses, or janitors? Do you think they didn't come from enormous wealth? Do you think they didn't exploit thousands, tens of thousands, or millions of people to grow that wealth? These are answered questions, by the way.
Just fucking tax them. Then tax the yacht industry to pay for the environmental damage. Then they can buy whatever they like, as I've already said.
I write this message on a device built by a company started by a billionaire. Posted on a board created by another billionaire. I earn my family's living on a platform created by yet another billionaire. All self-made.
My (failed) aspiration to become a (b)millionaire has also created quantifiable value in this world, value that wouldn't have existed if I didn't think I have the chance to improve my lot in life.
All work is important, be it from janitors and nurses or billionaires. But the wealthy are already paying most of taxes in US. As they should. We are all benefiting from that. However, a system punishing certain people for their success will simply lead to less success in general.
> I write this message on a device built by a company started by a billionaire.
A device made with minerals mined by slaves. And what role, exactly, did this billionaire have in making phones? Did he buy other people's work and provide capital, or did he actually create anything?
> Posted on a board created by another billionaire.
Mr. Altman didn't invent the tech for boards. And his net worth is more like a quarter billion, afaik.
> a system punishing certain people for their success will simply lead to less success in general.
Who said anything about punishing people.
When the top tax rate was well over 90%, there was still plenty of innovation. Your arguments are tired talking points, crafted and sold by cynical goons.
> what role, exactly, did this billionaire have in making phones?
What role did the seed have in making the tree's fruits?
> Mr. Altman
It's PG who built HN. Wrote the software from scratch, too. And his role, as YC co-founder should have put him well above 1B. On paper, of course, as most billionaires actually are.
> Your arguments are tired talking points, crafted and sold by cynical goons.
Your arguments are crafted and sold by oppressors, dictators and tyrants everywhere. They propped a system that killed more people than nazism: communism.
> What role did the seed have in making the tree's fruits?
That's not an appropriate analogy here. Without a tree there would be no fruit - without billionaires, we'd still have phones.
> It's PG who built HN.
I stand corrected.
His net worth is estimated at 50m however. He's far closer in wealth to you and I than he is to a billionaire. ~900 million dollars closer.
Probably because he chose not to exploit his gifts in search of endless profit. He made choices to help people around him, instead of exploiting them to the hilt. He probably even pays something like his fair share of taxes, instead of paying dipshits to find loopholes to hide his money.
> Your arguments are crafted and sold by oppressors, dictators and tyrants everywhere.
Buddy, if oppressors and dictators and tyrants were talking about taxing billionaires and saving the environment then we'd have a very different world today.
No idea what planet you're on, but it seems like there's no getting through to you. Good luck to ye.
And here I was thinking it was kind of a free market of governments helping keep politicians honest and competitive. You know, less like the two wolves and a sheep voting what to have for dinner.
> yacht building is one of the least morally defensible industries
Please enlighten us: in what “moral” way do you think people should be allowed to spend their own money?
There is a wonderful little story in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in which an highly productive essential worker kept receiving the smallest salary in the factory because his expenses (music records were his guilty pleasure) were deemed unimportant compared to the other workers' issues - until he just quit and the factory ran out of business.