@gpowerf yup, the defenses ive seen are just as appaling...

@freemo @gpowerf This.

I believe the same news will not evoke the same level of emotion in each one of us. We will react to the same story/news in a different manner.

I came to know about the whole thing quite late. But was a bit surprised that it was all memes and trolls.

@shaunh @freemo You keep saying that but I haven’t found any good evidence of it so far.

His wife has been claimed a Jew, for example https://www.jpost.com/international/article-747205 on the 22nd. Not sure if they would have omitted his being a Jew in such an article. Vs. Wikipedia (I know, I know) claims “Through his father he was a descendant of two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Stockton and physician Benjamin Rush.”

@ThatWouldBeTelling @freemo There was another article floating around which made it seem like he had at least converted.

@shaunh @freemo That I can believe, but … hmmm, useful for propaganda, even if he’s not a real Jew with all the genetic behavior that comes with it.

Everything I see starting with his face says not, not even ambiguous. Was born into wealth, most notably got certified to fly a DC-8 passenger jet at age 19 which would have taken a lot of money.

@ThatWouldBeTelling @freemo It's a different kind of propaganda: converts will receive none of the benefits and all of the downsides.

@ThatWouldBeTelling @freemo And the more news comes out it comes even more clear that even if he wasn't one genetically, he was one spiritually:

https://futurism.com/oceangate-ceo-expired-carbon-fiber-submarine

@shaunh @freemo My one quibble is that he believed his own bullshit and died in his own maximally cheap sub.

Not sure that’s characteristically Jewish, hubris being a universal human failing which even has its own Greek god https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis “who personifies retribution for the sin of hubris: arrogance before the gods.”

Also note just using a carbon fiber composite meant most of the hull couldn’t be non-destructively tested, instead there was an acoustic monitoring system which might give you less than a millisecond before such composites are known to catastrophically fail.

All that’s iffy, albeit well know to people in the field and those who watch it. Something with hard numbers to perhaps focus on is the viewing dome which was rated by the manufacturer for only a fraction of the Titantic’s depth. Recently read it would deform, be pushed inward a couple of inches, on each dive….

@admitsWrongIfProven Actually yes... resources may be finite but wealth is not... Some people having more wealth does **not** mean others have to have less as a result. Wealth is largely generated. One person having more doesnt imply someone else has to have less, thats not how wealth works.

@freemo It does not mean that any inequality immediately causes poverty, but please, do you really want to say billionaires deliver good value for their wealth and do not cause poverty right now?

The hopelessness in face of worsening conditions for the masses in times of record profits for big companies might spawn some rather tasteless reactions, but refugees drowning in the mediteranean are tasteless as well. As are slums in front of Amazon warehouses filled with the generously compensated workers.

So if you don't see a reason to complain about the one side, i can't take you seriously if you complain about the other.

@admitsWrongIfProven if you are lumping all billionairs into the same category then yea you are completely disconnected from the reality.

Some billionairs do bad, some do good, just as many middle clasd do the same. The perportion of evil doers and good doers is about the same regardless of class.

That said rich people do statistically give a much larger portion of their wealth to charities and the poor... so there is that.

And for the record slums existing in front of amaxon warehouses doesnt remotely imply amazon caused those slums to exist, such poorly framed anecdotal evidence is telling of your bias though...

@freemo "Their" money? I find the concept baffling.

If someone creates value and charges for that, that's their money.

Now, which "good" billionaire did deliver billions in value?

And, where is that value? Should the world not be a veritable paradise if there was as much value delivered as there is wealth?

And on a side note, why extract money from the system if the purpose is to give it to the poor? Is there some benefit in "it was my money for a while"? Is the concept that handouts are degrading and people want to contribute so obscure?

@admitsWrongIfProven see this is exactly an example of how you dont ubderstand the most basic ideas of money and wealth...

> why extract money from the system if the purpose is to give it to the poor?

You seem to refuse to accept how money/wealth works.. it is **not** a fixed thing that is extracted. It is created/generated as well as moving around. The billionairs arent ciphoni g out your money then giving it back, they are generating new wealth then instead of keepi g it all for themselves they are givi g a portion of it back.

