Like @cstross , I’ve only been realizing very late that extremely rich people are necessarily crazy.
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You're naive. Poverty is relative: the very wealthy WANT the vast majority to be poor because it justifies their assumption of personal superiority. If they only wanted "poor" to mean "have one euro less in their wallet", that'd be tolerable: but it seems to be necessary for their egos to see starvation, misery, and death on all sides.
Without disagreeing with your central point about the mega rich being crazy (clearly they are), there could be 2 constructions of the "get rid of the poor" phrase.
The phrase "I want to eliminate the homeless" could mean death camps or a massive house building program depending on who is saying it.
We see what we want to see - moustache twirling villain or visionary humanitarian.
All crazy bastards tho.
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@nathanael @ploum @cstross Those are merely rich people, and not ultra-rich people. In the eyes of the ultra-rich, those you see as rich are actually poor.
@HollieK72 @nathanael @cstross : as said "You know the difference between a million euros and a billion euros ? It’s approximately a billion euro".
Elon Musk coult enter the Wembley stadium fulll of homeless broken persons, make them all multimillionnaires (probably more than you will earn in your whole life) and not even feel any difference in its financial life.
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@cstross @nathanael @ploum Also, I think they genuinely believe poor people are lesser beings. They know the world is heading towards a big crunch. They want to be standing in the ashes. The poor demand resources. The poor could rise up and present a threat — there are so many more of them. I wish I could believe the email meant "how do we tackle poverty," but that's not what they said.
People who want to alleviate poverty don't talk about putting explosive collars on a private security team.
@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum In this context, the huge resource-demanding data centres make sense: they use all the resources for questionable outputs, and people have nothing left for themselves.
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Like @cstross , I’ve only been realizing very late that extremely rich people are necessarily crazy.
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2026/02/more-in-sadness-than-in-anger.html
It’s logical: non-crazy people will, at some point, hit the "more money than enough even for my craziest fullfilling dreams".
People who are still destroying their social/ecological environment for more money above that level are, obviously, crazy. And dangerous.
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@cstross @nathanael @ploum Also, I think they genuinely believe poor people are lesser beings. They know the world is heading towards a big crunch. They want to be standing in the ashes. The poor demand resources. The poor could rise up and present a threat — there are so many more of them. I wish I could believe the email meant "how do we tackle poverty," but that's not what they said.
People who want to alleviate poverty don't talk about putting explosive collars on a private security team.
@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum "They know the world is heading towards a big crunch."
It's worse than that. They actively want to create that big crunch. The reality is that there's enough to go around. But they willfully want to disbelieve that.
The truth is, they want to kill people, and they willfully bend their beliefs to excuse that.
As for putting explosive collars on their security team - it's part of a bizarre obsession with figuring out how to prevent them from simply
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@26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael @ploum To some extent that's an inevitable side-effect of a social hierarchy constructed on a foundation of chattel slavery. Slaves are property, they can't own anything, so to be poor is to be closer to that state of immiseration.
Slavery: the original sin of the colonizers of the Americas. (That, with a side-order of genocide-by-plague, but slavery left the biggest mark on the present day.)
And as Pratchet said: evil is treating people as things.
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael : you are right. This is also something very different from Europe, which never had slaves but is still rooted in aristocracy.
And, with all its problems, aristocracy has one advantages over slavery: aristocrats had responsibility. they were educated to be responsible. It didn’t always work but this was the norm. Honor and reputation were more important than "raw power" or "money"
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@26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael @ploum To some extent that's an inevitable side-effect of a social hierarchy constructed on a foundation of chattel slavery. Slaves are property, they can't own anything, so to be poor is to be closer to that state of immiseration.
Slavery: the original sin of the colonizers of the Americas. (That, with a side-order of genocide-by-plague, but slavery left the biggest mark on the present day.)
And as Pratchet said: evil is treating people as things.
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael @ploum there's a real right-wing push to encourage tipping culture here in Spain. The dynamics are gross.
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@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum "They know the world is heading towards a big crunch."
It's worse than that. They actively want to create that big crunch. The reality is that there's enough to go around. But they willfully want to disbelieve that.
The truth is, they want to kill people, and they willfully bend their beliefs to excuse that.
As for putting explosive collars on their security team - it's part of a bizarre obsession with figuring out how to prevent them from simply
@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum killing them and taking their bunkers for themselves when the apocalypse they so desperately want to cause happens.
A consultant suggested to them that they could be friends with their security personnel. That suggestion did not go well with the audience.
They're too psychopathic to even understand the idea of friendship, much less be friends with people who they will depend on for their lives.
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@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum I grew up poor in the USA. Poverty there is framed as a moral condition by the entire society in the USA. You are lesser because you are poor and, in some cases, not considered human. I speak in general terms so exceptions, etc. Many give to charity to feel morally superior to the poor. It's brutal and pervasive so getting to "how do we get rid of poor people" is not surprising in the least.
@26aafa19 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum South Carolina politician discussing giving children lunches at school makes your point
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/01/sc-lt-gov-poor-like-stray-animals-031959
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@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael : you are right. This is also something very different from Europe, which never had slaves but is still rooted in aristocracy.
And, with all its problems, aristocracy has one advantages over slavery: aristocrats had responsibility. they were educated to be responsible. It didn’t always work but this was the norm. Honor and reputation were more important than "raw power" or "money"
@ploum @cstross @ravenbait @nathanael Europe had slaves. The Vikings were prolific slavers, for instance, and it went on for a long, long time. Europe just choses not to engage with that past.
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@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael : you are right. This is also something very different from Europe, which never had slaves but is still rooted in aristocracy.
And, with all its problems, aristocracy has one advantages over slavery: aristocrats had responsibility. they were educated to be responsible. It didn’t always work but this was the norm. Honor and reputation were more important than "raw power" or "money"
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael : which was the cause of the French revolution.
