Like @cstross , I’ve only been realizing very late that extremely rich people are necessarily crazy.

[ploum@mamot.fr]

@raymierussell @cstross : there are plenty of examples of person suddenly becoming super-wealthy who managed not to stay that wealthy long (either voluntarily or not). Which points towards solution two being the main driving factor.

[chris_evelyn@fedi.chris-evelyn.de]

@raymierussell @ploum @cstross I like this explanation: Do you know that thought experiment where you get 1000€ when you press a button but someone you don't know dies? -- A millionaire is someone who was willing to press this button 1000 times, a billionaire a million times.

[raymierussell@mastodon.scot]

@chris_evelyn @ploum @cstross
That is horribly perfect.

[yora@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ploum @cstross The earliest christian writings make it clear that all rich people go to hell, because they are inherently evil.

[mrberard@mastodon.acm.org]

@stgm @ploum @cstross

Hubertus Bigend's lack of humanity manifests in infinity classier way that what we have in the real world...

Arguably, the Blue Ant trilogy is problematic in its representation of billionaires. Elon was perceived as eccentric, cool, and largely harmless and benevolent for a long time... It was a different time.😆

[dresstokilt@mastodon.social]

@rrb @26aafa19 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum I love how they will say something despicable and then claim "you're taking my words out of context!" but then you read their entire remarks and the quote sounds *even worse* in context.

An example of a quote taken out of context is "you didn't build that" from Barack Obama. This chud calling the poor "stray animals" sounds way worse when you add "because they breed."

[dresstokilt@mastodon.social]

@rrb @26aafa19 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum see also every bigoted Charlie Kirk quote that we were told was taken out of context. The "context" was just him further justifying his bigotry. The context was him saying the bigoted quote and then *standing by it*. You didn't need the "context," he agreed with the original quote. He spent his last seven words dehumanizing not one but *two* unrelated minorities.

[laust@ohai.social]

@isaackuo @cstross @nathanael @ploum this would be why they don't want universal income. It would allow people to just walk away from shitty jobs and conditions.

[gdupont@framapiaf.org]

@ploum
@cstross
They are definitively sociopath in the sense that they don't have empathy anymore (a necessary condition to reach that level of wealth)

[gdupont@framapiaf.org]

@ploum
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael
(nitpicking but we had our share of slaves in Europe - likely for longer than the US - and we did export that approach for society)

[boomlandjenkins@mastodon.social]

@ploum Let's not call them crazy. They are broken.

[boomlandjenkins@mastodon.social]

@nathanael @ploum @cstross When everyone is rich, no one is rich. Certain rich people don't want to see that ever happen, because they won't survive.

[ambulocetus@mefi.social]

@dresstokilt @rrb @26aafa19 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum
The Dead Kennedys saw it coming- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4yTGTCsTO4

[xz@ieji.de]

@ploum @cstross@wandering.shop It's not about money it's about power

[colman@mastodon.ie]

@26aafa19 @ploum @cstross @ravenbait @nathanael American black slavery was almost uniquely bad, formed the basis of the modern institutions and “but what about a millennia ago” is not a strong argument.