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.”
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.