I wanna know how those 2/3rds are divided between those 10%.
this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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In other news, water is wet.
btw the top 10% is 800 million people so if you're from the west you're more than likely part of that figure.
doesn't mean it's your fault but if you're not actively doing something to prevent it then you are part of the problem..
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According to https://wid.world/world/#tptinc_p90p100_z/US;FR;DE;CN;ZA;GB;WO/last/us/k/x/yearly/t/false/0/200000/curve/false/country , the global 90th percentile income threshold in 2023 is at about $46,7k USD, market xchg rate.
But of course it's likely that if you are from the US your car use and shopping habbits contribute more even if you are below that income level compared to say a European who drives less and buys less.
I like to think of it in terms of fault vs responsibility. It’s not our fault, for the most part. But it is our responsibility to do something about it!
I’m hopeful. Renewables are exploding in growth.
I also like to think of it in terms of necessary and sufficient.
Its not sufficient for you to avoid buying petroleum/plastic and animal products, but it is necessary.
Yes a very good point, the carbon footprint of the average Canadian is 10x that of the average Albanian.
I knew they were up to something 🤔
It's ironic when you think about human history .... at one point in human development, there was a population bottleneck where there were only a few thousand individuals that we are all descended from. It basically means that we owe our present world to the survival of a few thousand people.
Now it seems our species will die out because of the greed of a small percentage of our population.
We came into being because of a few .... and we will die out because of a few.
Pretty much no serious authority on climate predicts that global warming will lead to human extinction. The collapse of what we know as civilisation, perhaps, and even some kind of mass death event, but our species outright ending? Zero chance. Not to say that those who endure as a relict population upon an overheated, polluted, and scarred Earth will be having a great time or anything
That few is still 800 million people. Basically anyone in a developed country.
I think of us as the golden billion. With the consumption still growing, mostly with China's help.
Oh my god you just blew my mind. The US is about 340m people.
I don’t think climate change is going to mean annihilation of the human race on its own. It depends on what the people do when faced with famine on a mass scale. Water wars leading to nuclear annihilation would do it, but there also could be multiple revolts and power struggles over the world. Depending on how those go it could put us into something positive. Not without untold suffering though.
ngl if humanity gets though the next 100 years, I kinda doubt we can all go extinct from then on.
The damage we are creating will take thousands or millions of years to undo .... so the trajectory of problems is bad right now, will get worse in the next few decades and stay that way for a few centuries. That is if we don't figure out ways to make things even more worse.
And if we do get to the point of nuclear war and the inevitable nuclear holocaust after, it will take us a century to survive that, then centuries more to recover from the damage it will cause.
I do have hope that as imaginative and creative beings that we are, we may figure out ways to survive through all that.
However, I am also realistic and know how ignorant and depraved we can become in the face of disaster and our own mortality.
We've survived natural disasters in the past that were no fault of our own.
We don't know if we can survive disasters of our own making.
I don’t really like the rhetoric of “we” are doing this. The rich, the warmongers, the imperialists, the capitalists are the ones doing it to us and the world.
No raindrop feels responsible for the flood.
"We" is a relative term when I use it here ... I don't mean specifically you ... or me ... I mean the majority of people everywhere in the world who actively don't do anything as a collective to stop all this insanity and just go about perpetuating the system that is slowly destroying all of us.
It'll create a new bottleneck for sure, but I expect there to be a few communities built up by the richest of the rich to survive with as much comfortable as possible. A large number of the survivors will be their serfs, essential staff to maintain their comfort in exchange for a chance to survive.
"And don't you feel guilty about that one third?" - the 10%
As a fellow member of these 10%, do you?
Then maybe the ninety percent need to sue the ten percent for threatening their lives???
Where can we all sign up? These parasites need to go
Unfortunately that ten percent is probably most people on here.
I remember reading something similar a while back, surely with less data available for the study, but it concluded the same and I'm pretty certain that those 10% know it and don't give a flying fuck.
Chances are, you are part of the 10%
I am not, but i had wrongly the 1% in mind, when i wrote the comment
To be considered in the richest 10% of the world population, you would need a net worth of approximately $130,000 (as of late 2024). I don't personally know anybody just sitting on 130k of money and assets. If you are, good for you, but many of us are not.
The chances of an average American being in that group is comparatively high compared to much of the world (around 50%), but still on the "Chances are..." forgone conclusion of your comment
Net worth is what you own - what you owe, including your pension fund if you have one.
Also top 10% is people making 40k/year if we want to use that metric instead. If you're not part of that either it's probable that's it's just because you're too young to have a career yet.
I know what net worth means. That's why I said "sitting on 130k. The threshold is 130k. The mean net worth is something like 15k globally. And I'm a 34 year old man. I make 48k/yr and that's the most I've ever made. No savings. Just cashed out all 5k of my 401k to pay rent for a couple of months. I'm just an average dude who grew up in Southern California on food stamps and state healthcare. I just couldn't afford college, so a "career" isn't really an option for me.
You don't need to be sitting on 130k, you but a house, once your mortgage is worth 130k less than the value of the house you're worth 130k or more.
Also, you're in the top 10% based on income instead of worth, you're part of the statistics mentioned in the OP.
