No ethical billionaires. Nobody comes by that much money honestly.
While I don’t think it’s true, I could accept the idea that it were possible to make that much money ethically. However, having that much and not doing good with it? To me that’s the bigger evil. Billionaires should be extincting themselves.
Entertainers could be an exception to the evil billionaire rule, but even Swift was doing things like renting out her jet, and her shows have a huge carbon footprint as well.
If she were paying for the pollution, the profit margins wouldn’t be so high.
Also we just need to tax most of the income over $1 million a year. Like we did before the 80s greed is good bullshit started.
Like this, it should just be harder by the mechanics of the game to just keep amassing dollars. Sure, you can have massively successful concerts and live an amazing life. Just pay for them in what it actually costs to society.
Also there’s the whole “stealing the surplus labor” of the many people she employs thing.
Here’s a quick and simple example of how much $1 million ($1,000,000,000,) is compared to $1 billion ($1,000,000,000,000.)
1 million seconds equals 11.57 days. 1 billion seconds equals 31.71 years. Days v.s. YEARS!
The different between one million and one billion is about a billion
I think ever having that money, unless it’s just shit into your lap for some reason, precludes you from being the kind of person who can do that good. It takes a level of cutthroat and a degree of psychopathy to accumulate that much wealth in a single lifetime. So in essence, having and making that much are both fucked.
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You could argue most of the money some top athletes make is from advertising deals and you might see that as amoral. Being really good at running is impressive, but doesn’t inherently contribute hundreds of millions of dollars worth of value to society.
Brand deals with companies that sell stuff that’s probably made by slave Labor. Not so ethical.
And don’t forget taxes reduction schemes.
Is anything that any of us do in the western world ethical based on that though?
I mean who are to judge athletes for those brands deals when we’re buying those products, using those phones/computers to go on Lemmy etc.
I’d argue musicians/athletes that do this are not the most ethical, but it’s not this stuff that makes them the worst offenders.
They are famous people, if they advertised a more ethical brand, people would buy that brand instead.
Consumption in the modern world has inherent problems, yes. The ethical way to exist in a world that values consumption as much as ours does is to consume less. You still HAVE to consume. There’s a lot of stuff we either flat out need(food, water, shelter) or would be at SUCH a disadvantage without it becomes required (Internet, phone, car).
How you consume is important though. Use your phone until it’s a brick. Buy local, and cook your own food. Vet whatever you buy as much as you can.
Entertainers feed into this lifestyle. They become the thing to consume. And that’s OK in moderation, but not to the level that they become worth hundreds of millions, billions of dollars. That’s excessive.
A world tour like that requires a shit ton of labor, sure it’s less straight forward to decide how much surplus value of that labor goes to her, but I would argue it’s certainly not negligible
If she had to do everything by herself, the world tour would consist of a few one-woman-gigs at local bars.
That’s a great way of putting it. Side note, it’d also mean no private jet.
Like all things, there’s a middle ground. No, don’t do everything yourself, but give back proportionally. Swift is better than most in that regard, sure, but she can clearly give more if she’s encroaching on being with 10+ digits. This is the problem.
That was exactly what I meant. I chose the “Taylor Swift does everything on her own” scenario to disprove the notion that she does all or most of the important work on a show.
Just the handful of concerts I’ve been nominally involved in settin up… there’s hundreds of security staff. 20-50 semi trucks for the stage, a hundred or so roadies. Dozens of forklift drivers. Traffic direction.
And that’s ignoring increases staffing/labor by cities and neighboring properties (increased cops, paramedics, increased security adjacent to the event…)
Like.
It’s far from negligible
There is an option other than lowering ticket prices. And that is to pay the workers more.
This is the way. A billion dollar net worth is at least 900 million in surplus labor that should have already gone to the workers. Probably closer to 999 mil.
She could also pay her employees a lot more.
Their money comes from the same place it does with the ones you already label as shit. They’re just the pretty, personable face that you see. You cannot get to that level of wealth in a single lifetime without a whole slew of fucked up shit. Doesn’t matter if it’s directly or only complicit, earning that much in a lifetime is problematic at the absolute best.
