image transcription:
big collage of people captioned, "the only people I wouldn't have minded being billionaires"
names(and a bit of info, which is not included in the collage) of people in collage(from top left, row-wise):
- Alexandra Elbakyan, creator of Sci-Hub. perhaps the single-most important person in the scientific community regarding access to research papers.
- Linus Torvalds, creator of linux kernel and git, courtesy of which we have GNU/Linux.
- David Revoy, french artist famous for his pepper&carrot, a libre webcomic. inspiration for artists who are into free software movement
- Richard Stallman, arch-hacker who started it all. founded the GNU project, free software movement, Emacs, GCC, GPL, concept of copyleft, among many other things. champions for free software to this day(is undergoing treatment for cancer at the moment).
- Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president of VLC media player for 2 decades now
- Ian Murdock, founder of Debian GNU/Linux and Debian manifesto. died too soon.
- Alexis Kauffmann, creator of framasoft, a French nonprofit organisation that champions free software. known for providing alternatives to centralised services, notable one being framapad and peertube.
- Aaron Swartz, a brilliant programmer who created RSS, markdown, creative commons, and is known for his involvement in creation of reddit. he also died too soon.
- Bram Moolenaar, creator of vim, a charityware.
on the bottom right is the text reading, "plus the thousands of free software enthusiasts working tirelessly."
No one should have that much power.
I wouldn't have trusted Fred Rogers with a billion dollars, and he's practically the only famous stranger I could have seen trusting with my newborn alone.
It's a society warping level of wealth. No single, unelected, unaccountable person should possess that much uniltateral power.
The global ~~allowance~~ encouragement of such an exploitative, reckless goal is why we are in our various bleak situations.
that's a good point. if i get it right, you mean that since wealth is a resource, it should always be in the hands of those who are accountable(like the government)?
I mean when wealth reaches levels beyond material comfort, needs, and wants, when it becomes easy to warp society. Billionaire's lifestyles doesn't change AT ALL between 1 billion and 2, its about expanding power. That is what capital becomes at those levels.
Politicians swoon over you for "donations" (bribes), you begin to see regulations over the industry you exploit your profit from as amendable through lobbyists you can hire to represent your interests over society. Meanwhile that billionaire's factory workers, customers concerned with product safety, our shared commons, and our communal environment have no advocates with such massive influence to counter them, when the needs of the many shouldn't just balance the needs of the interests of the wealthy few at the top, they should far outweigh them. As it is, its the other way around. The billionaires have the resources to take care of themselves and protect themselves, most of society does not.
No one should have enough wealth to have more influence over society than your single vote allows. If you want more power, that should come by selling your ideas to society that votes on them by putting you into a political office, with ALL of the rules and accountability that comes with that office.
The White House and Senate often invites the billionaires of industries to be the authority on how those industries should be regulated, and it's perverse. The Foxes advising on hen house security.
thanks for explaining
The only exception I can think of is Dolly Parton. I read a report that suggested she'd be among the world's wealthiest if she weren't consistently giving away 90%+ of her income.
The problem is that anyone with that much wealth has already proven their selfishness by not giving away most of it. It's the classic issue of "Anyone who can be elected should never be elected."
Recently saw a post somewhere proposing a new style of Government, where we just give the money to Dolly Parton and just kinda let her do her thing with it.
Wouldn't be the worst option out there, but I wouldn't wish that on the woman.