There is no such thing as a benevolent publically traded company.

For all intents and purposes, they are restricted from being so if they ever wanted to be.

Any “charity” is an investment in PR Marketing AND a tax break that robs our shared commons of their share after our society facilitated their success. They spend more advertising what they “donated” than they gave to the charity. That’s not charity, it’s a transaction.

It didn’t used to be this way everywhere prior to the Reagan/Welch fire sale, the happiness of customers and employees still had some sway, but today, Private shareholders now demand and get litigious if companies aren’t maximizing greed/return/metastasis at any and all expense. Burn the commons if it’ll get you an extra nickel, shareholders expect maximum reutrn. It is their job to do anything they can get away with to give their greedy shareholders ever moooooooooaaaaaaar for doing nothing.

And sorry, no, I don’t respect capital investment return. It’s gambling, often with loaded insider info dice, It’s not labor and you probably got it by exploiting a lot people if you have a considerable amount under this system. Labor makes the homes, labor makes the food, labor provides the infrastructure and utilities. These shareholders didn’t discover or invent shit, their laboring engineers and researchers did. All shareholders are are the raw resource/property/land hostage takers. That’s all.

And it’s destroying our society, civilization in general, and even the very air we all COMMUN-ally breathe.

I guess we hate the idea of cooperating as a species so much, we’d rather suffocate.

Carry on.

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🎶 And No New Pips for Ensign Harry Kim! 🎶

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The Muslim imaginary sky dictator isn’t part of the Christian imaginary sky dictator’s plan to end the world (but like in a good way!) like the Jewish imaginary sky dictator’s followers are.

If you think about it, the Christian special relationship comradery with Judaism is a super patronizing relationship in that sense. “yeah, we can be friends, just stand… right over… Here. Right here.”

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With elections that monied interests can no longer purchase and disproportionately propagandize with their essentially limitless power/capital.

They have politicians work against the people, then buy enough ad propaganda to convince people that was a good decision in their interests without that, politicians would rise and fall moreso on what they do in office.

We are the weird ones in the developed world for allowing unlimited private money to pollute our politics, elections, and even buy sitting politicians though legalized political bribery superpacs. It got this way because of the influence of the wealth class being allowed in the first place using that in to expand its own power and ability to bribe, culminating in Citizens United.

I think our eventual collapse will be tied directly to that SCOTUS decision.

Which is why the absurdity of letting someone accumulate a billion dollar plus discrepancy is so glaring.

There won’t be because the game is already rigged, over, captured, and hoplesss, but there needs to be a maximum net worth at which point the winners of the economy’s excess wealth is siphoned away to benefit the society that provided the conditions for that success in the first place. YOU WON! Now go enjoy having enough wealth to live 100 embarrassingly gluttonous lifetimes while we use the excess millions and billions to build Schools you can send your kids to and roads you can drive your collection of multimillion dollar supercars on. I know, I know, that would be eviiil and crueeel. A real victimization amirite? /s

Why is it a tragedy if the maximum wealth one person can hold is half a billion? Or better 100 million? They won’t want to keep “excelling” and working? Awesome, makes room for people without that kind of money to succeed.

There’s a damn good reason in game design why you NEED to have drains and hard limits and maximums in any multiplayer economy. The game would fucking break or leave players miserable. But not here irl where there are actual stakes. Nope.

I love how so many of them demand love and acclaim for claiming they will give their money away… when they die.

You want me to sing your praises because you won’t use the money you made exploiting countless laborers and lobbying government to benefit yourself above society to anoint a handful of nepo babies to wield that power after you as some part of a new nepo dynasty? Gee thanks?

Its like a serial killer promising not to train his children in the family business. Its not doing good, just doing slightly less bad. Except billionaires cause damage on a far greater scale.

I mean when wealth reaches levels beyond material comfort, needs, and wants, when it becomes easy to warp society. Billionaire’s lifestyles doesn’t change AT ALL between 1 billion and 2, its about expanding power. That is what capital becomes at those levels.

Politicians swoon over you for “donations” (bribes), you begin to see regulations over the industry you exploit your profit from as amendable through lobbyists you can hire to represent your interests over society. Meanwhile that billionaire’s factory workers, customers concerned with product safety, our shared commons, and our communal environment have no advocates with such massive influence to counter them, when the needs of the many shouldn’t just balance the needs of the interests of the wealthy few at the top, they should far outweigh them. As it is, its the other way around. The billionaires have the resources to take care of themselves and protect themselves, most of society does not.

No one should have enough wealth to have more influence over society than your single vote allows. If you want more power, that should come by selling your ideas to society that votes on them by putting you into a political office, with ALL of the rules and accountability that comes with that office.

The White House and Senate often invites the billionaires of industries to be the authority on how those industries should be regulated, and it’s perverse. The Foxes advising on hen house security.

No one should have that much power.

I wouldn’t have trusted Fred Rogers with a billion dollars, and he’s practically the only famous stranger I could have seen trusting with my newborn alone.

It’s a society warping level of wealth. No single, unelected, unaccountable person should possess that much uniltateral power.

The global allowance encouragement of such an exploitative, reckless goal is why we are in our various bleak situations.

Meanwhile the largest stockholders didn’t develop or engineer shit complaining from their penthouses and scenic retreats about the “lazy workers” at the company they profit off of the most, having contributed no labor or invention to it, the real do nothing welfare class collecting a check for nothing.

And fuck off claiming their ill gotten capital they got exploiting others to invest in exploiting new others still having DONE NOTHING of actual value is somehow a contribution rather than the cyclical grift/theft it is.

If you want to defend them for holding the means of production hostage from laborers, the entire point of capitalism, then enjoy that high grain boot leather flavor, because thats all you are, a sycophant preening for daddy capitalist thief. They’ll never let you into their clubs, you aren’t human to them, but go ahead.

Well considering they’re being developed by greedy capitalists exclusively for further private profit, instead of publically funded research for the benefit of the citizenry, we already know this ain’t gonna be good.

And I say that as someone who believes we desperately need AI to address many of humanity’s great crises… That are mostly caused by the the same club of greedy capitalists.

Hey, maybe they’ll use AI to develop and sell rent us solutions on a subscription basis to what they’ve wreaked on the planet, the culture, and civilization in general. Wouldn’t that be swell?

Something tells me Elon has never and will never want or have a 2 way relationship.

No, really? Noooo…

Really?

By orders of magnitude if it’s a smartwatch.

Depends on how many citizens you can threaten/coerce into replacing them.

“You will have nothing and be happy with it”

“YESSIR RIGHT AWAY SIR!”

My problem is with a specific, hyper common ingredient of Indian food: Cumin

I’m sorry, but garlic, onion, cloves, etc don’t even come close to the clinging, pervasive staying power of cumin.

I don’t like to smell what I cook or eat for days after the fact.

Get it if it makes you happy.

Miserable parents make miserable children make miserable adults.

A parent isn’t doing their kids any favors by “living for” them. You’ll figure out the essentials, and no infant ever grows up to appreciate that you bought the expensive/fancier strollers/toys/diapers. The non-basic baby supplies exist purely for parental vanity.