Ask Lemmy

Don't worry, the entire system is collapsing from mismanagement.

3000 billionaires because you can't convince everybody to ditch school. You can't change people. Pharaoh, Hammurabi. Those are thousands of years of genetic obedience.

8 billion temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

What are we measuring. Like just a braw? A unanimouse revolution?

Ok, let’s look at this…

IF billionaires were removed from the picture, what would be the result?

There would be investment assets in various holding entities that would then be what, up for grabs? Sold off? Put in probate? Trillions in stock alone would suddenly be ownerless. How would that affect the market and the regular person’s investments?

Multiple BoD positions and CEO positions opening up. How would those be compensated? Just make more people rich?

Material possessions originally worth absurd sums now up for grabs to nobody who could realistically afford to use or maintain them (yachts, palatial homes, etc). Manufacturers of luxury goods would vanish (stupidly expensive watches, clothes, cars).

How would you prevent some other greedy, power-hungry f_cks from taking up the reins and putting us right back where we started? There is no point in civilization’s history where greedy f_cks haven’t existed, so how do you prevent their grubby fingers from tipping the scales right back in favor of piling all the money and power in their corner?

What are the unintended consequences?

(This is NOT an argument implying we should keep billionaires, just asking realistically and pragmatically what the result would be should they no longer exist)

The billionaires. There are many reasons, but my favorite is the Matthew effect.

Unfortunately that is not how the figures really are. Way too many of those 8 billions will willingly simp and fight the rest of us in the name of those billionaires.

Billionaires, because we are too dumb to not fall for their tricks

What kind of battle are we taking about? Violence? Then 8 billion people would win because the combined force of knowledge.

This question also really depend on strategy. You know a billion worth doesn't need to be all in cash. Before cash was a thing, we traded items.. but it's rare to trade items that are exactly worth the same, so money is a nice way to compensate that.

The billion worth can all be spent on defense, it can all be spent on pleasing the 8 billion people. It can be spent to create harmony instead of hatred.

We're already seeing the results of the fight, so no need to elaborate on who would win and how

It's not the billionaires but the antisocial, amoral whores who will sell their souls for money and do their bidding that are the problem (police, army, etc.), and those who would quietly acquiesce. And of those there are way too many in some societies for change to be easy/possible.

The billionaires are already winning, with no signs of that changing.

All evidence points to a regime change (in the physics sense, not the political) being the necessary condition for things to go from our current state to something new.

We currently have people paying poorer people a very small amount of their own net worth to protect the wealthy person's status and position. This is similar to how kings and queens paid the army and policing forces to control the peasants.

Before the French Revolution I am sure it seemed impossible that the peasants would revolt, but the years leading up to the revolution things were getting worse and worse for the average peasant. There is a tipping point where the average person does not think the current system is delivering on the promise that of you do what you are told you can have a good life. I think we are approaching that point now.

If the rich try to hire someone and underpay them for security, stiff contractors for services, flaunt laws and generally behave obnoxiously at some point people will have had enough. Whether that ends with guillotine action or people just divesting from those systems depends on how much freedom people think they have.

If people thought they could go and homestead, live off the land, and get by without the massive companies these billionaires own then they would have that outlet and choose that peaceful option. The fact that we have taxation creates a pressure to pay in currency which demands earning in that currency. Same with paying rent, you have to earn money simply to live. No amount of growing all of your food gets rid of your financial obligations, so there is no out from the system. If that system is unreasonable it begins to feel less like participation and more like coercive control. Wage slavery is not the same as slavery, but both involve coercion and require the legal system to support them. Both lead to revolutions. Both lead to violence.

I guess the billionaires have to decide if they really want to paint that big a target on their backs by flaunting their wealth. At this point I think they feel untouchable.

It’s funny cause no one seems to realize that the billionaires are human beings. They have a house, they shit, they piss, they bleed, etc. And yet, everyone is somehow convinced that becoming a billionaire makes you somehow invulnerable.

This is happening right now and the billionaires are winning.

If we decide money no longer matters it'd be petty easy to eliminate them all. If we continue to let money run our lives then it'll continue to be pretty easy for the people with money to keep all their power.

Why you think they're tossing so much money to develope ai and humanoid robots?

When shit will hit the fan they want their own private army to watch their ass, but at the same time they don't want highly trained human mercenary inside their golden castel getting strange ideas.