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The thought of running around with a 5 million dollar ring gives me heart palpitations.
The fact that a ring can be worth more then it would cost to provide financial independence for hunderds of people, is kinda jarring.
I know, I know, pretty rock and metal worth paper value notes.
So really that ring is pure loss.
No one owned that gem when it was just sitting in the ground. It took millions of years to create.
Some capitalism claimed it when one of his workers mined it. Calculated how much energy and labor it has costs to obtain it.
Then sold it for a massive markup compared to their own costs.
The machines have spend energy to get it (loss)
The workers spend life time and life energy to get it (loss)
Bezos his works spend their life time and energy to make him the money he now loses on this ring. (Loss)
The planet lost one of its rare gems. (Loss)
No lives are going to be saved using that rock, its not going to be used for breakthrough science, its not in a museum where we the people can admire our planet and learn from the its amazing processes. (No profit)
Instead its to decorate a hand so one person can be perceived as having value. Ironic.
Do you HAVE to be so unromantic? It obviously proved his NEVER-ENDING LOVE for his wife! Does that count for NOTHING?! /s
That's literally every wedding ring regardless of value
All materials obtained just to turn it into jewellery is loss yes.
Mine is a gold alloy rather then pure and i am very fond of it. I derive pleasure from it everyday while the total loss was significantly less than the one in Bezos marriage.
We also had an engagement ring which has an industrial rock because no way where we going to waste our limited money on a real diamond.
All rings combined costs less than having a birth in a US hospital.
Both rings were still a loss to the planet, just like almost every novelty i own and many things i consume. Staying alive is a destructive action and all humans cause loss. That is normal and ok. What is not ok is not being aware/inconsiderate of it.
We should all strive to create the least amount of loss we are aware off and my older self having grown significantly then when i married would love a ring made from recycled computer metals which now often end up on a landfill.
That's enough budget for a whole ass R&D project and team. Can this ring shoot lasers or steer a helicopter or something?
Bernie needs to set up an alt account on Twitter where he pretends to be a Republican but reposts all these same messages.
The issue is left wing agenda gets de-prioritized (buried) or outright blocked since all social media is owned by billionaires and they want to maintain the current status quo.
I am also weary of Bernie's endless calls to do this or that while not specifying any way of doing it. I certainly don't expect him to do anything more, he's already made a much larger impact than most individuals ever can or will. But that entire tour with AoC kind of felt like only half of a useful thing. We all know it's a problem. We all want to put a stop to it. But nobody knows how, that's what's missing. What do you want us to do, Bernie?!? Vote in the primaries, I guess? Would be nice if the next steps were included in the message to take action. Like an instant macaroni box whose instructions just say "You must make the macaroni!", it feels a bit silly.
I get this feeling when I watch Jon Oliver. Jon's really good at identifying the problem, demonstrating why its a problem, and making you kind of upset about it.
God forbid you ever watched Jon Oliver back to back because you'd go mad with the immediate understanding that you live in bizzaro world.
So, it would be nice if HBO had a second show which was more like myth busters where people championed each of the problems Jon pointed out and left the viewer with a clear understanding what they can do or at the least, what can be done.
He does try to give a solution. It's just that there is little to nothing the average viewer can do to make it happen. Sadly, that is just the way it is. Same with Bernie. We actually can't make the solutions happen. But both are raising public awareness, which "can" impact policy. So I guess watching and listening is what we can do.
...and if nothing else, documenting what is being done, if it will ever come to a point where it can be turned around.
There's a reason the Nazis paved over and planted fucking trees on as many concentration camps they possibly could before they got overrun.
I do think that "the system" (not any particular person or group of people, but the more abstract social meta-organism) is evolved, all systems are, to integrate and channel possible destabilizing forces into neutralized or even system-reaffirming forces. The system does not "platform" people who would legitimately threaten the system as a general rule. Jon Oliver is a pressure release valve, if he was to propose solutions that threatened to alter the system too much (systems see significant alterations as akin to death), he would be deplatformed organically. Again, I must stress that it is not an actual person or organization explicitly setting out to do this, like some sort of shady Comedy Central Illuminati. It's just the same as how our body has a bunch of independent organs and cells that all work together without exactly trying to or knowing that they're doing so.
