rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

Yeah definitely, and not a chance in hell of it ever happpening.

Doesn't mean a 35 year old who's never made more than his age in a year can't dream

I also favor a 90% estate tax over assets worth $500000, so...

obv I'm on board with the above but I'm just talking about my view on people in the world as it is - musicians and actors are doing things people do or would do for free but getting paid for it. No verifiably human being on death's door would be engineering a hostile takeover of a century-old retail chain, but someone on death's door might like to get in one last game of pickup basketball.

a wealth cap should change the billionaire mentality entirely from "continue" to "you completed and won the game"

if they really thought they contributed value to society through their business, they could just load their winnings into the public purse, start another business and prove they were twice as good as other "completers" by doing it again

80-year old politicians accumulating power for the sake of accumulating power fall somewhere in between those two, of course.

anybody who dedicates their life to the accumulation of obscure musical recordings is a soulless monster who can never be trusted

― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto)

i salute your dedication to making it clear that you hate me specifically, but i'd kind of figured it out already

I wouldn't take it personally. Pretty sure tombot is a board Calvinist, his Chosen Few are okay but he can only react with rage to anyone else who intrudes on his bubble.

I agree that it seems wild that rich people keep trying to accumulate more money, but it's really not that surprising. Humans like to keep hitting different thresholds and have a sense of progression, like trying to get better at art even after you've peaked or had success. It's clearly not about creature comforts, they're bored and it's their main hobby. Something to do. It's entertaining for them to see the numbers go up.

abolish inheritance

view on people in the world

your view on people in this world is discriminatory or incoherent

Yes, I am extremely intolerant of the wealthy.

Gosh, passing value judgement on the accumulation of wealth for wealth’s sake, how can I sleep at night?!

I am taking issue with your tolerance of a subset of the wealthy. I am with table on this one!

You missed the maybe in my first statement then and the "I'm not sure" after?

A desire for wealth abolition isn't really relevant to my statement anyway - in the world as it is right now, there is a real distinction between an 80-year old Jasper Johns and an 80-year old Mike Bloomberg IMO.

In an economy where money still changes hands, artists continuing to earn money past a lifesworth of $30 million could be entirely voluntary on the part of the audience. If athletics exhibitions were owned by the athletes, same goes there.

xp the 'maybe' is why I pushed for explanation. But I think you can't justify it, and I do think the original exclusion, even qualified with a maybe, reveals some of your own biases. I say this as someone who appreciates many of your posts -- I have learned things from you on this board.

*bias

big 'if' there, sic

But I think you can't justify it, and I do think the original exclusion, even qualified with a maybe, reveals some of your own biases.

I'm not denying those biases, though? I think calling people soulless monsters is pretty explicit about laying out my biases.

I never said "being extraordinarily rich is just fine and dandy and forever okay if you're an actor" - I'm drawing a distinction about why I can see human reasons for why they keep working. Even if you've made your bank as an artist - you're an artist, you're creating. Something I think, again, Jasper Johns would be doing regardless of his bank account, as many other people do as an avocation. Sheldon Adelson is being kept alive by God knows what machinery but exists only to exploit humanity in order to funnel more money into his Scrooge McDuck coin vault.

No individual needs eight digits or more worth of money, full stop. How many things really need to be diamond-encrusted?

xp you recognize the bias, but still the bias and your comfort with it does not seem justifiable.

Do you see no difference in Neil Young and Jeff Bezos, aside from the scale of their fortunes?

I do. Art provides positive value to humanity, people play guitar and sing for the love of it. I can understand how you keep doing it even after your bills are paid forever.

Being a businessman provides no positive value, it only takes.

maybe pick someone on Neil Young's level for that comparison

and your last sentence is probably something I thought in high school but now recognize as ridiculous

big 'if' there, sic

this is all "if" we're restructuring the entire system of financial incentive though, there are no billionaires to own 'em. I'm fine with competitive sports being owned either by the public or by the players, performance athletics I'd lean towards being owned by the performers.

