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(Snore) Madame CJ Walker, Mary Kay Ash, Beyonce...
Just ignore all the data points that don't fit on your bumper sticker
@the_q @YusufToropov @RevLindsay @talia_christine
Please take these data points about what happens to societies, if we keep letting rich people keep hoarding ressources and influence politics:
https://digitalcourage.social/@robin/112141158869866606
@robin @YusufToropov @RevLindsay @talia_christine I'm well aware of how our society works, thanks
@the_q @RevLindsay @talia_christine
Sorry, I'm sure you do!
This was more in response to @YusufToropov s data points.
@YusufToropov You are right, let's not forget the 0.0000000001% of rich people who do not fit the bumper sticker! @RevLindsay @talia_christine
Fomenting class warfare is so cool. Stalin is cool, too. Mao is cool. All the genocidal dictators who made the same absurdly broad generalisation and rode it like a canoe down a river of blood were SO DAMN COOL.
If something is simple, it must be true.
Four legs good, two legs better, too.
@YusufToropov @talia_christine Suuuure, because anything communist is an Evil plot from Satan and everything capitalist must be good and god-inspired because AMERICA 
@yuki2501 @YusufToropov @talia_christine
Read again. Yusuf didn't use any of the words you use.
@HarmBotjes @YusufToropov @talia_christine So fucking what.
Way to yell on yourself, @YusufToropov .
@pixplz @YusufToropov Pretty sure the people living in ridiculously huge houses, flying on private jets, and generally living off the labor of others while manipulating governments to maintain their wealth and power over those who live in abject poverty and suffering are the ones who are fomenting class warfare.
@YusufToropov That wasn't even about communism. It's just true about the vast majority of rich people.
What you do with that observation politically is a different conversation. But in my view, allowing slackers with luck on their side to pretend they're something they're not to justify bad behaviour and bad attitudes is not one of the options.
@Andii everyone seems to be taking comfort in the delusion I mentioned communism, as opposed to a blood-drenched playbook for the manipulation of idealistic naivete (of all ages) that goes back to at least the French Revolution.
I'm talking about whether language matters.
@YusufToropov@toot.community @talia_christine@beige.party not all commies are tankies
@YusufToropov Wild trip from "class warfare" (where ist that mentioned in the original post?) to dictators! @talia_christine
Boo 
@talia_christine Absofinglutely...true meme!
@talia_christine you appear to have omitted tax avoidance and tax evasion. In my opinion the same thing.
@talia_christine Go back to the birth lottery's previous generations and eventually it's merciless exploitation anyway.
@talia_christine This is very good, but the world often feels like the second one should be a Venn diagram with two perfectly overlapping circles.
@Legit_Spaghetti just one circle.
A luxury many do not have 
@talia_christine It forgets *sheer luck*.
i.e. The ones we see as billionaires are the ones who randomly got lucky. The investment paid off, the idea came at the right time, the risky gamble succeeded and they made a packet or whatever. We don't see the equivalent individual who's investment failed, who's idea was too early the risky gamble failed and they lost everything or whatever. i e. The equivalent same person but without the lucky circumstance. Of which the accident of birth is maybe a subset.
In effect we laud the successful as if what seperates them from the failure is acumen not random chance. And starting rich definitely gives chance a leg up.
@terryb @talia_christine so yes, there's sheer luck, but the physical process of amassing that wealth comes from robbing the people who actually did the thing.
Bill Gates never built jack shit, and at least one of the people who actually did build what the people he hired sold early on died impoverished.
@talia_christine Maybe I should summarise that as; statistically some chancers will luck out and end up as squillionairs. So the ones whom we see are the ones who did get lucky.
@talia_christine 
I guess I’m a counter example. Exception to the rule?
@talia_christine There is some truth in that, but it’s a terrible message. No legitimate route to wealth? No value in hard work, etc?
@mark correct no way for mostly all of us to be rich. Hard work is cool and all. But I have leared to work hard on my home and family. Then the job gets whatever is leftover. Im tired of working hard to make someone richer while I struggle. SELF-PRESERVATION woot woot!
