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[–] 81 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (11 children)

From "don't be evil" to "be extra evil" in a few short years. But this doesn't mean he's somehow an exceptionally terrible person. Pretty much anyone who gets into a position like this will turn out this way. Which is to say, billionaires simply shouldn't exist.

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  • [–] 31 points 5 months ago (9 children)

    Man, just once, I'd like to see a billionaire that decides to spend enormous amounts of money on cool shit, without also being a terrible human being. Basically thinking of Musk, but the version of him that most people thought he was back when SpaceX was first making waves. That was all ruined by the fact that he turned out to be a Nazi.

    Like, if this guy has $300 billion, I wish he would just get it in his head one day that he wants to see real high speed rail in the US and just throw $100 billion at it to force it to happen. Not because it's profitable, but because it's cool, and having $200 billion vs having $300 billion makes absolutely no difference to anything.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    No one who gets to have that enormous amount of money in the first place is a decent enough person to spend it in good will.

    Any person with 100 million dollars is set for life. Having more than that is simply greed.

    A person with the funding and genuine intent to have "the boring company" develop and execute the Hyperloop would have done it by now, instead of having it just be tubes with fuckin Teslas in them

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  • [–] 13 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Once you get into a position like that, you're basically just surrounded by yes-men who tell you how great you are non-stop. It would take a very strong character to not go bonkers in that kind of situation. Add to that the fact that people who become billionaires will be pretty self obsessed to begin with and you have a recipe for disaster. Actually, the crusty old French philosophers had this shit figured out 250 years ago.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    True, but I feel like they are all missing out on the opportunity for some long term ego stroking. Just look at half the early skyscrapers built in the early 20th century; the Chrysler building for example is named after the man, not the company. Do it right and people could be praising the Brin Rail System for decades to come, and he'd be remembered forever for that. Instead he's just one more tech-douche, and that's all he'll ever be remembered as.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah but the people who built these skyscrapers during the gilded age weren't exactly paragons of virtue.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago

    CEOs, most billionaires, they're psychopaths. That's why they're good at the job. Now we have a bunch of psychopaths controlling all the wealth in the world. If you look through history, they've always been the enemy.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Yeah, there are studies about this. Once people get a certain amount is power, empathy starts to break down and they can't see other people's perspective anymore. That means they also don't care about others anymore.

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  • [–] 30 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Why is he wearing an airport carpet?

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  • [–] 27 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Why is he dressed like an evil 4th Amigo?

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  • [–] 45 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    He's just standing there. No helmet. No armor. Just standing there being evil.

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  • [–] 21 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    How about we start eating them now?

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  • [–] 15 points 5 months ago

    Don't do evil? More like pretend to care about people until you become an oligarch. We have seen it in Sergey, we have seen it in Elon, we have seen it in Sam. It is the same game all the time.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 months ago

    Sergey: "If you ever need to know the answer to if you should do something or not at my company then follow the instructions on the wall!"

    Don't be evil

    Sergey: "Oh! They got this all screwed up"

    Don't! be evil

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  • [–] 13 points 5 months ago

    Little bit of additional context:

    5% of 311 billion is 15.55 billion.

    57M is about 0.018% of 311 billion.

    311 billion is an obscene amount of money.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    I say we grant them their dream of a world without poor people, by segregating them permanently away from non-billionaires, and let them trade their worthless currency amongst each-other.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Honestly, how else do you solve this without gulags? IMO capitalist realism can't be undone by simply consuming the rich. It would require deprogramming.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago
    [–] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Bernie is totally right. Spoiled Americans have no moral anymore.

    The best thing you could do is hold a public execution of the Richest Person in the US every year on Independence Day for instance. He would be forced to give away half of his fortune to the people, or he would sit in the chair. New elections every year. Just watch how quickly no one would want to be the Richest anymore... I think that would be very refreshing. But sadly America is not there yet. Has to go down the sewer before they get that.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Don't tax them kill them kill their renfields kill their vile spawn burn everything they took from us and salt the earth they have defiled with their foot steps it would make me feel cute

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    bernie sanders would rather keep using X than losing followers

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Despite alternatives, Twitter still has a lot of reach. Even if it's just shouting at a wall at times.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago

    I thought Googles founder was peppa

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