All sports should already be a public utility, the citizens pay for the facilities anyway.

maybe pick someone on Neil Young's level for that comparison

Why? If we're confiscating wealth over, say, $10mn, they're in the same place, right?

(That there is no creator of value who has wealth 'on the level' of Bezos is... kind of justifying my bias.)

then keep it. I definitely think neil young is a caveman that doesn't deserve manymillion dollar malibu houses. and i love him. sic is otm. We are talking about the system. Why excuse a subset that benefit?

I wasn't talking about the system, though. I was talking about people.

Jordan otm

Nothing I said has anything to do with what Neil Young deserves or any system - I drew a distinction in terms of continuing to work. I think Neil Young makes albums for the love of creating his art. I think Jeff Bezos acquires companies and exploits workers for the love of accumulating wealth and power.

I draw a pretty strong distinction between those two.

And it seems like you shouldn't be.
Is the act of accumulating and holding onto excessive wealth monstrous?

(shouldn't be talking about people wrt this issue. it should be an ideal that would apply to all people.)

I think Neil Young likes Zuma beach. He named an album after it and the nearby houses cost 10 million dollars.

you don't know what drives neil young

And it seems like you shouldn't be.

If you can't understand the differentiation, I can't really make you.

(shouldn't be talking about people wrt this issue. it should be an ideal that would apply to all people.)

This is impossible, given that I was talking about individual motivations. Do you think 80-year old musicians should retire and stop making albums? I don't.

Milo hats off for not opening a sock account in order to avoid having every reasonable, noncontroversial post picked to pointless pieces

It’s obv your very signature is bait, and why imo the relentless circularity itt

Wish I had your energy

The problem as I see it is that we start getting into subjective notions of what qualifies as art, creation, etc. That is, obviously there is a huge difference between someone like Bezos and someone like Neil Young or whatever, but who gets to decide whether an 'artist' is creating work because it's all they do versus exploiting a marketplace that's run by ghouls like Bezos?

Like, sorry, but Julian Schnabel can get bent, so can Carrol Dunham and his daughter, and don't get me started on fuckwads like McCartney. They still make tons of money off their art, and they still make art, but fuck their art. They should be forced to give up their money to people who actually need it.

Dunham and Schnabel sell paintings for amounts that would alter most individuals' lives forever, and probably for the better. Just because they're 'artists' doesn't change the fact that they're also pieces of shit who need to gimme that loot

agreed, table

xxp lol reasonable posts like

Being a businessman provides no positive value, it only takes.

It's completely subjective! And it's not universal inside of the not-businessmen category, nor did I suggest it was. I doubt the Stones are touring for the love of the game at this point but rather because Mick Jagger wants a bigger yacht.

That's why I never said it was about the broader capitalist system or even about wealth per se.

Is the act of accumulating and holding onto excessive wealth monstrous?

yes, by definition

I thought that was the most uncontroversial stance of all on ILX? The one that we all agree on?

Me too. I didn't know there was a "well you might accidentally do it in some jobs where I like the product" clause for some.

No one said there was?

Referring to wealth confiscation:

obv I'm on board with the above but I'm just talking about my view on people in the world as it is - musicians and actors are doing things people do or would do for free but getting paid for it. No verifiably human being on death's door would be engineering a hostile takeover of a century-old retail chain, but someone on death's door might like to get in one last game of pickup basketball.

if Neil Young wants to make music after he hits the arbitrary lifecap of $30 million, tens of thousands of individual people can make discrete decisions about whether to access it

the current system is rigged so that Jeff Bezos makes more than he could spend in 20 lifetimes, every week, by exploiting and limiting the options of tens of thousands of individual people


Paul McCartney should definitely be barred from releasing new albums of songs as Paul McCartney though. Twin Freaks and The Fireman and Liverpool Sound Collage are allowed.

If one cannot grasp how I'm simply making a potential value call between a 50-year old musician with $30mn in the bank continuing to make music as opposed to a 50-year old corporate raider gutting Sears, I really cannot help them.