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If you want to become rich and powerful you’re part of the problem.
The problem isn’t that some other people are rich and powerful and you’re not. The problem is we have a system where some people are rich and powerful while others are denied even basic human dignity.
@aral yeah wanting to accumulate billionaire-level wealth is a mental illness.
@aral@mastodon.ar.al I have noticed that part of the problem is population density: if nobody controls it, life will begin to divide into rich and poor because resources will be limited and only the wealthiest will be able to afford some goods and services.
If you think even theoretically, that under a tree with three apples there are a thousand people and two can take one each, you can tell that someone will starve.
The conclusion is that the economy is a hatchet. It can kill an entire people without hurting.
@aral Are you pleading for limitarianism? Ingrid Robeyns wants to limit wealth because you can be too rich. In the system, perseverance, risk taking and ambition can still be rewarded. She names 10 million as the upper limit (a ballpark figure).
@aral We should be taxing the rich a lot more more.
That much wealth and power in so few hands is anti-democratic, especially in a system where money is speech and corporations are people.
@aral For me, it's not the rich that's the problem; making everyone rich is the Star Trek post-scarcity paradise thing and I'm all for that.
It's the powerful that's the problem for me. Material wealth is an absolute value, but power is relative... you can destroy a lot of wealth for a lot of people in a very short time if all you want is to be more powerful than your neighbours.
*cue fake Sun Tzu quote about evil men ruling over ashes*
@aral Hi, it's me; I'm the problem.
I want to be wealthy enough that I never have to work again, and I can just consume media and calories and maybe produce interesting math / programs.
@aral in general I agree but I don't think it's shameful to want to become rich and/or powerful in a system where doing so is literally the only way to have any security.
Or, as wise men are known to have said: Don't hate the player, hate the game
@etherdiver Which is odd because the game wouldn’t exist if everyone refused to play it. Playing the game is how you perpetuate the game. Without the player, there is no game.
@aral no offense but that is fantastically naive. We already have a situation where the vast majority isn't trying (in any realistic or meaningful way) to become rich and yet the situation persists. In other words, it only takes a tiny fraction of players to make the game inescapable, so how does one fix that, in concrete terms? (I. E. The platitudes are nice but HOW?)
I'd love to know what your idea would look like in concrete terms.
@etherdiver I suspect Aral's point, is that the game wouldn't exist if the Adobes and Facebooks and Googles and Amazons weren't actively buying-out all their competitors, and seeking growth at a cancerous rate. Which requires their workers enabling them, as much as the executives moving the actual game pieces on the game board. There is balance.
IMHO the "how" is a balance of education and regulation. Both of which we've neglected for +50yrs in the US, so I suspect it may be too late. @aral
@etherdiver @aral The fiduciary realities of being a public corporation are also a huge problem; the legal requirement to run one's business to enrich shareholders at all costs. THAT is why corporations do huge layoffs, absorb new competitors; and the way public markets in the US work, promote that kind of bloodthirsty competition, over cooperation and value to society. Strict Communism and strict Capitalism are failures, but there could be balance.
@etherdiver @aral Doesn't matter what may or may not be reality; that is what VCs and activist board leaders advocate in court, thus its embedded as a cultural value.
@etherdiver There's a huge difference between desiring wealth to gain food/housing security—with some basic "perks" considered luxuries in American culture, but essential quality-of-life stuff in Europe (ability to travel, etc)—and desiring enormous wealth to accrue power and "compete" with other humans for resources.
I do not see the prior as "playing the game" when done with intent and while participating in activities to guarantee basic rights to everyone.
@ninavizz @aral in the US, it's not sufficient to simply earn enough to have housing/food security, since there's almost no safety net for anyone but rich people. If you want anything like real security in our society, you have to accumulate some amount of real wealth in case you, or someone you love, gets sick and can't work, for example.
@ninavizz @aral I've bounced between relative comfort and real hardship for my entire life, and yeah, I'm trying to get rich enough that I stop bouncing down to hardship every time I have a setback. And in this country, that means acquiring wealth: property, stock portfolios, etc.
You can talk all day about how it should be; I'm stating how it is. I don't like it, but I'm smart enough to recognize the reality of it.
@ninavizz @aral and for what it's worth, by nature, I don't value wealth inherently at all. I never wanted to be "rich" until I realized it was that or poverty; there's no real middle ground in this country at least. I'd still prefer to live in a just society to being rich, but it doesn't seem to be an option.
@etherdiver Neither of us—or anyone—should have to apologize for desiring a simple, pleasurable life of basic comforts. For ourselves and those we love. But the current system forces that. We can still fight it, with more balance. Really. Be well, we're in this together. 
@aral
@etherdiver Hey man, we are BOTH in the same boat; and we can still critique the system and demmand better, while still perusing simple security and quality of life stuff for ourselves and our families. I'm a total yuppie by definition, because of my life choices at 49. @aral
@etherdiver @ninavizz Yes, and my post is clearly not aimed at folks trying to get by.
@etherdiver I partially support both my elder parents (and subsequently have zero savings of my own), and have had shit credit my whole adult life via medical expenses. You're preaching to the choir. "Housing security" a d "food security" both assume multiple supporting factors, and savings to carry associated fees, for decades. @aral
@aral
Greed is a key indicator of sociopathy for it includes the utter disregard for the well being of others .