I find it HIGHLY unlikely that I will ever buy a house. The amount of money needed for a down payment, inspection, closing, etc. just seems astronomical to me. There's no way I'm buying a house, let alone getting 130k worth of equity out of it.
In terms of wages, I AM slightly above that 10% line, but that's like literally within the last month, so I'm not really sure what you're point is. I swear you must work in tech. Tech bros seem to be allergic to the idea that they aren't the lowest of the low
75% of Americans own their home (or are on track by their retirement) and I think it's just a tad lower for the EU.
While we can do better, many the term you used, is incredibly inaccurate and lacks precision.
My point is that people see "the 10%" and they can't imagine that if they live in a first world country, chances are that on a global scale they are the 10%, if they're not they're the 20% unless they live on the streets. People in third world and developing countries represent the vast majority of the world and those in rich countries live like freaking royalty in comparison to them and it reflects on their environmental impact as well.
I don't think anybody's disputing that. That's kind of the whole point of the post, right? Everybody here gets that.
What everybody here DOESN'T get is that this kind of poverty is also present right here in the USA. I've encountered quite a few people who seem to believe that if you live in the U.S. AT ALL, then you're automatically lumped into that 10%, when that isn't actually the case.
That's just about everyone that owns a home. And, you better have something much more than that if you plan to ever retire. In the US, $130k is both a lot and nowhere near enough.
This. I make around $125k, and can acknowledge I’m an outlier. Admittedly, I work in the tech field and know plenty of folks probably making more. But it’s not “rich” money, it’s like…. 1990 middle class money, maybe.
I had a house built in 2021, 1050 sq/ft for a bit over $200k, and even that was only feasible because:
- It’s in rural bumfuck
- I can work remotely, so the move was possible.
- It’s a small house, just me and my wife.
- I keep costs low and still live like I make 60-70k.
If I still had to be tied to the city due to my career, I’m not sure I’d be able to afford it. The cheapest shithole of a place would cost more than twice what I paid for my house, and rent was the same and more. It’s utterly insane. Even moving to a more rural/ex-urban area, buying an old run down house that needed major work would have cost about the same as having my new home built and owning the land under it; it’s crazy.
I had to wait 11 months for the build to finish but it was worth it, got me out of this insane rat race. I don’t want to care about money, but that’s just life in a capitalist system.
The thing is, they didn't say earn $130k, they said have $130k of wealth. If your retirement account is below that, you're not retiring for a long while. With the exception of the few that have pensions.
I probably have that or a bit more if you account the house appreciation and my savings, but I’m not selling or moving, and with costs that’s nowhere close to what I’d need to retire.
Assuming my current living standard and estimating costs cautiously at 70k annual without accounting for inflation, I’d need around 2.4 million to retire today, and that’s assuming I only live into my 70s. No way that’s happening without a powerball ticket, but thankfully I’ve got more than a few years left in me before retirement age.
Yeah, that's exactly what I meant by it's both a lot and nowhere near enough. I also work in tech and I know I earn more than most, I own a duplex, I max my retirement accounts every year. I have well over the $130k, but I'm still 20 years away from having enough to retire. It's crazy that we have to essentially be in the top 10% of earners in the country to feel like we can actually retire one day. The system is fundamentally broken.
Yep. I struggled for years doing desktop and helpdesk work for fairly low pay. When I finally caught a break and started making “decent” money (aka, around $65k) I was happy initially, but costs kept rising, and at the time I got upset because I realized I could buy toys and amenities, but still couldn’t afford stuff that mattered, like a house or saving for retirement. Financial stability was still an illusion.
Now I earn double that, and I’m careful with money, and it’s still going to take a large amount of care and planning to make retirement possible and pay off the house. Shit’s not easy, and I particularly sympathize with people starting out today, it seems like entering any field but particularly IT now is harder than it’s ever been.
And that’s without the fuckhead in chief constantly sowing economic chaos like he’s speed running American collapse any %. It’s probably only going to get harder from here.
Yeah, I see the same things. Even though I'm making that money, I think I end up saving something like 30% or more of it. After all that saving and my mortgage, I do have enough for toys, but I still keep those even modest. I have a small truck the Hyundai Santa Cruz, a 1965 15' boat, and a small motorcycle. I realize I have more than most and I'm more comfortable than most, but I feel like I'm at the level everyone should be at. What I mean by that is everyone should be able to afford a comfortable life and modest toys. It shouldn't be only the high earners. I wish everyone could have this lifestyle. And they probably could if it wasn't for the greed of the ultra-wealthy.
It seems like entering any field but particularly IT now is harder than it’s ever been.
It's certainly not the golden ticket it once was. It still has high potential, but it's just harder to get now. Even for us that are in it already, there aren't as many opportunities to jump over to a higher paying company because your raises didn't keep up with your growth like there used to be.
I don't and do not know anybody that owns a home. That seems like a thing from a bygone era to me tbh, and I accepted a LONG time ago that I will die working. There's no way, even with the magic of compound interest, that I could save enough to retire without starving to death.
Us older millenials only recently started buying homes. I don't know if gen z, or let alone gen alpha, will ever get the chance outside of the obscenely wealthy.
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If you make more than about $40,000 per year you are in that top 10% globally
I figured, i had wrongly the 1% in mind
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