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@interfluidity It's hard to see how they're different than millionaires, thousandaires or hundrenaires

@realcaseyrollins lots of millionaires quietly take their fuck you money and live their best lives. billionaires compete for status and guard their unmistakable hordes, kissing whatever ass is necessary for advantage and to reduce the risk they might be targeted and disadvantaged in their pathetic little game to the very biggest pretend little gods.

@interfluidity People in other classes do the same thing.

@realcaseyrollins people do all kinds of things. billionaires disproportionately compete and conform. billionairehood selects for people like that.

@interfluidity I just don't see evidence of that TBH.

I always think it's funny that the people trying to get everyone to hate and kill the rich make the mistake of assuming that they're better than them.

@realcaseyrollins millionaires are rich. billionaires are something else. i don’t want anyone to hate anyone, and certainly not kill anyone. we don’t need a guillotine when we have a tax system. we do need to use our tax system aggressively.

@interfluidity If I wanted to destroy the economy I'd certainly join you in supporting aggressive taxes.

Edit: I wasn't accusing you of wanting folks to kill people, to clarify. Just making a general statement about class warfare-waging progressives that often say similar things to what you've espoused here.

@realcaseyrollins nope. billionaires claims to their hordes do nothing for the economy, and people strove just as hard when the economy’s big winners got tens of millions rather than billions.

@interfluidity I just want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly: are you asking me to believe that billionaires (who AFAIK disproportionately run businesses that employ massive amounts of workers) do nothing for the economy?

@realcaseyrollins some of the do some worthwhile things coming up. but if they achieve billionairehood it’s usually by attaining market power and often net destructive. if the achievable spread were between 0 and 100 million (with only a very small fraction achieving 100M) rather than 0 and 1T, ambitious people would work just as hard for that status and do the same good things with less likelihood of becoming destructive monopolists.

@Phil @realcaseyrollins you’re going to end up with a symbiosis of cronies and sycophants when the scale of differences in wealth is so vast. competitive markets, regulators who can serve as trustworthy referees, all depend on a baseline of equality. everybody in the game performs their role in a trustworthy way, can afford to beat the consequences of calling out those who don’t, no one is above the law, outside the rules, because their favor is so valuable.

@interfluidity @realcaseyrollins

I suspect that the scale of differences in wealth is so vast, BECAUSE of the cronyism and government corruption and is less a result of it.

@realcaseyrollins @Phil not everyone. some people are extraordinarily willing to sacrifice for abstract ideas of virtue. most try to do the right thing, but are susceptible to pragmatic compromise. at a systemic level, the most win. the Mother Theresas get fired by the people willing to make compromises to advance. https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5031.html

@Phil @realcaseyrollins yes. much of the design of contemporary institutions is about organizing things so that people who think themselves good can participate on systems that do a great deal of bad. your doctor heals you (good!) while getting paid from extraordinarily and just and predatory financing arrangements, but her work is segregated from those arrangements.