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Gary Smith's avatar

With everything going to shit, one small consolation I cling to is how miserable every single one of these megarich jerks look, all the time.

They don't see money as a way to buy things or security, they see money like points in a real-life video game, and they want top spot on the high score list. Money is the sole measure of their self worth, and their power hunger is just a way to force everyone else to repeatedly acknowledge their financial success -- to make it so we cannot just ignore them.

Knowing when you have 'enough' is an underrated life skill, and not just for billionaires.

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Stephen Moore's avatar

I have always thought that myself, or that in some way, the pursuit of the money is the one thing that brings them joy – which is just sad.

It really hit home when Musk bought Twitter, and how desperate a lot of the changes have been since. They clearly shout "please like me!"

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𝓙𝓪𝓼𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓦𝓸𝓵𝓯𝓮's avatar

I promise you from the bottom of my heart, they're some of the most miserable people on the planet. Unfortunately for the rest of us, misery loves company🙁

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Becoming Human's avatar

I would not swap places with them for anything.

Their wealth is a form of mental illness

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Frederick Woodruff's avatar

Right, I imagine their inner lives are in shambles — like living in a ghetto within the soul.

They have acquired everything that the culture tells them is most important, especially in America, where hustling is the name of the game, and yet they are still miserable.

It’s a perverse alchemy and agony— a psychic condition that should lead to suicide.

(Let’s hope I’m right about that.)

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Stephen Moore's avatar

I've seen talk of wealth caps (and everyone cries about it) but maybe it would do everyone, including these billionaires, a whole world of good. How many billions is enough billions?

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CansaFis Foote's avatar

...why do they all look like they are wearing masks made out of ham?...

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𝓙𝓪𝓼𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓦𝓸𝓵𝓯𝓮's avatar

Plastic surgery and botox🤔

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CansaFis Foote's avatar

...bacon injections...

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Richard's avatar

Money allows control, it is a tool of power. If you had accumulated enough power to actually change the world, would you sail off on your yacht? These people believe the world is a better place if such power is in their hands rather than someone else's. Don't we all think we know how better to spend the government's tax money, if we were in charge? These guys are the same: they avoid the tax and decide for themselves how to allocate it. Their egos are a similar size to the likes of world leaders, any President, etc. They will never go away voluntarily, they must be sent away

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Stephen Moore's avatar

Yeah, but they seem to forget the part about "changing the world," unless that means, "changing things to better suit my interests."

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Richard's avatar

Yes, "a better world for all" and "a world that suits me better" seems to mysteriously align

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Scott Weinzirl's avatar

There is some need among people who are driven to be billionaires that doesn't allow them to just 'fuck off'. A mentality, an ego, an illness. Just something that says "well, now that you're here, you might as well cock up everything you can." I don't get it either, but that's probably why I'm not a billionaire. I would prefer to have a few million dollars, but I agree. A million is plenty.

Thanks for sharing these insights. It reminds most of us that we are probably pretty well-adjusted people. And maybe today, that's the best compliment we're going to get.

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Stephen Moore's avatar

I'm starting to think illness is the best way to describe it.

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Matilda Lucy's avatar

They don’t care about money! It’s a power game

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Cato Gilmour's avatar

I think we’re “allowed” occasional emotional reactions to horrid states of affairs, and venting is healthy for you! This is the up front show, and it’s revolting, no doubt about that. It’s what lies behind that scares me the most. What we are not “allowed” to see. My concern lies more with the peaking of decades of power concentration between those who keep most of us enslaved to Big Corporate, through the extremely unhealthy corruption of our oil, food, medical and other industries. Can you name the four (!) companies that own and control around 70% of the calories that go into our bodies (US)? I know I couldn’t until I learned of them. This is the kind of information we are not fed, no pun intended. The whole system has been slowly rigged since 6-7 decades, most unchecked here in the US of A, and though I’d much rather have Kamala in the White House, it’s what lies behind it all that is my main concern. But, yeah, everything will now be a lot worse for sure, especially for the environment and marginalized groups of course, though some things actually couldn’t be much worse than they already are …

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Stephen Moore's avatar

Yeah, monopolisation is one of the main reasons, though that has been going on for a long time (like when railroads where getting built, or crate shipping), but it has led to too few holding too much control.

Food industry great example, but it's everywhere; book publishing, big pharma, of course, social media, advertising (Google). And, as we've seen, it's almost impossible to force them to break off, as they can fight cases with infinite amounts of money.

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Michael's avatar

Republicans said the same thing about Gates, Zuckerberg and the rest when Dems were robbing the country, and libtard nation said NOTHING …. Now you understand why the world refers to them as LIBTARDS

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AlejMC's avatar

And even Musk in the beginnings for that matter.

This is definitely a friendly reminder that WE made these people the billionaires that they are… every EV that was ever bought (whether to make a statement or not or to keep up with the joneses), every useless trinket bought from Amazon that inevitably finds its way to the garage to collect dust, every doom scrolling on Twitter/X/Facebook/Instagram/etc (instead of say… spending that hour at a gym), the yearly latest smartphone or any gadget swap that nobody really needs.

Every single of these little or large consumerism actions, doubly insulting when taking leverage and paid with money we didn’t even have, made them become what they became.

While myself also if I had a million dollars, many people wouldn’t see me again, I would take this piece way more seriously if it had been written by the likes of the Minimalism.com Substack, which would also had assigned a minor amount of accountability.

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Michael's avatar

Well, musk made his money BEFORE he came to America. I made good money on Wall St, enough to retire at 37, and I worked hard for it .... 18 hr days, 6 days a week/ Do not begrudge those that took advantage of opportunities.

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AlejMC's avatar

Congrats and trust you me that I hold zero grudges against those that meritocratically gain their wealth. (Which is also what one group of people don’t want to hear, they want “free stuff”, meaning “somebody else not me pay for this with other people’s money”).

Pretty sure he made his money by toiling and sweating, but it really blew up exponentially in the US.

My point is, that these people complain and hate about someone being ultra rich while Lil Peter at the lemonade stand isn’t… well, newsflash to all of those complaining, if they also threw money in droves to Peter, he would be very rich too.

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Max Murphy's avatar

Wen guillotines?

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Tyler Leavitt's avatar

No you insane radical. Learn first.

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Amplifier Worshiper's avatar

Money is a measure of wealth but it is not wealth in and of itself. A culture that values a representation, a measurement of something above the thing is deeply troubled.

The degenerate gambling on meme coins and belief that we can compute our way to salvation are extreme consequences of a fundamental detachment from reality.

These are unhealthy people and history will consider them robber barons.

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Stephen Moore's avatar

"The degenerate gambling on meme coins and belief that we can compute our way to salvation are extreme consequences of a fundamental detachment from reality."

What a damning statement.

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Becoming Human's avatar

Trillionaires should not exist

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Stephen Moore's avatar

Really, how many billions do you need?

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Erek Tinker's avatar

It's a status treadmill with no off-ramp.

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Stephen Moore's avatar

Well, there is an eventual off-ramp, but only when you die of exhaustion.

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Brent Lucia's avatar

Power reinforces the need for more power. Story as old as time

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Jeff Treistman's avatar

I’d rather take their money and put towards the common good.

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Stephen Moore's avatar

I'd rather THEY take their money put it towards the common good.

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Jeff Treistman's avatar

It needs to be democratized. Having one person make all the decisions may seem efficient but the outcomes can be disastrous. Why wouldn’t you want to put more minds to the problem?

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