@freemo Well, to get a bit deeper, from what i've seen the conditions for this "creation" must be right. Which would mean certain deregulations, trade agreements biased toward richer countries. A nice example would be the rolling copyright extensions that have kept some stuff copyrighted well beyond the death of the creator.

Now not everyone can profit (create wealth) from this equally - as with the trade agreements, some countries get a right shafting.
Or take your american medical system, the conditions for "creating" wealth are there, what could a dose of insulin cost? A lot, it seems. People are dying so the profit can be maxed.

So no, i am not saying exactly the existing billionaires have done all evil in the world. They were best at profiting from an unfair system and pushing it towards even grosser unfairness.

Sure, creating value and creating wealth are different. Right on point, only the first is a good thing.

@admitsWrongIfProven @freemo aaaaah here’s the snarky passive aggressive conversation I have missed so much from Twitter.. 😒

@wiredfire @freemo For clarification: do you mean both of us or just one?

Sorry if it triggered you, we do this from time to time... despite what you see here, we generally get along.

@admitsWrongIfProven

Yes i like admits and consider him a good guy. We just differ in opinion, hopefully respectfully.

@wiredfire

@freemo @admitsWrongIfProven

And for the record I still consider myself on talking terms with both of you despite your mutual differences. It's ok to disagree.

@wiredfire

@gabe That doesnt make it right, if anything that just articulates why it is so wrong..

It would be like me saying (wrongly) that im happy some random black person died because im angry at all the times ive been assaulted by blasck people...

The premise is wrong, black/billionairs as a whole arent hurting people (despite there being plenty of notable bad individuals)... and you using that as justification is also wrong.

@freemo , I'd reject the analogy of course, since blaming one black person for the actions of others of the same race is morally invalid, but blaming one rich person for their *own* actions is entirely appropriate.

The individual billionaire could have done much good with their wealth; they did not. They could have supported a more just economic system that gave them less unearned wealth and better protected the rights of the weak & poor; they did not (indeed they did the opposite). These choices deserve moral blame, especially since they are now individually in the public eye.

(and being angry at those who are morally blameworthy in large public ways is a reasonable emotion!)

@gabe Except you arent blaming a rich person for their own actions beyond the act of simply being rich... sounds a lot like racism where you blame a person simply for being black and making overarching sterotype assumptions about all black/rich people.

And your last paragraph is just out of touch with the reality of it.. being rich doesnt mean you are unjust.. in fact most rich people donate a much larger portion of their income to charity than middle class people do, so you are assuming simply because they created their wealth and decided not to give away all or most of the very thing they created that they are by default evil.

@freemo
> Except you arent blaming a rich person for their own actions beyond the act of simply being rich

Please do not put fictitious reasons into my mouth after I have explicitly given different reasons. 🙂 I understand it's easy to do unconsciously because the fictitious reasons are more emotional.

I don't think it's "out of touch" to blame someone for their bad actions, even if they've also done good actions.

@gabe

You literally went on to give a generic reason why all rich people were bad... it was not fictitious.

It is out of touch when 1) those bad actions are a generalization 2) those bad actions arent reality.

@freemo ,
Indeed it was fictitious, as it was neither my words nor implied by them, but rather I explicitly contradicted that fictitious reason in my first comment on this thread.

I wonder whether you're mixing me up with other people (that is to say, blaming me as an individual for arguments of other people you consider similar).

@gabe Your statement was as follows:

> The individual billionaire could have done much good with their wealth; they did not. They could have supported a more just economic system that gave them less unearned wealth and better protected the rights of the weak & poor; they did not (indeed they did the opposite). These choices deserve moral blame, especially since they are now individually in the public eye.

These assumptions are blanket statements about rich people, and based solely on them being rich... You have no idea what good, if any, they did with their wealth in the past (or would continue to do in the future). You have no idea if they fought for a better system that protected the weak or poor, again, you knew nothing about these people and assumed, based solely on them being rich, that they were guilty of the above.

@freemo
Those reasons can apply to most rich people, but interpreting it that way was your imposition into the text, not supported by the text, which as you'll note literally indicates its subject as "the individual billionaire". You misread; we all do from time to time.