Unfortunately Bernie is largely the same sort of thing. We can be assured of this by the fact that he is influential. Almost without exception, the more influential someone wants to be, the more pro-systemic they must be. In Bernie's case he may not even realize how pro-systemic he is, he likely sees himself as more anti-systemic. But he is anti-systemic in the same way as a white blood cell is anti-systemic - that is, not at all, and only in appearance without inspection of the bigger picture. I suspect this is why he ends up not proposing any clear course of action. His role, although again I think he is unaware of this, is to create the sense that establishment dissent exists and is possible, that change and reform is possible. I say this without taking a stance on whether it is actually possible or not. Both in a system where it is possible and in a system where it is not possible, there would still be a flag bearer for that possibility regardless of its actual existence.
What I mean to say is that the system self-selects for the type of people who acknowledge problems but not the type of people who make proposals to fix them. It wants to appear to be investigating the desires of its constituents while not actually doing so - the system only cares about its constituents in so far as its constituents lead to the system's well-being as a whole. The system does not intrinsically care for its constituents well-being. So while systems do indeed evolve and legitimately investigate ways to improve their own well-being, they will only appear to investigate ways to approve the well-being of their constituents, if they can help it.
All just my impressions of course, I hate talking in an authoritative voice about my ideas, but it's better than prefacing every sentence with "I think", "it seems like", etc.
If he said what needs to be done, he'd be imprisoned immediately for inciting violence against the president, and for planning a coup. Until he has troops on his side, he can not tell you what actually has to happen.
We already know what needs to be done, we just aren't allowed to talk about it.
The Tree of Liberty is thirsty.
Hear hear. When I look at the state of American democracy from outside, what I find really distressing is that it's not just Bernie; no mainstream person or organization with national reach is giving concrete advice and/or instructions on how to depose the oligarchy, so you have people's energy going to angry tweets and meaningless parades.
So he only spends 0,0087 % of his wealth for the wedding? Sounds pathetic. Most normal people even go in debt for it.
I like this comment even though I can’t actually confirm it’s sarcasm. I think it’s be great if we all spent 0,0087% of our wealth on engagement rings.
I could afford the finest plastic ring in all of Poundland. It's a shame the founders didn't opt to name their venture Poundtown, though.
That chick should be mad. 3-months salary for him would be like $27 billion.
That's a DeBeers diamond cartel propaganda rule of thumb.
He should've used antimatter as a ring
If you assume 7% annual rate of return on that $230 billion, then 3 months "salary" would be a little over $4 billion.
That being said, as others have pointed out, the "3 months salary" guideline is just propaganda from DeBeers and no one in their right mind should ever spend that type of money on a piece of jewelry.
"Damn, why isn't Bernie ramboing his way through the billionaires on his own??? Doesn't he know that all of us bitching about him are too lazy to do it ourselves???"
5 million dollar ring for that wife?
Sir Mix Alot would be ashamed. Silicone parts are made for toys
Good thing they implemented even more tax cuts for the rich, coming soon™...
But obviously not too soon, otherwise they can't blame the dems for it.
All I ever get asked for by the politicians I vote for (the Democrats) is money.
Maybe I’m subscribed to the wrong things.
So, while I agree with the "vote away Fascism" being bull shit I do still think that working class momentum can be built through wins like Mamdani.
I see so many comments saying "voting won't work", "protesting won't work" etc. Anything that has any visible result, works. Because the majority of people follow the herd to a greater or lesser extent. You need to mobilise that majority in order to make a difference. The more you have a movement, the bigger, louder and more visible that is, the more people will join you. People need to feel which way the wind is blowing.
Can the "leftists" in the room start pushing actionable rhetoric?
I agree that we should do something about the oligarchy too.
Maybe the liberal leaders that keep hogging the mic every local protest should give directions to the largest group of protesters in American history.
I dont know, I think there is nothing but dead air from the liberal side. Its gross. More messaging for the DNC comes from nobodies like me then from the party itself. Sure I might be more authentic but ffs Im just one dude.