For those unaware
From 2022:
Taylor Swift’s plane was identified by the report as the “biggest celebrity CO2e polluter this year so far,” racking up 170 flights since January with emissions totaling more than 8,293 metric tons.
A report published last year by Transport & Environment, a major European clean transport campaign group, found that a single private jet can emit 2 metric tons of CO2 in just an hour. To put that in context, the average person in the E.U. produces about 8.2 tons of emissions over the course of an entire year, according to the report.
https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021_05_private_jets_FINAL.pdf
So the average person was responsible for 8.2 and Swift did 8.293 in flights?
Swift’s flights were responsible for a thousand times more C02e than an average EU citizen. One has a comma, the other has a dot
Aha, I see that now. Good thing I phrased it as a question.
How much more economic activity than the average citizen?
Anyway I suppose flying commercial and accordingly taking on a less aggressive tour schedule would help her reduce her footprint. I only know a few her hits (mostly that are more club friendly) personally but acknowledge she’s going to be responsible for more of everything in the aggregate. Way more environmental damage. Way more endorphins.
So back to “how can she reduce her footprint” while still doing her Swiftie thing? Sure there are plenty of ways.
She might do more economic activity but for who? Organizers? Herself? Scalpers? If she has that much money to be considered a billionaire maybe she could do something to cover her footprint. Plant some trees or donate to some organization that occupy with saving the planet.
Fly commercial. Drive as much as possible. I assume she rents it out when she’s not actively using it. Stop doing that.
No, a single person is responsible for 8.2 tons and Swift’s JET ALONE did 8.293. That’s not counting all of the OTHER carbon footprint that swift undoubtedly has.
Edit:uah, even worse. It’s 8 THOUSAND tons for her jet, and 8 tons for the regular person.
Right. Her jet alone released the same carbon as 1,000 people. Of course, she’s far from the only wealthy person doing this.
How can someone be this bad at math…
Mistaking a comma for a decimal point isn’t really what I’d call ‘math’.
Also in some countries the comma, not the dot, is the decimal separator, so I can see how somebody from such a nation who has also been exposed to the use of the dot as decimal separator, might thinl they both can be used like that and mean the same and not be aware that in English-speaking countries the comma is never used as decimal separator.
Edit: A lot of people seem to have no idea what carbon offsets are. Here’s a reasonably quick rundown:
Basically though, they are tge best market solution we have thus far yo the climate crisis. We need government to do better but in that absence, this is the closest we hve to a free market solution. While appealing, solutions like “removed online that people should just go back to pre industrial era lives” or “hoping everyone will just vote correctly next time” are definitely fun solutions, carbon offsets have the effect of actually doing stuff in the meantime.
If we’re crucifying people for things they are expected to have, are you pure evil because the phone youbhad undoubtedly used cobalt mined by children who occasionally lose their arns mining it?
A cursory google search showed that she paid double her carbon offsets for the current tour. While imperfect, carbon offsets, and people voluntarily paying into them is how we move through and past our current carbon intensive lifestyle.
carbon offsets
they are tge best market solution we have thus far yo the climate crisis
Bullshit. Carbon offsets is mostly a scam where polluters “offset” real emissions with potential if not purely theoretical mitigation. The reforestation that companies claim offset their emissions would fill more land than there is on earth in total.
Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry, to name the worst problem humanity has, is emitting MORE than ever while using the Carbon Offsets scam to greenwash their killing millions of people a year while being the main cause of climate change.
The best solution is, has always been and always will be to emit less pollutants.
Literally all your complaints call for better regulation rather than abandonment of the carbon offset program… Such regulation being enabled by, you guessed it, high profile folks buying in!
Yes, no emissions would be better but until we’re willing to chastise everyone for not eating vegan, it seems pretty silly to get annoyed for someone who contributes less to climate change than say, a mcdonalds.
Enough with the “your point is only valid if it’s 100% and mine’s valid if it’s 0.1%” bullshit.
