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I just can't stop thinking about how boring rich people are. I like having money, getting cool stuff, traveling, but mostly it would be nice not to have to stress about making it, but if you manage to achieve that, why would you possibly want more than that? Like you can do basically anything, and your plan is to make more money?! That is just baffling! And then you want people to like you for that?! When you could legitimately spend every single day making people's lives better, and it wouldn't even make you not rich, but you just don't, and you wonder why people don't like you.
I'm sorry, I'm on a rant tonight, but seriously, some people would rather buy a President than just do one thing that would make them likable and interesting.
@RickiTarr
If you think of it as a sickness it begins to make sense.
@stargazersmith Yes, they need to be put in hospitals
I think about this a lot too, Ricki.
Like if I was a multimillionaire, I’d have a nice (but still relatively modest in size) home with a beautiful view. I’d help out friends and family and charities. I’d single-handedly fund so many Go Fund Me’s and Kickstarters.
If I was a billionaire, I’d create and build my own theme park and bed and breakfast, too. Get ready for Medieval Land Fun-Time World!
@KydiaMusic Like imagine having enough money to just fix things like world hunger, and just not doing that, it's bizarre
The kind of person you have to be to become a billionaire is the kind of person who doesn’t really care about people to begin with. You don’t accumulate that much wealth without screwing over a lot of people in one way or another (with the possible exception of T-Swift).
@KydiaMusic @RickiTarr And you don't accumulate it without strings attached. Your "wealth" is tied up in relations with your peers, who all know each other's dirty secrets, trade favors, etc.
@dalias @KydiaMusic @RickiTarr it also doesn't help that their money is half-ass fake anyway. Like, if your money is all in stocks that you can't sell cause it would tank your company, it only exists as long as you never use it. So not only are these the type of horrible monsters who would become billionaires in the first place, they also "only" have the obscene amount of money they can get safely or through loans, the rest is just scorekeeping for the worst people imaginable.
@rootfake @KydiaMusic @RickiTarr "Stocks that you can't sell cause it would tank your company"
Even worse, stocks that are falsely valued at $X each, but for which only the first N are actually worth $X and the rest are worth $X/10 or less because the value is tanked as soon as you sell the first N.
Borrowing against this kind of fraudulent valuation should be illegal.
@KydiaMusic @RickiTarr Since you don’t really get to be a billionaire from scratch, “becoming” a billionaire also means that you were brought up in an environment where you’re taught that no one except you matter.
@KydiaMusic @RickiTarr behind every great fortune there is a great crime...
People who care about others do not become billionaires.
@RickiTarr just depends on your definition of "rich"
What you described. Being comfortable, taking a vacation and traveling, not stressing... that sounds more like an ideal working class. Not rich 
Everyone is entitled to that tbh
@jeff Well I meant having wealth beyond that, but I agree everyone deserves nice things as long as it's not at the deep detriment of someone else
@RickiTarr I saw a headline about youknowwho today, and I know this isn't a shocking revelation but... there's something really, really wrong with that man.
I'm no fan of Bill Gates, who made his fortune via quasi-legal theft and racketeering, but even he got to a point where he had enough and wanted to start giving it away.
Whereas this other fool isn't content to already be the richest person in the world, he still needs to actively take away from others‽ There is something seriously broken in him.
@Neat_hot @RickiTarr Eh, not really? He just needed a distraction from all the lawsuits and bad PR.
@theartlav Is that so? I guess it worked on me because I wasn't paying that much attention.
@RickiTarr I truly believe that rich people get off on watching poor people suffer.
@RickiTarr I guess it's an inside out question. Better question would be what sort of people get to be billionaries under current systems? Systems that promote the least empathetic people who are profit motivated. Anyone able to think about other people would have stopped long before that.
That seems like 80% of them.
@RickiTarr if I had even a little more money you’d never hear from me again!
