I like the "Stone-Age billionaires" line, and agree with the general anti-anti-billionaire sentiment (because most anti-billionaire people have horrible arguments)...but I do find the pro-billionaire sentiment a touch awkward. Reasons:
1. As you note, billionaires are disproportionately likely to kill us all. 5 out of the 10 richest billionaires are associated with companies contributing directly to the AI race - this will get more extreme in the next 5 years. I don't think x% wealth tax will do anything to stop this, but kinda feels dodgy protesting in favour of the demographic that may be about to recklessly destroy us... I wouldn't be able to bring myself to protest alongside "Billionaires Build The Future" placards.
2. Billionaires also do lots of other shitty stuff. You've got owners of clearly-net-negative companies like factory farming billionaires, and all the Russian/Middle-Eastern rent-extracting billionaires; and owners of genuinely harmful tech companies like ByteDance. I'm the first to applaud the few billionaires who do produce disproportionate utility benefit for humanity (Dustin Moskovitz, Bill Gates) and I don't have a super strong opinion on whether the world would be better with billionaires or not (e.g. whether a very similar company/product would exist in a market economy with, say, arbitrary wealth limits), but the proportion of shitty billionaires dampens any pro-billionaire enthusiasm I might have.
3. A lot of the brilliant things that a dynamic market economy allows are fully compatible with anti-billionaire sentiment. There's decent evidence that a politically connected billionaire class (e.g. Russian oligarchs) is harmful for growth, and you see this everywhere. I don't think a wealth tax is a good solution, but I also think there needs to be very robust ways of limiting billionaires' influence, while also maximising the benefits of a free market.
Even if the protesters are shouting dumb slogans, I do think it comes from an accurate feeling about how much dishonorable wealth is generated by the billionaire class. Is very hard to break a monopoly of a corporation that's bigger, wealthier, and more powerful than a small country. Monopolies destroy wealth and I can't help but notice how make billionaires sit at the top of some monopoly.
Good brain storming, except we definitely need to keep *altering* the deal, just not abolish it. Especially if AI takes off fast and we don’t all die.
And just in general, we don’t have the fairest/best rules we’ve had in modern society history at the moment, let alone the best rules we realistically could have.
I fully agree with the Code. Amount of Stuff is not static. That said, I don’t believe that all the billionaires got there The Honourable Way, or even most of them.
While total Stuff is growing, political weight isn’t, it’s zero sum. In theory, one isn’t supposed to buy political weight, while in practice it’s obvious that even in the west power is for sale.
That itself would be bad, but power then can be used to effectively steal and get more wealth. At which point most of the billionaires are closer to the kings than merchant class.
I think this is where most people are coming from, even if they’re unable to articulate it. They’re cheering on Luigi, because they see health insurance executives as having broken the social contract, as traitors to the tribe, the same way you would cheer someone offing an abusive Baron that ruled over you. (Is this counterproductive? Most likely, I don’t agree with people cheering for murder or mob justice. But understanding where they are coming from is useful.)
your inability to understand the animus against billionaires is pure autism. autism is a disability.
> This Code has led to many people pursuing Honorable Wealth rather than the old methods of Conquest, Slavery, and Theft.
What delusional failure of your history education led you to believe that billionaires stopped using conquest, slavery, and theft? You believe in the myth of the good billionaire even as the maga fascists enshrine an oligarchy which is sending ICE to murder US citizens and round up non-criminal immigrants.
> But in the USA, the majority of our billionaires have made their wealth by Honorable means.
Sounds like stupid idiot feelings. If billionaires are so honorable, why are so many people ready to end their lives? Yes that's tautological, shut up and actually think about whether it's probable that your stupid little idiot flock got it wrong and the people with social cues got it right.
To be clear, I believe wealth inequality is bad for capitalism and ending wealth inequality requires WEALTH CONFISCATION, but I don't weep for dead billionaires, and neither should you.
Your problem is you think billionaires create wealth, but billionaires just fund Labor. Your fundamental attribution error is that you think of yourself as temporarily embarrassed billionaire rather than Labor, but if you are showing up for the billionaires, you are their labor, and you do it for free! So fucking funny.
The capacity for billionaires to siphon away dollars doesn't mean they are the generators of value. Elon Musk is a fucking nazi.
WEALTH INEQUALITY IS BAD FOR CAPITALISM. End the cartel power of billionaires! Confiscate their assets and reduce them from oligarchs to restore the value of the Code! Just because you have been slow to catch on to the degradation of the Code doesn't mean you can't be part of the effort to restore it, but pro billionaire autism is stupidity.
Appreciate the exercise in contrarianism when the anti-billionaire case seems so self-evident from Trump, Musk, Thiel, Bankman-Fried, Epstein, Zuckerberg, Altman...
However it is the system that created this unaccountable power that is bad, not the individual actors, even when it's cartoon villainy like Epstein. We could at least make the system more accountable, if the system cannot be changed.
> We’re all Stone Age Billionaires
I think this would've been a clearer message while still being short enough to fit on a picket sign (but hindsight is 20/20)
Regardless, I liked your sign the best, although maybe I'm biased because I read your whole explanation behind it
You words very good! Thank you for taking the time to attend and for this thoughtful write-up!
I like the "Stone-Age billionaires" line, and agree with the general anti-anti-billionaire sentiment (because most anti-billionaire people have horrible arguments)...but I do find the pro-billionaire sentiment a touch awkward. Reasons:
1. As you note, billionaires are disproportionately likely to kill us all. 5 out of the 10 richest billionaires are associated with companies contributing directly to the AI race - this will get more extreme in the next 5 years. I don't think x% wealth tax will do anything to stop this, but kinda feels dodgy protesting in favour of the demographic that may be about to recklessly destroy us... I wouldn't be able to bring myself to protest alongside "Billionaires Build The Future" placards.