You just want to pretend that the scam is working and will work more if it’s expanded rather than do what every single scientist with expertise in relevant areas and without tons of conflicts of interest say is the only real solution.
Which one of your complaints wasn’t about how a carbon offset system should be implemented rather than the notion itself is bad?
To say that it carbon offsets can be gamed and thus the entire system is awful is a little silly. It’s sort of like saying “too many people cheat on their taxes, we shouldn’t have taxes!” Instead of, y’know, better regulation and enforcement.
In this case, you have one of the most PR savvy people on Earth, I’d be surprised if her team didn’t find a legit carbon offset (which is exactly how we say, compensate farmers for not burning the amazon for the lucrative farmland etc.)
As for the only real solution, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll note most of those scientists have for years suggested a carbon tax as a way to transition to net zero. Well, in the face of government inaction, carbon offsets are the free market filling the gap in the meantime. Are they imperfect? Absolutely! But are programs like this how we fund and develop the transition to net zero? Also absolutely!
The system is designed to be gamed, it’s working as intended. It’s a complete bullshit sham that isn’t doing a single thing for the climate
Here’s a list of projects from just my province.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-change/public-sector/offset-portfolio
They include implementing new technologies which would otherwise not be cost effective for companies, upgrading older technologies before their phase out date or just interesting projects like diverting methane from landfills to be used as natural gas.
A weird take, but ok… Are you a “swiftie”? Going to bat for a rich popstar is a little weird.
Going to bat for a rich popstar is a little weird.
Reality should be reality, regardless of the subject.
Edit: At least 9 people disagree but so far, the closest to a substantive reply is essentially “she’s rich, why do you care?”
What?
I dunno, read again?
I explained things pretty well in my original post. If you have questions or trouble understanding, I’d be happy to explain.
It’s ok if you’re a fan of hers, but her carbon footprint is much more impactful than a regular individuals. Paying into a carbon offset account actually doesn’t offset anything. It’s PR at best. The environmental damage she does just by flying to get lunch is outrageous.
I listened to her music voluntarily for the first time earlier this year, not my style.
That being said, paying into a carbon offset is the best way to advance a regime that actually transitions us to a green economy.
Are you a vegan who doesn’t have a car and won’t have children? That’s the best way to reduce your emissions. If not, are you as similarly unethical? And if it’s a scale issue, given the fact she makes so many people happy as evidenced by their willingness to pay seemingly infinite dollars to see her, well, I’m curious as to whether you feel you think you make a fraction of as many people happy?
It’s easy to pile upon the rich but compared to most of the world, you are the Taylor Swift of the world. So these “no no, she costs a thousand times more!” Arguments don’t really hold, medium income westerner is responsible for a boatload more emissions than a poor third worlder, so why shouldn’t you be held to a similar nonsensical standard? At least Swift is contributing to the things that help us, what similar contributions have you made?
Well if you really start looking into it, carbon offsets are mostly a scam.
For instance just declaring: “I will cut down this forest” without ever having the intention to do so, and then not doing it counts as a carbon offset. This is what abgreat part of companies are doing. Just saving forests that nobody wanted to cut down in the first place from being cut down. This they then sell to the consumer as a carbon offset.
John Oliver had a great segment on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0
Ahhhh, the John Oliver effect. I knew there was a reason people were furious without quite being able to articulate well!
If you pay attention, you’ll note that Oliver’s problem with carbon offsets is that the system is too easy to game, which is fair!
But to say that means the entire notion of carbon offsets is nonsense is a little silly. It’s sort of like saying “too many people cheat on their taxes, we shouldn’t have taxes!” Instead of, y’know, better regulation and enforcement.
In this case, you have one of the most PR savvy people on Earth, I’d be surprised if her team didn’t find a legit carbon offset (which is exactly how we say, compensate farmers for not burning the amazon for the lucrative farmland etc.)
I didn’t know you could pay money to reverse the damage you have personally caused to the climate crisis
You can’t. But in the real world, we aren’t going to stop using planes, cars and heaters in the next few months.
The best thing that aids a transition are carbon offsets that help subsidize the very technology upon which a Green revolution depends.