@RickiTarr money as social capital and social atanding attribute. At the end of the day, its about belonging to a power set and doing all the things that entails. Because the utility after a certain point can only be put towards that? You cant buy another life starting at the exact moment landed in the set, which is probably the exact thing they would buy if they could.
@ciggysmokebringer Social standing is so boring and isolating.
@RickiTarr @ciggysmokebringer have you read Trust, by Hernan Diaz? It was in interesting look into these themes.
@RickiTarr I think that something like "morbid wealth acquisition syndrome" will eventually be recognized as a bona fide mental illness. I cannot understand their behaviour except through two lenses: mental illness, and "power corrupts".
Most people seem to have ideas about all the fun they'd have if they had "fuck off money", but the catch is that to get that much you have to be sick, or at least susceptible to MWAS, in the first place -- and thus unable to enjoy it.
@sennoma Yes, I read an article about a study they did where they gave people some extra money every month on top of living expenses, and they were surprised to learn, that after most people bought a few luxuries and put some into savings, most people used the extra money to help other people.
@hotwheels @RickiTarr @sennoma
Doing business is normal. Sickly hoarding money, which again only serves to accumulate more money, and so on, is pathological behavior. These people later corrupt to bend the laws, again to accumulate more money. It is dangerous for the environment and for them.
@RickiTarr I absolutely agree with this. I've always wanted to win say 10 million on the lottery because I want to give a ton to my friends and give to charity and help people and stuff and my reward would be just not worrying how I'm living from month to month.
I'm sitting here living on $150 a month and even just an extra couple of hundred a month would be absolutely life-changing for me.
@retrosponge Right, and it's so pathetic to be okay with other people living that way
@RickiTarr It's bad enough the government is happily letting me live 50% below the poverty line.
I could have enough money to just reach the poverty line and I would feel like a freaking billionaire.
But I'm disabled so nobody in the government gives a shit because they'd rather I die because then I'm less of a burden.
If it wasn't for the donations I received through my Ko-Fi I'd have absolutely nothing in the bank right now with Christmas a mere 3 weeks away.
@RickiTarr if I was rich, people wouldn't know it. I'd revel in being able to enjoy life and help people and no one would know who the fuck I was.
Imagine being able to do good and not just not promote yourself, but not even try. Imagine being the anonymous donor in a hundred human interest stories, then going and getting a burrito and no one cares.
Or if I felt the best thing was to found some shit, I'd found some shit, hand people money, and go get my burrito. Whatever.
@RevXenoFact Right! That sounds like so much fun, just like giving people a better day
@RevXenoFact @RickiTarr For a period of time, I was working very late nights, so too many times, I ended up going to a fast food drive-thru for dinner because they were the only places open at 2am. On some occasions, I'd get someone who clearly looked like they were still in high school or college, and so professional and nice. I'd have loved to help them not have to work overnight to get what they needed.
@RevXenoFact @RickiTarr this is a common day dream of mine.
If I won the lottery there would be signs, nothing to identify me, just a lot of anonymous donations to community groups.
@RickiTarr billionaires are deeply broken
If I had money, I'd run around looking for ways to use it to fix shit and cosplay guardian angel.
This is:
A) Why I will never have money
B) What many average people would want to do because being cooperative and caring about others is a fundamentally human trait (or we wouldn't have made it this far)
@RickiTarr From #CitizenKane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfOeRbVY_vI
“Well, it’s no trick to make a lot of money...if all you want is to make a lot of money.”
@RickiTarr The wealth is just a proxy for the power they desire and ultimately attempt to weild.
@RickiTarr
I think it all boils down to a very toxic mix of capitalism and patriarchy. You are a man if you "made it". Which means you are successful, which means having money. I truly believe that Musk, Trump and the likes stop growing up at a very early stage of their lifes and in regards of success think very naively "Money= success=real man. Means more money=more success= more man". This is all they can see. An unrealistic picture of a human being, that you can never achieve to be. 1/2
@RickiTarr
And so they are stuck in a vicious circle of trying to be something that doesn't exist, while also trying to fill the void of lonliness and wanting acceptance that this creates, with even more trying to be the thing. They've just never learned that acceptance and love comes with something else.