@mark @talia_christine It is not a terrible message. Forget wealth and live the life you've got. It's all you'll ever have. Don't give it to somebody else (unless they are going to reciprocate the sentiment).
@khleedril @talia_christine The flipside of that message is that hard work, gumption and a can-do attitude gets you nowhere, so don’t bother. And if you see somebody with wealth, well they basically stole it or it was given to them. So you can’t do anything. You have no agency. All you can expect from this life is despairing memes.
So yeah, not a message for your kids once you get past the surface level interpretation of “billionaires are bad”.
@mark @khleedril @talia_christine
I guess it depends on what you mean by "rich". Hard work, and the other attributes you mention, _can_ lead to wealth. But I think there're very few multimillionaires who didn't either start off as millionaires or made their money by taking advantage of either their employees or customers.
If you’re in the west, you are privileged, and are richer than most. Equally, if you are in the west, refuse to aspire to make anything of your life because you believe the system is against you, you’ve squandered what billions on this planet could only dream of.
@mark @talia_christine Ask the Amazon warehouse employees how much value they've gained thanks to their hard work.
@yuki2501 @mark @talia_christine
May be more effective to put hard work into union organising ...
@Andii @yuki2501 @talia_christine That or starting your own business. Just saying.
@mark @yuki2501 @talia_christine
or even helping form a co-op...
@Andii @yuki2501 @talia_christine Sure, as long as you can earn a living.
@talia_christine Maybe their grandparents made fortune selling fish with a donkey.
@talia_christine Counter point. I came from deep poverty. I never wanted to be rich, but I wanted to be secure. The truth is that hard work and a good attitude has elevated me to a place I didn't not expect was possible as a child. I've broken cycles, and sit firmly in the lower middle class.
Am I rich? No, but I know there's a hell of a lot of space between where I was and where I am. Hard work and a good attitude really helped.
The kicker is that I'm disabled due to those choices. 
@King_Geedorah @talia_christine Yours is the closest situation to mine I’ve seen in these threads
@talia_christine that second pie chart should be 100% birth lottery. Those that win the birth lottery inevitably go on to exploitation. Ok. Maybe it should be 99%. It’s possible that not EVERYBODY who exploits the working class won the birth lottery.
ɐıunp zsɐɯoʇ 
@talia_christine I wouldn’t generalize, but yes, it’s right in 9 cases out of 10
@talia_christine
How people think they got rights:
- voting
- negociating
- begging
- working hard
How people actually got rights:
- unionizing
- striking
- scaring the shit out of the dominants
- burning stuff in general
@talia_christine what about externalizing costs, raping our earth of its resources that belong to us all, and destroying/polluting the natural environment.
@talia_christine@beige.party Someone actually sort of cracked the code as to why there's a snowball effect:
Around the $100-200K in investments mark, capital gains & dividends more or less dwarf the raw cash you could ever put towards it. In effect, rich people are playing an auto-battler where all they have to do is not lose (this seems to be difficult for some of them).
@talia_christine Hey, this is flagrant misinformation.
The second chart should be a venn diagram with much greater overlap.
@talia_christine And also “stole it from someone else”.
This reflects a serious social change. In the past, the rich were rich because of (what they described as) the Will of God. Now they feel the need to pretend they earned it.
This has to do with the way that owners of steam engines crushed owners of slaves in the American Civil War.
@talia_christine It's actually funny how true this is, even in a smaller scale. Wasn't that long when I found a grade school class mate's post on Linkedin. It was supposed to be some kind of a motivational 'work hard and you'll succeed, just like me' posts there.
The thing is he's a factory owner's boy, who never did one day of real work, always being some kind of 'assistant administrator' or whatever BS name daddy could come up with for his nepotism.
Daddy's still in power, but the son is now some kind of next to god thing there. After asking around, he hasn't changed much in all the years, just the same short tempered, entitled prick, who for some reason now feels the need to inspire other people to be success like himself.