Hexa
I really want people to take away from twitter’s downfall that billionaires are a corrosive element on every aspect of human society. This moment is symbolic of a greater lesson. Wealth hoarding should be limited.
You can disagree with me about where the limit is, but it’s tough to dispute the detriment effects a few people with obscene, grotesque wealth have on our social fabric.
Nov 18, 2022 at 2:14pmWeb
Show threadJesse LibertyNov 18, 2022

@hexadecim8 I believe that Bill Gates is doing (mostly) good work, but it is work that governments should be doing.

Rather than draconian approaches, a meaningful wealth tax would go a long way (we have a very tiny one now). A sliding scale on wealth that, by the time you get to a $b would amount to well over 90%.

Definition of affluent: 20% more than n where n is whatever I happen to be earning.

Show threadMrs Mouse at workNov 18, 2022
@hexadecim8 I think it's really narcissism plus power.
It's hard to imagine a billionaire without it (esp the .00001%) but other paths can lead to it.
Show threadHarpo_Rachel 🏳️‍⚧️Nov 18, 2022

@hexadecim8 it is absolutely staggering that a single person can walk in and destroy the employment of 7000 people and countless others who used twitter for revenue driving.

Unconscionable even.

I honestly don't understand how we put up with it.

Show threadDaniel GordonNov 18, 2022
@hexadecim8 I didn’t used to agree but now I agree. The aggregation of that much wealth requires unethical exploitation, the money/power amplifies the holders’ personality flaws, and the result of their whims, with rare exceptions, is harm to democracy, to justice, to security, to free speech, and to a hundred other facets of society.
Show threadJodie TurnerNov 18, 2022
@hexadecim8
Never enough is always too much.
Show threadJamesNov 18, 2022
@hexadecim8 I agree but how is such a problem solved? Is there even a solution?
Show threadHexaNov 18, 2022
@ozurie Tax the ever loving shit out of their wealth. This is the peaceful compromise.
Show threadJamesNov 18, 2022
@hexadecim8 tax loopholes are absolutely everywhere and are even abused by people barely considered millionaires. Drastically increasing their tax would just result in them moving elsewhere.
Show threadMW1CFNNov 18, 2022
@hexadecim8 Hear! Hear!
Show threadThe Bitch King of Angmar Nov 18, 2022

@hexadecim8 Look, if we had great and vast public works projects by the Rockefellers and other magnates back in the day, it's impossible for them to say they couldn't do more when they were so fantastically wealthy as to be unimaginable at the time.

These dragons just hoard their gold and sleep on it, only desiring the status it gives them, knowing it can never be used, except for vanity projects and lashing out like Musk did with Twitter. He bought it for vengeance and literally doesn't care about the cost to him, thinking it won't matter.

The only good news is that for a change, it just might matter. He's certainly garnered the ire of a lot of regulators over this, and it'd be hilarious to see the EU just run right over him in a way the US has so far chosen not to do.

Show threadJeff ♨️ DarcyNov 18, 2022
@hexadecim8 As much as I agree with this in general, I think one little change is important. *Oligarchs* are corrosive etc. It matters not whether their power is primarily financial or political since the two are fungible. Look at how often people have traded one for the other. Here of all places, we should recognize that *centralization* is the problem and decentralization is the solution.
Show threadArianNov 18, 2022
@hexadecim8 Did Elon forcefully owned Twitter?
Show threadPeter BrownNov 19, 2022
@hexadecim8 community businesses are the future
Show threadDaniel HardyNov 19, 2022
@hexadecim8 absolutely, my slightly flippant version is that we shouldn’t treat people who have won 1 game of monopoly (and then played the rest of life on easy mode) as inherently smarter than everyone else.
Show threadMaxNov 20, 2022
@hexadecim8
We tell stories of how we used to slay dragons. But the lizard like monsters of yore that hoarded wealth never really left -- they just started running businesses.
Show threadHexaNov 20, 2022
@syncryptic poetic
Show threadallenshock1961Nov 20, 2022
@hexadecim8 ten million is the limit I propose. Absolutely no one needs more than that.
Show threadLeviathan (Odette)Nov 20, 2022
@hexadecim8 Fundamentally the only way to attain wealth to the point you could singlehandedly change a society is by being among the worst members of said society. Legally you're a hypercapitalist ghoul, doing it illegally you're probably human trafficking.