2. Billionaires also do lots of other shitty stuff. You've got owners of clearly-net-negative companies like factory farming billionaires, and all the Russian/Middle-Eastern rent-extracting billionaires; and owners of genuinely harmful tech companies like ByteDance. I'm the first to applaud the few billionaires who do produce disproportionate utility benefit for humanity (Dustin Moskovitz, Bill Gates) and I don't have a super strong opinion on whether the world would be better with billionaires or not (e.g. whether a very similar company/product would exist in a market economy with, say, arbitrary wealth limits), but the proportion of shitty billionaires dampens any pro-billionaire enthusiasm I might have.
3. A lot of the brilliant things that a dynamic market economy allows are fully compatible with anti-billionaire sentiment. There's decent evidence that a politically connected billionaire class (e.g. Russian oligarchs) is harmful for growth, and you see this everywhere. I don't think a wealth tax is a good solution, but I also think there needs to be very robust ways of limiting billionaires' influence, while also maximising the benefits of a free market.
I'm so old, I can remember when Bill Gates was evil.
Even if the protesters are shouting dumb slogans, I do think it comes from an accurate feeling about how much dishonorable wealth is generated by the billionaire class. Is very hard to break a monopoly of a corporation that's bigger, wealthier, and more powerful than a small country. Monopolies destroy wealth and I can't help but notice how make billionaires sit at the top of some monopoly.
Don't Eat Humans
Honorable Wealth Feeds The World
Success Is A Contribution. Not A Debt
Scarcity Is A Choice
Success Is Human
Peace Through Commerce
Stop Altering The Deal
Good brain storming, except we definitely need to keep *altering* the deal, just not abolish it. Especially if AI takes off fast and we don’t all die.
And just in general, we don’t have the fairest/best rules we’ve had in modern society history at the moment, let alone the best rules we realistically could have.
This was beautiful. Thank you for standing up for the Code!
Thanks for going through that weird experience and sharing it!
‘stone-age billionaire’ was great! :D
This is awesome! People talking in such dehumanizing ways about billionaires has always been deeply disgusting and disturbing to me
People disrupting speeches is such a disrespect to free speech - I don't think these people really understand the norms of liberal democracy
Oh hello it's my first block!
He now has a 1 year ban from here
I fully agree with the Code. Amount of Stuff is not static. That said, I don’t believe that all the billionaires got there The Honourable Way, or even most of them.
While total Stuff is growing, political weight isn’t, it’s zero sum. In theory, one isn’t supposed to buy political weight, while in practice it’s obvious that even in the west power is for sale.
That itself would be bad, but power then can be used to effectively steal and get more wealth. At which point most of the billionaires are closer to the kings than merchant class.
I think this is where most people are coming from, even if they’re unable to articulate it. They’re cheering on Luigi, because they see health insurance executives as having broken the social contract, as traitors to the tribe, the same way you would cheer someone offing an abusive Baron that ruled over you. (Is this counterproductive? Most likely, I don’t agree with people cheering for murder or mob justice. But understanding where they are coming from is useful.)
your inability to understand the animus against billionaires is pure autism. autism is a disability.
> This Code has led to many people pursuing Honorable Wealth rather than the old methods of Conquest, Slavery, and Theft.
What delusional failure of your history education led you to believe that billionaires stopped using conquest, slavery, and theft? You believe in the myth of the good billionaire even as the maga fascists enshrine an oligarchy which is sending ICE to murder US citizens and round up non-criminal immigrants.
> But in the USA, the majority of our billionaires have made their wealth by Honorable means.
Sounds like stupid idiot feelings. If billionaires are so honorable, why are so many people ready to end their lives? Yes that's tautological, shut up and actually think about whether it's probable that your stupid little idiot flock got it wrong and the people with social cues got it right.
To be clear, I believe wealth inequality is bad for capitalism and ending wealth inequality requires WEALTH CONFISCATION, but I don't weep for dead billionaires, and neither should you.
Your problem is you think billionaires create wealth, but billionaires just fund Labor. Your fundamental attribution error is that you think of yourself as temporarily embarrassed billionaire rather than Labor, but if you are showing up for the billionaires, you are their labor, and you do it for free! So fucking funny.
The capacity for billionaires to siphon away dollars doesn't mean they are the generators of value. Elon Musk is a fucking nazi.
WEALTH INEQUALITY IS BAD FOR CAPITALISM. End the cartel power of billionaires! Confiscate their assets and reduce them from oligarchs to restore the value of the Code! Just because you have been slow to catch on to the degradation of the Code doesn't mean you can't be part of the effort to restore it, but pro billionaire autism is stupidity.
Sign Ideas for Next Time:
“I Feel Like It Shouldn’t Need to Be Said That Lynching is Bad But Here We Are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
“I Don’t Care How Much Money Jeff Bezos Has and It’s Weird That You Do”
“You Know Most of Their Wealth is Fake, Right? I Feel Like Thats an Important Point to Emphasize”
“Fuck Elon Musk, But Mostly Just for the Nazi Shit Actually; That’s Fucked Up No Matter How Much Money You Have. I Mean Honestly”
“Hundred-Thousandaires Suck a Lot Too and Y’all Are Letting Them Off the Hook Entirely Too Easily with this Billionaire Shit.”
LOL, brilliant :)
Appreciate the exercise in contrarianism when the anti-billionaire case seems so self-evident from Trump, Musk, Thiel, Bankman-Fried, Epstein, Zuckerberg, Altman...
However it is the system that created this unaccountable power that is bad, not the individual actors, even when it's cartoon villainy like Epstein. We could at least make the system more accountable, if the system cannot be changed.