You also make a number of statements about my knowledge of the individuals, perhaps supposing I haven't read the news about them. I'm very chill about such things, but for general quality of discussion it's better to avoid attempts at mind-reading. 🙂

@gabe Then by all means, please feel free to provide individual examples of things the billionairs in this case did that was immoral.. at least then I might agree with you.

@freemo
Happy to share the two biggies in more detail, though I already referenced them. From what I've seen if your political persuasion, I doubt you'll agree with their moral valence, but that's a separate matter. (Also, I believe inaction to be equally morally relevant as action. You're free to agree or disagree with that, IMO this isn't the thread for that argument.)

• Shahzada Dawood's wealth was inherited from the Dawood Group -- quite literally unearned by him. It was his choice to accept it for personal benefit rather than to support a more meritocratic system.

• Shahzada's net worth was estimated to be around $360 million. He could have used a large fraction of that money for good; he did not. He made that choice every day.

He's currently in the public eye due to his own actions (the Titan sub fiasco), so comment on him is justified, including angry judgment of his moral failings.

@gabe So your assertion is 1) he i herited money 2) he didnt make hinself poor or middle class after he i herited that money?

Sounds a hell of a lot like your whoke accusation boils down to "he is rich" afterall.

@gabe Just checked, the Dawoods are in fact one of the largest philantropists in all of pakistan. They have donated huge swaths of money to form the dawood group who focuses on bringing free education to low income families in the area..

So unsuprisingly your notion was complete nonsense and in fact the exact opposite is true. Your whole argument very clearly relies on the assumption that a person who is rich is by default a bad person.

@freemo
No, my assertion is not "he inherited money", which I view as morally neutral, it's "he chose personal wealth over meritocracy", and, No, not that "he didn't make himself poor", which I view as a prudent choice, but that "he didn't use his great wealth for similarly great good".

I'd strongly encourage us all to use the principle of charity! If your conversational partner wouldn't agree to your rephrasing, then that rephrasing is *uncharitable and wrong*.

@gabe first off he did use and continues to use his great wealth for good, dumping a great deal into his fou dation commited to educaring the poor.

So if thats all you meant then you are simply wrong.

@freemo
(Applying charity: Would I agree that that's all I meant? Obviously not.)

He used *some* of his unearned wealth for charity, but kept $360 million. He, like each of us, is blameworthy for not doing the good he could have done, and in his case that good he could do but chose not to do was *vast*.

@gabe So you are saying he is a bad person because he didnt giveaway his mo ey, somethi g youve also disagreed with.. you are making no sense... if you think he is a bad person for keeping 360 million that was given to him then you are agreeing with my original assertion, that your sole accusation is, he was given mo ey and choose to not give most of it away, ergo your sole accusation reduces to hin being rich (and staying rich)

@freemo
Applying Charity: Did I say he should give away his money? No, I said he should have done good with it. So clearly I couldn't agree with your rephrasing as any part of my accusation, let alone my sole accusation.

I guess I was hoping for a degree of precision in thought & text that I'm not finding today. 🫤

@gabe

I keep trying to ubderstand you, which is why everytime inkeep asking for clarity...

So he shoukd have done good with his money... he has, he is literally the biggest philantropist in his country and did massive good with it.

@icedquinn @freemo Obviously expressing joy at someones death is horrible. However, I suspect that some people were more trying to poke fun at the way our media trains us to care about relatively inconsequential things. I have seen dozens of news stories suggested to me over the past weeks about this group of foolhardy people (who also happened to be extremely wealthy) dying in a completely foreseeable way. Everyone at my workplace knows this story inside and out. Yet a few weeks ago not a single story appeared anywhere about the chinese helping to put an end to the decades long war in Yemen, a war in which american drones were killing women and children so that they could have better relations with the Saudis. Most of these same people dont even know that there was ever a war in Yemen, let alone that their tax dollars were probably used for war crimes.

@Clementulus @freemo i've seen people list some various things this was used to distract everyone from.

i've also seen some discussion that every time the press gets stuck on really silly shit, it's typically to cover up serious news that is bad for the regime

@icedquinn @freemo I think it's all to distract us from the orca uprising.

@Clementulus @freemo that whole thing is indeed hilarious