I watch the news cycle and you can basically tell when the GOP are gearing up because its just dead silence on the platforms I visit. Now, not "dead silence". There are your typical memes, news articles, and reposts but never anything from the dnc itself. No top down messaging; no platforming small creators; no baiting of the right. What the DNC has done is made these strile online environments where the right can constantly come in and, basically, disturb the peace.
It has become so insane that now the far left is doing it too. Show me one leftist who will get in the same beat down brawls they do on this site, do that on Facebook, Twitter, or Truth. They cant because they've been expelled from those places.
Im ranting too much and getting to in my own head. This is just what I see.
The DNC is rudderless and has no media strategy. Their only media guys think they need to turn right wingers into left wingers and it just doesn't work. If trump didnt flip you, youre never leaving the right.
We need to take the DNC over from the inside. We need to primary all of them.
Primary elections in general have a ridiculously low turnout rate, and that's the first place the battle must be waged.
I'm sorry 5 million? For a ring? I'd feel insane amounts of guilt wearing a ring that cost that much
I imagine if these people were capable of feeling guilt, much of their behavior would be different
I hope we end it with violence.
There's very little chance it ends otherwise to be fair. Talking and negotiation didn't work, peaceful protest didn't work.
Apathy prevents violence, and will continue to do so until the vast majority of people are in constant pain and fear with absolutely no alternative. When the people have nothing to lose they will act.
Even the most politically aware and ethically minded among us can't drop their daily lives in favor of standing up for the oppressed when standing on the razor edge of working every day to avoid homelessness.
Those who are not on the razor edge have "more to lose" by toppling the system
Newsflash: it already is ending with violence.
We're losing. Handily.
Even if we tax Jeff bezos 30% realistically it won't make any difference because Trump and his cronies will just blow it on an even more ridiculous ICE budget or build more concentration camps or bomb Iran again.
That's why we need a national wealth cap. Forget the tax. We need a maximum wealth. You simply are not allowed to have more than a certain amount of money. We need bounded capitalism. Capitalism can be a very useful system. It has a lot of merits over central planning. But in any kind of machine or system that humans devise, when is it ever beneficial to let any parameter increase to infinity? Let an engine spin too fast, and it will tear itself to pieces. Build an irrigation system that delivers an unbounded amount of water, and your crops drown. A well insulated house heated by a powerful furnace can bring comfort. Let it burn an arbitrarily large amount of fuel, and you will be cooked alive in your own bed. No system that humans design for our needs and comforts works when one of its core values is allowed to increase without bound. Inevitably this throws the whole system out of balance and leads to disaster.
And what is our economy and society if not an elaborate machine? A way of distributing resources, assigning work, etc? Allowing people to earn different amounts of money is a very useful thing. It encourages people to produce useful goods and services. It encourages innovation. It incentivizes getting an education and contributing to society. We're not perfect at any of these. Market mechanisms have many flaws. But our system does have a lot of merit over simply assigning everyone the same flat wage for all work done. It is useful to allow people to accrue modest fortunes. But that useful mechanism, completely unbounded? It unbalances society and tears us apart.
1000x the median household income. We set that as the maximum allowable fortune. 1000 times the average family wage. That I believe is the place to set such a cap. This would be approximately $80 million. This is so much money, that even the highest paid wage workers - people like brain surgeons - if they work a long career, choose to live in a literal cardboard box on the sidewalk, and invest every penny they make? They would struggle to reach that cap before they die of old age, even if they live very long lives. The only way to earn more money than this is to earn your wealth primarily by taking advantage of the labor of others.
Any money earned beyond this? Taxed at 100%. And at some point above this cap? Simply having that amount of money becomes a criminal offense. I want to make it a felony for someone to have a fortune over $1 billion. Mandatory minimum 20 year sentence for secretly amassing a fortune over $1 billion. Make Bezos and Musk give all their money away, flee the country, or blow their fortunes on the single greatest party in the history of the human race. Frankly I would be OK with any of these outcomes. But they cannot be allowed to retain these strategically dangerous fortunes. They have declared war on the rest of us. And it's time we started responding in kind. We must wipe out the billionaires as an economic class entirely.
"There should be no billionaires" is not just a slogan. It is a concrete policy we could choose to enact.
Even he knows this won't be fixed by political discourse.