Aristocrats took huge loans to preserve their honor (and sometimes to be responsible of their servants). The new "bourgeoisie" class took advantage of that and, as they were refused the honor, they simply took down the aristocracy because they had enough money and there was a famine that only their money could solve.
It never was about the poor. And the guillotine was mostly used between rival bourgeois
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@26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael @ploum To some extent that's an inevitable side-effect of a social hierarchy constructed on a foundation of chattel slavery. Slaves are property, they can't own anything, so to be poor is to be closer to that state of immiseration.
Slavery: the original sin of the colonizers of the Americas. (That, with a side-order of genocide-by-plague, but slavery left the biggest mark on the present day.)
And as Pratchet said: evil is treating people as things.
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael @ploum
The propaganda campaign at the other end too ; the illusion that people are rich because they are worthy creators of wealth.
Whereas the truth is that they are rich ... because of the rest. As Nick Hanauer puts it, without industrial civilzation, the most entrepreneurial guy in the world still just sells fruit at the side of the road.
They see the "poor" as their stepping stones and drool at the prospect of replacing us with silicon and steel.
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Like @cstross , I’ve only been realizing very late that extremely rich people are necessarily crazy.
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2026/02/more-in-sadness-than-in-anger.html
It’s logical: non-crazy people will, at some point, hit the "more money than enough even for my craziest fullfilling dreams".
People who are still destroying their social/ecological environment for more money above that level are, obviously, crazy. And dangerous.
@ploum @cstross Ah, you misunderstood, it's their score that is constantly showing in their personal heads up display.
And in their game of life, they play to get the high score and to make sure that the upstart that was born in the castle on the hill on the other side of the village doesn't beat them.
And if a couple of board cutouts that look like peons have to suffer, that's a a sacrifice they are willing to take.
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@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum killing them and taking their bunkers for themselves when the apocalypse they so desperately want to cause happens.
A consultant suggested to them that they could be friends with their security personnel. That suggestion did not go well with the audience.
They're too psychopathic to even understand the idea of friendship, much less be friends with people who they will depend on for their lives.
@isaackuo @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael : the whole Epstein story show that they don’t have friends. They have "connections". They want to go around people that would look nice on a picture in a journal. They don’t trust any one.
Epstein managed to make a business out of that: "convincing famous people that other famous people would be at his parties".
I’m sure that at least some were not interested in the sex part but did it "to be part of the gang" (which is no excuse)
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@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum killing them and taking their bunkers for themselves when the apocalypse they so desperately want to cause happens.
A consultant suggested to them that they could be friends with their security personnel. That suggestion did not go well with the audience.
They're too psychopathic to even understand the idea of friendship, much less be friends with people who they will depend on for their lives.
@isaackuo @cstross @nathanael @ploum
It was Rushkoff. That's the story I was alluding to.
And I think it's clear that at least some of them are all too keen to turn the world to ashes themselves if they have to, just so they can toast their feet by the fire.
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@isaackuo @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael : the whole Epstein story show that they don’t have friends. They have "connections". They want to go around people that would look nice on a picture in a journal. They don’t trust any one.
Epstein managed to make a business out of that: "convincing famous people that other famous people would be at his parties".
I’m sure that at least some were not interested in the sex part but did it "to be part of the gang" (which is no excuse)
@ploum @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael Yeah, one thing no one ever told me when I was young was that you had to be constantly hustling and networking.
This idea of constantly viewing other people as nothing more than useful tools for getting ahead ... I didn't get that ingrained in me.
Was I lucky? Was I unlucky? Had I been indoctrinated into hustle culture, maybe I'd be more prosperous right now. But as it is, I can only imagine living that way as miserable. To me, at least.
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@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael : you are right. This is also something very different from Europe, which never had slaves but is still rooted in aristocracy.
And, with all its problems, aristocracy has one advantages over slavery: aristocrats had responsibility. they were educated to be responsible. It didn’t always work but this was the norm. Honor and reputation were more important than "raw power" or "money"
@ploum @cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael Besides, I’d argue serfs were slaves even though in some places and times had distinctions to slaves.
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Like @cstross , I’ve only been realizing very late that extremely rich people are necessarily crazy.
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2026/02/more-in-sadness-than-in-anger.html
It’s logical: non-crazy people will, at some point, hit the "more money than enough even for my craziest fullfilling dreams".
People who are still destroying their social/ecological environment for more money above that level are, obviously, crazy. And dangerous.
@ploum @cstross yes I believe their is a problem for the super privileged after a lifetime of education and peers telling you, you are not the same as the hoi polloi, the rules dont apply to you, it is hard for them to modify their behaviour. True even when their actions are potentially fatal to many people in society, they dont feel to need to engage. In Covid when people werent allowed to drive the only cars we saw on the road were the highest end ones..
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@nathanael @ploum You misunderstand. It's not about economics, it's about primate pack dominance and hierarchy. The motivations of the hyper-rich are very much *not* rational, otherwise they'd have stopped collecting money long ao.
@cstross @nathanael @ploum Yeah, and primate pack dominance and hierarchy is HOW they feel rich.
They don't feel rich from owning stuff. They feel rich from owning people.
And you don't get to own people if everyone can just quit and do something else instead. You only get to own people if the alternative is suffering and death.
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@ploum @cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael Besides, I’d argue serfs were slaves even though in some places and times had distinctions to slaves.
@mojala @cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael : they were, indeed, but it was very different in the sense that they could not be sold. It was not "institutionalized" slavery with people whipping them and selling them.
They had the duty to give food to their master but how they did it was their own responsibility. I’m not arguing it is "better", just that it allows to subtly gain more rights because you are not "an object to be sold"
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