• Krafty Kactus@sopuli.xyz
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    7 months ago

    I mean if you think about it, the default of humanity is to die of thirst assuming we were to do nothing so ‘earning a living’ is just a realistic expectation for any society.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      If able, you should provide enough to society to make it worth meeting your basic needs. They give you food, water, shelter, you give them back enough to compensate them for that effort.

      At its root, this is what cash should be, a measure of what society owes you. You make other people’s lives X much better, and they do the same for you.

      We should really be trying harder to get cash to meet this goal. A person making 60k a year for 45 years is $2.7 million dollars. You can buy a person’s lifetime of effort for $2.7 million.

      Bill Gates is worth $131 billion. That’s the lifetime effort of 48,500 people. He hasn’t improved our lives that much. Something is clearly out of sorts. There’s nothing one person can do to deserve the lifetime effort of a thousand people.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        How much time has personal computing saved in your life? Are you really sure Gates hasn’t produced 48k lifetimes worth of saved time by his efforts?

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          It doesn’t matter. One person can’t put forth 48k lifetimes worth of effort, and they don’t deserve that much in return.

          I promise the dude hasn’t worked harder than the combined efforts of 48 thousand people.

          We can reward talent, and we can reward effort. But no combination of those two is as ridiculous as our reward structure. Our reward structure is flawed because people with money make the rules, and their primary rule is that people with money should have more money.

          • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            What you are saying is true, but there is not a better option for how the economy works that doesnt end really bad. I dont like bill gates, but the idea that he cant have what he has doesnt end well.

            • Serinus@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              It turns out we can have the tax rates of the 1950s and 1960s without the segregation.

              • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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                7 months ago

                The federal tax receipts/gdp were pretty much the same as they are right now in the 50s and 60s. Just because the tax rate was high doesnt mean people pay that much.

                • Serinus@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  Yeah, what a shame it was that people had to invest in the longevity and reputation of their business in order to keep paying them out over a hundred years.

        • rocket_dragon@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          To answer this question seriously, Bill Gates has held back computing by stealing other people’s work and ideas and using Embrace Extend and Extinguish.

          If Bill Gates had no existed, arguably open source computing and hardware would be even more advanced than what we have now. Windows has been a net detriment to society.

          • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            I don’t think that’s a realistic position to take though. If not Bill Gates it would have been someone else trying to capitalize, not a de facto FOSS utopia.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      7 months ago

      If you follow that reasoning, the ultimate conclusion is that it’s perfectly fine to let sick or disabled people die.