Mitchell HashimotoIt’s interesting being in a financial class now where I see people calling for my death daily on social media (not me specifically but me as a category of people). I’m not defending bad people, I don’t think I’m one of them on balance, I’m just making a narrow comment where it’s interesting to wake up and think “oh look, someone I had dinner with a dozen times calling for my death.”
Chanux
flpvsk@mitchellh you know there are other ways of "downgrading" your financial class, right?
when people say billionaires shouldn't exist, they are advocating for equality, not death.
most of them are, at least.
@flpvsk I’m talking about literal toots that they should “die”. Literal death.
In any case, I’m also working on downgrading too :). Weve already donated around $50M in total (zero political outlets, only social good with small cutout for tech projects). It’s surprisingly hard to give away money. We’re doing our best!
Neil@mitchellh @flpvsk you seem like a very good person. Like anything in life people are hyperbolic on social media to get interactions.
rakoo@flpvsk @mitchellh
if it's so hard to give people money, let me give you a few ways to do it:
- buy houses, condos, buildings and give it to people
- buy factories, bookshops, cafes, and give them to the employees
- buy newspapers, tv channels and give them to the employees
- buy the buildings where small shops are housed and give them to the employees
- buy stocks and give them to the companies' employees
As a billionaire you know this, your money is not in cash, it's in capital-producing infrastructure. Give that infrastructure to those who work it and produce actual value.
if it's so hard to give people money, let me give you a few ways to do it:
- buy houses, condos, buildings and give it to people
- buy factories, bookshops, cafes, and give them to the employees
- buy newspapers, tv channels and give them to the employees
- buy the buildings where small shops are housed and give them to the employees
- buy stocks and give them to the companies' employees
As a billionaire you know this, your money is not in cash, it's in capital-producing infrastructure. Give that infrastructure to those who work it and produce actual value.
@mitchellh @flpvsk so you're not really willing to give, just to have the appearance of someone who gives but actually want to keep the wealth, avoid taxes and not fundamentally change anything. Standard millionaire/billionaire procedure. The bourgeois class *really* needs to go extinct.
@rakoo @flpvsk This is not what I said. The money is in a charity, it legally cannot be given except to tax exempt orgs. That’s the law. I also can’t use any of the money for personal use, either!
It doesn’t change or save me any taxes.
I paid 40% in taxes and transferred other money to the charity POST TAX exactly so I’m not the B that plays tax games. And I’m working hard every week to find and disburse grants where I can.
Please don’t twist words.
@mitchellh @flpvsk
Yes, but why is the money in a fund ? Did you have no choice in it ? Was it absolutely impossible tg use that money in any other way ?
What is this fund ? Who takes decisions ? How is its governance ? Where does the money go ? What does it accomplish ?
If you really want to help, you can. A charity is not it.
Yes, but why is the money in a fund ? Did you have no choice in it ? Was it absolutely impossible tg use that money in any other way ?
What is this fund ? Who takes decisions ? How is its governance ? Where does the money go ? What does it accomplish ?
If you really want to help, you can. A charity is not it.
Li ~ Crystal System@rakoo @mitchellh @flpvsk for what its worth, alot of people seem to think charities help people at the very least? despite their help being conditional as fuck and dependant on a bunch of bullshit, and state approval and .. fff
but i also feel like this is a kinda weird ass thing to do tbh
@Li @mitchellh @flpvsk The whole concept of charity is problematic: I'm rich, you're poor, your life is shitty, I'm going to give you a little something to make your life a little bit less shitty. But charity explicitly doesn't go beyond that. It doesn't ask why I'm rich and you're poor, it doesn't ask how we could change that completely such that your life isn't shitty to begin with. It doesn't question the status quo, it maintains it *but* it makes me look and feel good. It's very important that the hierarchy between our lives remains.
A more useful action is not charity. Teach a man to fish and all: that's solidarity, mutual aid, building a society together and all that.
