Evan on Farcaster

Evan pfp

I don’t know how many Marxist/Dem Socialists we have on FC, but there’s a convo I want to have (rather in person but): It’s presented by Bernie/Zoran/etc that there needs to be zero billionaires because their wealth should be redistributed. I heard someone else say “what if everyone was a billionaire?” I don’t think either are going to happen exactly (no billionaires vs all billionaires), but the decision sets if you make one or the other as the GOAL is fascinating, and I’d love to have that convo with people of many different viewpoints!

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rileybeans pfp

it's about power imbalance. one billion dollars is too much wealth in the hands of a select few who little more than their best to attain more wealth or keep the wealth they have for themselves while others suffer. in other words: there are no good billionaires.

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links 🏴 pfp

Under ideal conditions where everyone has opportunity to gain/lose money, I’d have no problem with billionaires. But our current environment means that billionaires can (and do!) make the rules for loss and gain, so they can’t really be dethroned. I think a sane solution to this is to limit the wealth of any one entity (person, company). There are lots of issues with this solution, but I still think it’s for the best.

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isabel.eth pfp

Long story short, i think its really achievable to have a “floor” for the human condition that is much higher vs what we have today… but that doesn’t get you to a place where unlimited consumer spending on luxuries is available to ~everyone in society, and some people will always want more than others (+ be willing to act accordingly). At the limits even if cost of production goes to near 0 and we are 3D printing yachts and servant robots out of thin air, there are certain things (raw materials, physical space) that are impossible to produce more of, where maximizing one person’s enjoyment is only really achievable by limiting the access of the broad majority. Fwiw i think there is a very sane argument to be made by the left that doesn’t collapse into marxism, which is to say that there are 0 problems with people being rich, even really rich. Just maybe not so rich that they have claims over resources and labor that rival those of relatively powerful nation states.

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Cool Beans 🌞 pfp

Cool Beans 🌞

There needs to be no 100 millionaires either.

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henry pfp

What defines everyone? Everyone as in your social circle? Reproducing the problem Everyone as in the entire world? One billion becomes the same as 0 now Both outcomes : no change from current reality

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Montez pfp

Relevant short story: https://marshallbrain.com/manna

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𒂭_𒂭 pfp

I will note that currency debasement changes the semantics dramatically. if a house sells for $10,000, a millionaire is extraordinarily wealthy and would have considerable influence over local government. normally, this would be democratically checked, but political action and other advertisement is less regulated than housing development, for example. if everyone becomes a billionaire, we're hyperinflationary. if nobody is a billionaire, either we've crashed or we've magically rebased, which would have cultural repercussions (e.g. return of the "nickel store"). then again, becoming a fully liquid billionaire is pretty tedious, and the power is concentrated to a respective firm, or it becomes even more volatile. the concern should be focused on how other firms are insulated from hostile takeover. for everything else, grassroots and talent outweigh the paper number.

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Steve pfp

Hard not to disagree with my bias as someone on the poor people side of the trolley here. Hard to imagine the ramifications on the ecosystem above that actually manages the things we operate in life. Still feel it’d be more equitable overall the same way search engines and natural language machine learning models level the playing field of a global general knowledge pool anyone really can tap into. Why can’t money work *closer* to that way too, not even fully? Enough that this does to happen to people that try, research, and follow instructions sincerely: https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-attorney-347k-student-loan-debt-no-job-biden-forgiveness-2022-7

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Metaphorical pfp

Beware of the strawman. These labels cause more confusion and misinformation than anything. Let’s talk actual suggested policy.

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butu pfp

If everyone became a billionaire, money would become worthless. There are enough examples of bad governments destroying their currency and turning their citizens into billionaires through hyperinflation, they will become billionaires but need to burn the currency to keep warm.

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Booth Templeton pfp

Booth Templeton

@boothtempleton.eth

If everyone was a billionaire we’d have quadrillionaires

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ted (not lasso) pfp

ted (not lasso)

amplifying for reach!

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flick the dev 🎩📦 pfp

flick the dev 🎩📦

compared to not that long ago, our poorest can live like kings this trend will continue obviously our system is lopsided and unfair nobody can agree where to go with it, thus girdlock

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Purp🇵🇸 pfp

Marxist here Its not about billionaires its about billionaires hoarding wealth at the sake of their workers Jeff Bezos just spent 20-50 million dollars on his wedding, while 26% of his employees have received food stamps while working at Amazon I could care less if someone is rich, its about are the material needs of the worker being met ( which is something zohran addressed immediately after with the MLK quote)

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Lookhere pfp

If wealth was redistributed one day by the end of the year we’d be in a similar situation with all the wealth concentrated in a few

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