this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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politics

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[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

well give your money away to non billionaire owned charities until you are not a billionaire?

[–] oppy1984@lemdro.id 7 points 6 days ago
[–] turdburglar@piefed.social 5 points 6 days ago

bob odenkirk is playing him in the netflix movie

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 1 points 6 days ago

Better Call Saul is having a reboot after 45 years since the last episode.

[–] Wytch@lemmy.zip 77 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Is this the first pick-me billionaire, trying to keep his head off the block?

[–] osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org 46 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Most Billionaires didn't get that way by being stupid and will recognize that this is a cascade failure scenario.

Cant be on top if the whole Jenga tower gets kicked over.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

It’s not just a French Revolution style scenario they have to worry about. Look at what has happened to some Russian billionaires. Not so fun enjoying the playboy lifestyle when you’re afraid to drink tea or get anywhere near an open window.

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Then why didn't they stop building their dragon hoards back before a decent chunk of society started calling for their heads?

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Dragon hoard doesn’t really describe what it’s like.

It’s more like going in to work every day, like everybody else at the office, sitting in meetings all day, and then watching the stock price shoot up until one day your net worth crosses 1,000,000,000.

It’s like getting a high score in a video game. There’s no mountain of cash in some warehouse. It’s just a number on a screen.

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You seem like you're doing your best to downplay all the amoral decisions that exploit millions of people in your description of a passive income generating a billion dollars. No one generates a billion dollars passively and no one does it without ignoring a significant amount of suffering along the way.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world -2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Do you have an example of a particular billionaire you’d like to discuss?

My example would be Google. Founded in 1998, IPO in 2004. That’s essentially when Sergey Brin became a billionaire.

We can all point to bad things Google has done over the years but I’m having a hard time finding any of them that occurred before 2004. Who are the millions of people that Sergey Brin exploited between 1998 and 2004?

Note that Google had only 2500 employees in 2004 and almost all of them became millionaires on the day of the IPO.

[–] ContriteErudite@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Game theory, pure and simple. At its core, it is nothing more than the mathematical codification of self-interest. Within capitalism, it becomes one of the most powerful tools for justifying and even glorifying selfishness and greed. By reducing human interaction to competitive strategies designed to maximize personal gain, it frames cooperation, empathy, or long-term collective well-being as irrational or inefficient. The result is a system where decisions that harm the many can be rationalized as “optimal” so long as they benefit the few who hold power and wealth.

Most people recognize the absurdity of this: we are essentially allowing the worst actors to dictate outcomes for everyone else. And all of it is wrapped in the veneer of mathematical inevitability, as though greed were a natural law instead of a human choice.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

it's a collective-action problem. everybody needs to act, but the first one to do so has a relative disadvantage to those who don't, so nobody wants to be the first.

that's why we need state-regulated wealth taxes. if everybody pays them at the same time, nobody loses out relatively speaking, and the system continues to work for everybody.

Well said. It is very much like a Jenga tower loses support as people just pick more and more from it to grow a company with no thought given to the destruction it causes. What a fantastic analogy!

[–] ShoeThrower@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Billionaires didn't get that way by being stupid

Cant be on top if the whole Jenga tower gets kicked over

Uhh, yes they can. They are billionaires.

[–] Revan343@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

Billionaires still bleed and die

[–] 100@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago

wont be billionaire for long if nobody has money left for goods or services

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I guess it's only a few highly visible billionaires who seem colossally stupid.

The smartest ones seem smart because they know when to shut up and when to disappear from public view. If Trump knew when to shut the fuck up, almost, if not, none of the felonies he has would have stuck.

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

The stupid ones are usually the ones who started with enough wealth, sociopathy and family connections to just fail upwards. Staying rich is rather easy past a certain degree of wealth.

[–] anon6789@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago

Some basic Google sleuthing shows he's a centrist and hasn't made a public political donation since the 90s and that was $5000.

He has the second largest private personal charity, Dalio Philanthropies, which seems to dabble in a bit of everything.

Private charities don't thrill me, because it can be a huge source of dark money and it still maintains the charity owner's personal will and keeps their personal influence level high instead of just donating money to be used however the people receiving donations feels is best.

This link gives a little more specific insight to what he participates in, but it's still fairly vague. He's basically trying to do the Gates/Buffet give it all away by the time you die thing, so it's probably as good as one can expect from a hedge fund guy.

[–] Jolly_Platypus@lemmy.world 45 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We need a French solution to the billionaire problem.

[–] octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 36 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] FlyingSpaceCow@lemmy.ca 10 points 6 days ago

And that's from 9 years ago. It's definitely gotten worse

[–] Gates9@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 days ago

They figure this time they can implement total surveillance, total control. Everyone will either be a prisoner or a guard.

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago

Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives

[–] 20cello@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (8 children)
[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If only there were anything a helpless hedge fund billionaire could do to reduce inequality.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago

Billionaires control the system, yes, but a billionaire is bound by it as much as you are, just in a different way. So yes, what one billionaire can do to reduce inequality is limited.

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[–] kautau@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I miss when headlines weren’t almost all Onionesque

I seriously cannot distinguish them from each other at this point.

[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Not every billionaire wants to be a technofeudalist or an oligarch. I bet a bunch of Russian billionaires don’t like the situation they’re in but are afraid to leave.

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Awww poor wittle babies. They just wanted to exploit their workers and take their labour in peace awwwww.

Put a sock in it.

[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca -3 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don’t apologize for or excuse anyone, I merely explain. Most people around here seem to prefer to hurl insults rather than understand the world around them. I block them.

[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Show us who you donate to politically.

[–] kerntucky 6 points 6 days ago
[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

We know. We have eyes.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

This should read "billionaires warned"

[–] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago

You're a billionaire. Do something about it.

[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Nice of the evil giant troll to inform us that they're eating us via one of their representatives. I wasn't sure where the rest of my body went.

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