A more useful action is not charity. Teach a man to fish and all: that's solidarity, mutual aid, building a society together and all that.
@rakoo @mitchellh @flpvsk i dont disagree with that;^^
though i would add that sometimes there is a time and place for just giving the man a fish, if they have no food and such; (but like dont make it conditional and shit) its like a 'quick fix'; but also do make sure to try teach them how to fish if their interested too .. and such, (but you probably already knew that ..)
my point is more just that *most people* just view charity as a generally "positive" or 'kind' thing, and either arent aware of or don't consider the issues that they have. (and in some cases, that they actually actively cause harm, like ala autism speaks) and was somewhat speculating that might be why.
i am a bit curious as to what lead them to decide to put all their funds into this too though ..
Daniel M Karlsson@mitchellh Well, they probably mean people who have significantly more wealth? You mean personal wealth, right?
I personally try my darndest to cap my class contempt at just the top ten richest individuals. But you know, some spillage bound to happen there as contempt is catalyzed by a an overbearing sense of powerlessness.
You are making Ghostty. It is the best. You are fine. You are making a positive dent in the universe. Hanging out in the terminal is a big part of life for a lot of people.
Karl Oscar Weber@mitchellh Dude what are you talking about?
Markus Unterwaditzer@mitchellh Not exactly the same weight as wishing for death, but there used to be (and probably still is) a lot of contempt for software engineers particularly in SV. I can understand that and try not to take it personal.
Luke Kanies@mitchellh I don’t want there to be any billionaires. But I only want that to be accomplished through taxation and other policies.
No one should die. But no one should have so much money they can distort our system, either.
(And obviously, one of the first policies needs to be limiting how much one person can spend on politicians.)
@lkanies I'm supportive of all that. I don't mind general calls for better policies, taxation, etc. It's just weird when people call for literal death. Not "they shouldn't exist [by policy]" but "they should die." I can't find the toot now, it was a few days ago, but there was one going around that was like "pick a random billionaire and kill them" and I was like... oh okay. lol.
@lkanies Also, fwiw, I paid a full ~40% tax rate on my IBM proceeds this year (my tax bill was over $100M). I'm not doing anything dodgy.
@mitchellh good times 😬.
My finance people always look at me like I’m crazy when I say my primary goal in hiring them is not to doge taxes.
Hopefully your bank did not fail that big tax week, like mine did the week I was paying my puppet taxes. That was a lot of mine.
@mitchellh agreed on that. We should be able to do this without planning to kill people.
Aiden Fox Ivey@mitchellh @lkanies I think the people reacting like that are a mix of generally disturbed individuals and people expressing their powerlessness in what a lot of people consider a totally inappropriate way.
I assume a lot of this is because regulatory measures to limit accumulation of wealth have not worked.
@aidenfoxivey @mitchellh s/have not worked/have been abandoned because they worked too well/
@lkanies @mitchellh Fair point lol - I’m too young to know when it worked - so all I know is it not really working.
@aidenfoxivey @mitchellh @lkanies interesting how it unacceptable for people to express powerlessness in this way, but yet while its completely fine and acceptable for people with power over others to express this sort of thing (and also actually do them to orher people)
people in power are calling for people to be killed or otherwise calling for people to be immensely harmed all the time, and actually are doing said killing or other severe harm to them, and almost no one cares or does about it; heck they fucking rush to defend it of go on about how "necessary" it is half the time.
but the second its the other way around the second its someone with no social power calling for harm to those *with* it;
suddenly now its not okay to call for death or harm to come to other people.
its kinda interesting how that works ^^
like your not technically wrong in the sense that **no one should be killed or harmed** .. but there is also something kinda wrong going on here ..
Kyle Hughes@mitchellh For what it is worth, non-billionaires face louder, and more systemic, life-endangering threats from billionaires, by several orders of magnitude, than vice versa. I am confident that you will eventually find the capacity to feel numb about this in the same way that we do.
@kyle I'm not trying to make any relative statements here. And I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad for me. But I do think that calling for the literal death of an entire group of people is probably wrong.
