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[+] -123 points 8 months ago (49 children)
  • [–] 68 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (26 children)

    Where do you think those billionaires got their money?

    spoilerIts all Someone Else's Money

    New York as a whole has ridiculous taxes because of insane police budgets and corruption allowing stuff like ambulance companies charging the state 3K/trip for non-emergency weekly dialysis visits.

    Which is weirdly similar to California which you'd think was a communist utopia the way rightwingers talk about it.

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  • [+] -22 points 8 months ago (22 children)

    If I sell you a thing, it's no longer your money, it's my money. You get a thing that is now your thing.

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  • [–] 22 points 8 months ago (10 children)

    Do you think billionaires got their money through their own labor?

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  • [–] -3 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    Jeff Bezos started Amazon and worked to expand it for decades. The company didn't make a profit for something like 20 years (but kept raising money and expanding). Sounds like labor to me

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    Do you think the millions of underpaid workers had anything to do with it?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (6 children)

    They were paid the wage they signed the contract for. Underpaid scoring to whom?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (5 children)

    The difference between the wealth they created and the wealth they received was still the product of their labor, not Jeff Bezos. Do you think Lockheed shareholders got us to the moon, and not ya know, the engineers and scientists?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (4 children)

    If employees create negative wealth because the project fails, do they have to pay it back?

    Oh, you only want employees to have 100% of the profit, with 0% of any loss

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (3 children)

    Idk why you're licking boots without even being asked to.

    The question was "whose labor do billionaires get their wealth from" and the answer is "the workers"

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    And that's how it should be, since the workers did not take a financial risk to start a company

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (1 child)

    The workers don't carry a financial risk lmao they risk not being able to pay rent next month. The capitalist only risks becoming a worker at worst.

    Why are you so invested in licking your superior's boots?

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Profit can be distorted based on how much personnel are being paid.

    If you're seriously trying to argue Bezos earned his wealth, then you're part of the problem and I hope more people hold you socially accountable for it.

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  • [–] 14 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Problem is by now, I don't get that thing anymore. i get a freaking licence to use it for some time, and when you decide I don't own that licence anymore you got my money and I have nothing

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Then purchase said thing if you don't like it

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (3 children)

    I do where I can, but often it is not possible to
    a) find something you can actually buy, and call it your own. b) you still don't know if the creator t turns a darth vader on you and tells you "I'm altering the deal, pray I don't alter it further"
    And the best thing: uf they brick it or move features behind a paywall (with an update after you "bought" it) and you circumvent their "security" to restore the function YOU are the criminal. Nice thing isn't it?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    If you buy a thing that relies on a service, you didn't really buy it. That's why I buy stuff like the steam deck that I can run any OS on. I refuse to buy a device I don't own

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    I try to as well...but it really reduces options. E.g. I do try to source my eBooks and audiobooks without DRM and theres a lot of stuff you can't get that way, so the only way to actually buy them is to "buy" them on a platform (e.g. audible) and use 3rd party tools to remove the drm (which is against their ToC)

    Also a lot of corporate tools are moving to cloud only, windows, office365, atlassian, adobe etc. and unfortunately, it's not easy to get the higher ups to see the issues with that

    And it's not only services. Everything with an internet connection can be altered...e.g. HP updated their printerfirmware to not longer allow non-HP ink cartridges (and no I don't own an HP). Bambu lab closed their api, preventing the users to use 3rd-party tools. Theoretically valve could close down your bootloader and then you're fucked (they probably won't, but still, the point stands)

    And again

    Amazon prevents you to

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago

    Great, those are closed source programs and I avoid them anyway.

    I can pirate the stuff that is not available without drm because fck drm.

    I only support companies that are pro-consumer and valve had earned my trust.

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    Nah, you get temporary conditional privileges to use my thing. And I decide the price because I'm the only company that makes the thing because I've used all of my previous exploitation of you to buy out all of my competitors and buy your government.

    Free market so good

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Yes, that's how renting works. If you don't want to rent, then buy

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    Same energy as "if you don't want to be poor, be rich".

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    If everyone wants to live in NYC, but NYC only fits a limited number of people it can only go two ways.

    Either you develop more housing or the prices go up. Trying to manufacture a solution out of thin air like rent freezes is only going to delay the inevitable in the long run.

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  • [–] 33 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    This isn’t communism and social programs are a net positive in the long run. California is doing fine.

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  • [+] -25 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    Narrator: California was not doing fine.

    I'm from California, leftists fucked up San Francisco

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    What leftist policy did San Francisco pass that fucked it up?

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    They let people use drugs outside and didn't crack down on shoplifting or people breaking into cars

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Do you think drug users should be in prison? Wage theft is greater than all other theft, combined. Do you think its a better use of limited police resources to go after shoplifters instead of following up on the millions of sexual assault cases?

    Hint: its not the leftist policy that damaged communities to the extent people turn to drug use, nor is it leftist policy that left people poor and/or disenfranchised by society test they turn to petty theft.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    No, but they should not be able to use in public. Who said anything about prison? Other cities have been able to keep them off the streets just fine.

    Just because wage theft is a problem, doesn't mean petty theft is not a problem. While they are stealing a $100 tablet, they might break your car window that costs $300 to repair. How is this not something that the police should take care of?

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  • [–] 25 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    I’m curious, what’s your definition of communism?

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  • [+] -47 points 8 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 25 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    We're asking what YOU define as communism.

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  • [+] -28 points 8 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    an elite of individuals which are in control and have a particular interest in controlling everyone else’s live

    Ask a lib to describe communism and they describe capitalism.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Slightly more insidious than that is the attempt to conflate 'socialism' with 'national socialism', i.e. the Nazis. Seemingly every five minutes someone tries to conflate the two despite being on opposite sides of the political spectrum, hence the bullshit pseudoscience that is "horseshoe theory".

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  • [+] 16 points 8 months ago* (3 children)