memes

Let's start with those that profit directly from human suffering.

Edit: I'm using him as an example of an other billionaire who is constantly defended even though he owns 6 mega yatchs and a few submarines costing him an estimated 75 to 100 million a year just in maintenance. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Hi, Swiftie here 🙋‍♀️

There are no good billionaires. Taylor Swift is not a good person due to her business practices. I have no defense of her and I would never say “she is one of the good ones.” I and most of the Swiftie circles I run in wish that she would practice equitable compensation in her tours (where she gets the vast majority of her profit), among other areas.

Taylor Swift is a capitalist, and that’s bad. There are thousands of artists and laborers being exploited by her every performance. All those laborers, stage hands, designers, arena staff, etc should have a say in how the massive revenue generated is distributed, and they do not get that say. That is bad.

As a majority male space, Lemmy has a tendency to slide a bit toward dunking on women and majority women’s spaces because you may not be aware that many leftist Swifties are just as critical of Swift as other billionaires. This post is a good example of that. (If you feel bad or called out by this, don’t stress it. I just want to gently course correct the conversation a tad 🙂)

It's not a matter of "nobody should be allowed to be ultra wealthy," it's a matter of "nobody should be allowed to be unacceptably poor."

If our civilization can generate wealth at an astronomical rate, then there is no morally defensible reason for anyone to be homeless, hungry, poorly educated, lacking medical care, drinking unsafe water, worked to death, or any of a number of other baseline metrics of civilization. All of those ills exist because wealth is funneled upwards at an unbelievable rate, leading to the existence of billionaires. All of that wealth should be used to raise everyone's standard of living, rather than give a handful of people more power and luxury than ever appeared in Caligula's wet dreams.

Of course the way that you accomplish that is by an exponentially progressive taxation system, and that will... probably make it impractical to be a billionaire, but frankly I think that focusing on helping the bottom end of the economic ladder is more productive than just talking about how it should be illegal to have more than a given amount of wealth.

As a swiftie, I can say you're right. However, there's also no such thing as a purely good or purely bad person, and liking a billionaire does not make someone good or bad. People, it turns out, are complex.

I can love Taylor's music while also criticizing her for her excessive personal jet use and massive pollution problem.

I think if we stop making it a binary decision that more people will start opening up about changes need to make. In Taylor's case, most Swifties would never dare say anything negative about her for fear of others in the fandom thinking they aren't true fans, and vis versa, I'm sure people here will read this as I must support billionaires because I like her music. No, complex multifaceted opinions are valid.

I think we should abolish ICE vehicles. It doesn't mean I think I need to yell at family members who pull up in their 02 Camry because they can't afford to upgrade.

I totally agree, but also the pop star billionaires are the least offensive type. If you're targeting them before the other billionaires, you got played and are doing it wrong. The richest most politically powerful billionaires are the biggest threat to freedom.

I just think that at $1BN net worth or whatever, you start getting taxed on 99.99% of everything you earn or gain in worth after that.

This way people still get stupid rich, and if someone ever has $10bn you can easily just sound the alarm then and there and say nope, fuck this guy.

The tax curve just just be exponential and it should be basically vertical at $1bn.

Those billionaires are being propped by stupid people buying exorbitant ticket prices to see their idols dancing from a mile a way. I blame the populace for this. you can make them irrelevant without even spending a penny.

There may not be good ones, but like everything there are different grades.

Someone who became a billionaire selling weapons to conflict zones after pushing them into conflict is a lot worse than an artist that is popular and actually works for their riches.

Getting some Pol Pot vibes from this. Ideology can lead to some really weird conclusions.

Somone like Taylor Swift isn't destroying people's lives and she's not overworking other people to make that money.

Sure she has too much money, but that can be solved by having more sensible tax policies. Show me where she's bribing congress and donating to the GOP to keep her taxes low.

These kinds of memes only exist to prove how edgy people are but they don't accomplish anything. Saying "I'm so hardcore I even hate the billionaires people like" doesn't do anything other than push people away from whatever movement you claim to support.

But congratulations, you're the edgiest socialist edge lord on the internet. That sound you hear is the Swifties (who might otherwise care about the issues you care about) heading towards the door.

People like Elon Musk and Donald Trump divide people so they don't think about what they're doing. You're helping them.

I'll share it again...

That time Oprah and Ellen cosplayed as poor people by going to the bank...

https://youtu.be/HbwARJNjI3M

I wouldn't call her a good billionaire, but I think she's as benign as billionaires get. At least she does things like pay her employees a good wage and gets people involved in the political process.

And, as far as I know, she isn't responsible for anyone's deaths.

I'm sure she still stepped on a lot of necks up the pyramid, but compared to a shit ton of other billionaires out there...

You could also argue there are no good millionaires by the same logic.

The existence of billionaires is a systemic problem, largely not a personal failing.

I'm not a swiftie, but the message here should be "We need better redistributive institutions" or "We need a new economic system", not "Artist being an unexceptional artist (in terms of industry behavior) is BAD because she is one of the more successful ones"