Also personally, I suspect the "damage" being done by the billionaire class is limited to a small subset of them, not the group at large. But, I'm also politically on the spectrum that does believe that policy should definitely limit the existence of such a wealth disparity.
I just don't think anyone should actually die.
@kyle Fwiw I'm more sensitive to this because both myself and my wife (an actor, separate reasons!) have gone through phases where we've had things like blood sent to our house, we've had photos messaged to us of us putting our daughter to bed from the street, veiled letters like "you're next", we had one letter say "juicy girl" that we feel was targeted at our daughter (she's 2), etc.
And for what, existing?
I'm not funding political movements at large. I'm not making political statements on the internet. Our philanthropy focuses on non-partisan social good that we also don't talk about publicly. 90%+ of my social media is just technical stuff.
Wild times.
@mitchellh I understand where you're coming from and honestly appreciate the low-level insight into what this experience feels like. I agree on all points. I also will not belabor comparisons to the threat of death by poverty from a retraction of social safety nets and labor commodification.
@mitchellh But, I am scared of talking to you right now. You could ruin my career or my life. If I really needled you, you could skewer elections where I live. Even this instance here: these threatening fools could radicalize you, unfairly, because you have the capacity for outsized influence on the lives of others. You are the size of Godzilla in comparison to me and your presence is inherently threatening. The instinct for survival is overwhelming, which I think we all need to grapple with.
@kyle I respect all that. No one should have the power to ruin someone's life without repercussions.
@mitchellh @kyle Absolutely unacceptable to wish harm upon a child, especially a two year old. I’m sorry to hear that.
Sean Heber@mitchellh I don't think people should be doing that, personally, but I also don't understand why becoming a billionaire should even be allowed.
Most of us work very hard to try to succeed or just to survive and we often see the billionaire class suggesting that the real problem is us poors didn't try hard enough!
Meanwhile we see the people owning the companies we work for or shop at taking profits from our labor and riding off into the sunset on a private jet while we struggle for groceries.
@bigzaphod I don't disagree with what you're saying. I only believe that calling for the literal death of a class of people is wrong (in general!).
Separately, I don't blame people's hardships on not trying hard enough. And also, while I did gain a $B status, in doing so I also [helped, not solely by myself] minted hundreds of millionaires at the same time (a meaningful % of the entire employee base).
Regardless, I do believe policy should change!
@mitchellh I fear that policy will only ever change if folks in positions such as yours are the ones calling for it and working to make it happen - unfortunately none of the rest of us really have the clout to do it. We can all yell about it, but it doesn't seem like it helps. (Which I think is probably why the rhetoric is getting more violent as you've seen and experienced - people aren't feeling heard.)
I appreciate you being here and keeping grounded, though! And I don't mean to be an ass. 🙂
Sterling Hammer 
@mitchellh every billionaire is a policy failure. But they certainly don’t deserve death 😕 structural change is required so a small subset of people don’t have the majority of wealth in the country.
@cdlhamma agree to all of the above
Garrett builds web sites@mitchellh A bold post. Were I in your position I would have probably not made it to avoid making myself more of a target, or reminding myself just how much of a target I already am.
That being said, as someone not really familiar with you or your past, I find it quite interesting you're in such a position and yet still dedicating time to a solid FOSS project like Ghostty. I respect it all the more now, knowing its lead truly has the soul of a hacker and tinkerer.
Congrats on your success!
Light Owl ☸️@mitchellh any and every risk you face comes with the territory. That's how kamma works. A Buddhist view here would be that you and your family *don't* deserve to be harmed (did you *actively* and *intentionally* threaten or harm anyone through your speech or deeds? No?). Having said this, you do deserve any and every risk, generally speaking, that comes along with being so rich. Your money is obviously at your disposal for the purpose of mitigating any and all those risks. Just like someone who *voluntarily* goes to, say, the bad parts of Detroit *generally* deserves the risks they encounter by *deciding* to go there.
