Matthew Swaringen

@davidsirota I just don't think what you are saying is all that useful honestly. What matters is looking at the circumstances at the individual level for each billionaire, for each person who can't afford basic necessities. There are countless different circumstances at play.

@davidsirota Sure, but it's an even worse place if nobody has billions and most people can't afford the basic necessities of life and die of disease or exposure with regularity, and this was the case for much of human history. This is also just a basic fact.

Assuming you think feudalism is bad, your civilization is in a bad place when a handful of people have billions of dollars while millions of people can't afford the basic necessities of life. I don't know why this is considered a controversial statement. It's just a basic fact.

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod This is why my preferred arrangement is bottom up competence hierarchy. Moses and the judges, if you will. *In terms of how it was laid out fully, I get that it started as a top down decision. I prefer it be truly bottom up, but I think you can get there in stages in theory.

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod I think most people are most informed to decide for themselves and those around them, and most people, even those extremely intelligent are so uninformed they will cause harm more than help those more distant. Even when giving charity distant people will often cause more harm

Counterpoint: you cannot ethically earn a billion dollars, and billionaires should not exist.

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod I agree. Or rather, I think the people don't deserve to fail just because the state has done things. I wouldn't leave the people entirely out of that since they vote, but.. voting in large countries loses too much information to be a valuable mechanism for conferring real intent.

@xanas3712 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod There’s definitely legitimate criticism of US foreign policy throughout history. The tricky part is separating “we should acknowledge mistakes” from “the country itself deserves to fail.”

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod The reason is some of the guilt people have over what the US does globally is legitimate. There is a desire to self-sabotage that comes from that. Envy would be an issue regardless, but it is somewhat understandable when the state picks winners.

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod Yes, I wish it had worked towards long term human flourishing. I think it worked well enough to make the US a super power. That's... good if you want to be an empire, not so good if you want stability and prosperity not driven by Federal power projection.

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod Perfectly understandable. I gave a bit of a generic response, because there is so much confusion packed into such a small area I cannot possibly get into everything in twitter length posts. And I'm cheap so I don't pay for blue check :)

@xanas3712 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod Oh my bad then. These reply chains start looking like a philosophy DLC after 3 people jump in 😭

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod And the reasons is that the proper means to prevent centralization is to have checks against power. Not because you can prevent all usurpation or tyranny or corruption, you cannot. But because you know they will occur, you want to limit the scope.

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod But mostly my issue is with the centralization. The articles of confederation were better than the constitution, and the constitution before civil war was better than the version after (except the slavery, obviously). The direct election of senators was a mistake.

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod I don't pretend this. I oppose all initiation of aggression. "Power" should arise from proven competence and agreements from those subject to it and close to it to deal with the excesses. Decentralization is preferred to allow checking all forms of power use.

@xanas3712 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod Fair point that government overreach can be dangerous, but pretending markets and corporations don’t also concentrate power is a little too convenient. Turns out unchecked power is bad whether it wears a suit or a flag.

@NM1rai15 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod Wasn't replying to you, but to Ariana. Her contention about "worker exploitation" while "provides necessary services" is an example. So many questions to answer, but at the root, someone is forced to work, someone is exploited as she defines that term.

@xanas3712 @Arianas1312 @AlanRMacLeod You called it incoherent but somehow wrote an entire paragraph without pointing out a single contradiction.

@Arianas1312 @NM1rai15 @AlanRMacLeod You would say it's not because "elected" but then you'll reject any election result that doesn't go your way as not sufficiently elected enough. So while we have elections today, I'm quite certain you don't think they are valid. I don't either, but I don't worship democracy.

@Arianas1312 @NM1rai15 @AlanRMacLeod The centralized "economy" that the centralized state we already have is part of the reason that there are fewer large companies at the top. You can say you aren't authoritarian, but "control the economy" means controlling everyone, because that's what an economy is.

@Arianas1312 @NM1rai15 @AlanRMacLeod That's not simple it's just stupid. You don't even realize the complexity inherent in every single statement and the utter incoherence of each point. There are so many loaded terms here and I don't even think you know how loaded they are.

@NM1rai15 @AlanRMacLeod I'll make this much simpler. Seeking wealth is in fact immoral because profit is the result of worker exploitation. We should have a centralized economy that doesn't require profit and provides necessary services to workers

@AlanRMacLeod How much have you earned? What puts you in a position to declare how much someone can earn ethically? What are your ethics, especially the ones most pertinent to this question?

@cordeliers Yeah the millions who use it daily sure agree with you.

Nobody wants AI except feds, coders, cheating students, lazy cubicle jockeys, and slop creators. The rest of us are happier to do without.

@Kristie19911305 @oddroadmap @UziCryptoo @figgdimension Where was he handed taxpayer money? I think he got a bunch of tax breaks, but that means not paying money, it doesn't mean he got anything from the government. I'm sure he probably does have some government contracts to be sure, but show the proportion of income.

@oddroadmap @UziCryptoo @figgdimension From the BILLIONS of dollars of taxpayer money handed to bezos.

Musk, worth $470 billion, plans to become a trillionaire by replacing workers with robots. Bezos, worth $256 billion, plans to replace 600,000 jobs with robots. Zuckerberg, worth $216 billion, laid off 17,000 workers. Billionaires aren't job creators. They're job destroyers.

@UziCryptoo For them to lay people off what did they do with people before that, genius?