I blame the parents. 2/2
@RickiTarr J.R.R. Tolkien referred to it in "The Hobbit" as "The Dragon Sickness".
Where the hoarding of wealth for its own sake becomes primary motivation.
@RickiTarr The great majority of people probably think exactly as you (and I also) do; they're just not the ones who become super-rich. For the aberrant money-grubbers, the motivation is probably more about power than the personal freedom and luxuries money can buy.
@RickiTarr a leader of a Belgian political party was asked which one was more important for him, power or happiness. His reply: "aren't they the same thing?". I think it's a similar pathology. Money equals power. Some people seem to think that power can fill the hole in their soul.
@RickiTarr Power. That kind of people want power. And power is a drug for many. That is why they're turning to politics, as some kinds of power are only accesible that way.
Many times I think what would I buy if I had lots of money and I stress out 
never been interested in mantaining mega luxuries. And I feel I have enough already (but I would be considered poor by many people).
@RickiTarr I was thinking about this exact topic recently.
I was in a village hall for a christening celebration and the hall had a fundraiser on one of the walls for replacing the delapitated roof.
To the wealthy it wouldn't be a substatial amount of money, likely less than they would spend on a new watch but I rarely see people with wealth flexing they community contributions.
@carbontwelve @RickiTarr I'm not a fan of state religion, but this was more a thing when wealthy folk attended church and at least lived/worked in or around the same village (rather than using it as a dormitory and driving to big town/city every morning). Many villages round here, particularly in #Essex are affluent but have 0 real community (even lacking commercial shops. They don't welcome visitors, and you get the impression the people living there, although often well off, hate each other..
the rich remain rich by spending your money, not theirs....
@carbontwelve @RickiTarr a couple of hundred years ago the Presbyterian Church acted to pressurise the massively wealthy to do good with their money. I do not miss an overly religious society, but it is a pity there is no longer any social pressure on billionaires to do good with their money.
Andrew Carnegie summarised it, saying the man who dies rich dies disgraced .
@peterbrown @RickiTarr I agree. Was that the partly the reason why so many public libraries were constructed by the wealthy?
@carbontwelve @RickiTarr very much so. Education was flavour of the month and giving ordinary people access to information was very much favoured.
So giving your money to that sort of thing was improving your chances at the pearly gates.
I don’t think being likeable and interesting is a valid goal for anyone and if it was someone’s goal that would be neither likeable nor interesting. But some very wealthy people could at least stand to be a little philanthropic, or stop claiming credit for all the interesting things they’re paying more interesting people to do. Still, I have no good reaon to blame anyone for not trying too hard to be liked. Just, plenty reason to dislike people whose behaviour is tediously evil.
@electropict I say that because they seem to really want to be liked and get very mad when they aren't
Sort of, but they do have some who like them. Perhaps it’s the challenge of the ones you can’t buy?
@electropict I don't know if like is the word, but they definitely have people, but even they have to realize it feels hollow sometimes
@RickiTarr It isn't about the money, it is about being top dog and competition. Most very wealthy people are sociopaths and have no empathy which is why they don't care about anyone else. You can't rely on govt leaders to redistribute wealth either as most successful leaders are also sociopaths, good at manipulation which is why they get elected or take control.
@RickiTarr Also, the shit they do buy is stupid, garish, ugly insecurity-flexing on horse steroids. Sure, dipshit, get the most expensive car in the world, which by the way is already designed to look as "exclusive" as possible, and coat the fucking thing in swarovski crystals or albino alligator skin - that'll fill the void in your soul & make you look interesting. Buy a fucking castle you won't even live in, just so "Homes Of The Undeserving Monthly" will be impressed. JFC, it's so sad.
@RickiTarr After a point it’s not about money but power.