@sbb @mitchellh no one "deserves" harm or to be put at risk actually .. no matter what they do or whatever the fuck other bullshit reasons, and i dont care what you launder it through ..
D S@mitchellh just give your money away dude
@dantescanline already gave away 5%, will give away almost all of it over time!
@dantescanline (on top of the about 42% I gave the state/country in taxes, though I’m not confident that’ll be used for anything useful I did my job lol)
Asta [AMP]@mitchellh @dantescanline well, give away more faster?
You know there's a lot of journalists out of work and we could use some hard hitting journalism. Why not reach out to the people that the Washington Post and Vogue fired and see about giving a no-strings-attached-no-equity-no-stake seed fund for them to start their own publication? I bet they could really use it.
You know there's a lot of journalists out of work and we could use some hard hitting journalism. Why not reach out to the people that the Washington Post and Vogue fired and see about giving a no-strings-attached-no-equity-no-stake seed fund for them to start their own publication? I bet they could really use it.
@mitchellh please just give it directly to people and not into official funds with managers. you could probably save 100s of lives in gaza right now
https://gaza-verified.org/people/
https://gaza-verified.org/people/
0x4d6165 (Julie or Mae)@mitchellh give people money directly on their mutual aid posts then. It's literally the least you could do.
Geoff Berner@mitchellh yeah. Makes you think, doesn't it? Not yet, I see, but one can always hope.
Lykso@mitchellh It certainly is a choice to see yourself approaching that level of wealth and not say "enough."
krig@mitchellh Yet you feel safe enough to write this post. Why is that?
I would posit that one reason is because you have power (ie. wealth) and they are powerless. Powerless in the face of injustice and cruelty, powerless in the face of deep and growing inequality. But you are not powerless. You have the means to do something that would actually change the lives of others for the better. There are children just like your children in this world, probably even close by, in your home town, who are hungry. Who lack power and wealth not because of their own failings but because the world is built by and for people who hold power and wealth. You have the means to change that reality right now, and to change the perception of that person you've had dinner with who cries out in powerlessness and frustration at the same time. Someone is looking at you and seeing unrealized potential for good. Not saying you aren't doing good things, but money is literally power, and by hoarding it you are keeping power away from others who have none.
Just a thought.
@mitchellh wondering why these supposed good billionares never actually help out w mutual aid stuffs or like idfk if your gonna be able to buy out politicans may as well but them out to not be horrible to people or better yet dismantle the oppressive systems they create and maintain .. or like idfk why dont they just tear down the government or other bullshit authority figures and power dynamics and just not replace it with fascism but instead just nothing at all?, or .. really just do anything benefical to people ever
weird herm@mitchellh hey there, what is a tiny amount of money to you would be a lot to my friends who need help to move from a dangerous situation. Maybe give some to mutual aid? https://kind.social/@DionRa/115395618239931829
🏳️🌈 Dion 🤘🏿🎉 (@[email protected])
:HeartTransgender: URGENT MUTUAL AID REQUEST! NEED TO MOVE! :HeartTransgender: District Court has gotten involved so we really need to move ASAP as we will be officially evicted soon. Funds will be used for deposit and first month's rent, hiring packers and movers, transport, food, and bills. Please see https://climatejustice.social/@Aurin_the_classtraitor/115395567475992351 for more info. GOAL: £359.49/£4000 € paypal: [email protected] £ paypal: [email protected] or dm for € or £ bank transfer
ginny mae be queer 🏳️⚧️@mitchellh this is every day for a trans woman. except it’s said by people actively working to do the work.
A self-aware person would realize there’s some reflection they would benefit from.
Since you mentioned in replies you were struggling to find charities to donate to, I can recommend several well-vetted, financially responsible, and effective trans charities. You could directly improve the lives of people who regularly experience this. hmu dms open
paramilitary organizer@mitchellh heya, please check the mutual aid hashtag and make some people's days better! Thanks in advance.