Ironically inconvenient truths for the armchair environmentalists.
Besides, I suspect if one gave them all a winning lottery ticket we could observe how quickly their attitudes change.
Nevertheless I could think of probably hundreds of individuals far less ethical and far more responsible for global catastrophe in this day than Swift. So as far as billionaires go, she’s not all that bad. Let’s perhaps focus more on Musk, Bezos, the Waltons, etc…?
hundreds of individuals far less ethical and far more responsible for global catastrophe in this day than Swift
Yeah but hating on those folks wouldn’t be as cool as hating on someone the normies like!
…/s
I wouldn’t be surprised if this outrage is astrotrufing from righties because they’re scared how powerful Swift is in mobilizing Voter registration for the left.
Someone else pointed out there was a John Oliver segment about carbon offsets (in which he pointed out that they aren’t well regulated and are subject to abuse.) I think people forgot the specifics and just remember OFFSETS = BAD, rather than the appropriate albeit more nuanced “like most things, these are vulnerable to abuse and should probably be better regulated.”
Combine that with hating mainstream pop culture with a chance to condescend and you have a perfect storm of toxicity.
I think people tend to dismiss carbon offsets on the basis that they are a free market solution to a problem that the free market has (mostly) caused. You could maybe blame government for lacking regulation on the free market in like the 19th and early 20th century, but me and I think most people would probably think that’s full of shit and kind of kicking the can down the road, foisting the responsibility on the government and not the corporate world for basically no reason, other than that we would expect the corporate world to be a bunch of little scamps or something. I think it would be better off blaming the government for basically just being in a revolving door sort of affair with corporations, but then, I think the answer to that wouldn’t be like, dismiss the government in exchange for the free market, but instead more along the lines of, you know, as you’ve said in response to carbon offsets, more regulations against such things.
And before you come at me for wanting top down government solutions because they’re “unrealistic”, and also thinking that bottom up political activism is “unrealistic”, I dunno, like. If your solution is just kind of to believe in solely the free market, I really wonder what leftism you’re doing there, especially if you’re bringing up cobalt mines with children losing their arms. That’s some iphone venezuela latte level shit, there, that whole deal just seems like nihilism. Like we all get that you can’t ethically participate in capitalism, but that’s not really a good argument to double down on capitalism and be like “well, if I have to…”, because it’s seen as “more realistic”. By even that logic, it would be better off if most of us just used our excess finance to stop contributing to the climate crisis directly in our own lives, but then I dunno whether or not I can predict your response to that, based on your disdain for cobalt mining. If you don’t like electric cars on that same basis, and you don’t think top down or bottom up government intervention would be likely to happen, then there’s not gonna be many solutions, for you, for getting rid of your own carbon emissions even from a car, outside of maybe a really shitty ebike with lead batteries that probably won’t be able to take you 30 miles to your job because we live in a suburban hellscape shithole america, or whatever.
I dunno, I gotta go walk my dog. I think the most obvious solution here is just for her to not like. Fly around in a private jet everywhere. Even trucks, which would probably be the other solution, would make more sense, and for the rare inter-continental flight she could probably just take first class with like, a mask and some sunglasses on, and I dunno if anyone would give two shits about that. There’s not really any reason she needs to have a private jet in the first place, so this whole argument is STUPID and DUMB.
Lots to digest here!
I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make in the first paragraph though. Intuitively, I blame corporations but don’t fault them. They are behaving in line with their incentives. It is up to government to create incentives that ensure good behaviour. So to me, the real blame does lie with goverments’ inability to create and enforce a carbon tax (which is generally the agreed upon best way to transition to a carbon neutral economy.)
I think bottom’s up political activism is essential. But also kind of doomed. If those under 35 voted at rates comparable to those over 65 (and yes, that includes in primaries), we’d be approaching the end of Bernie’s second term and democrats would be arguing about who was best suited to carry on his legacy.
Not sure what the iphone venezuala comment is? I bring up the cobalt mines simply to say that it is easy for us to forgive our own sins but castigate those wealthier than us. (Also an example of us just being conditioned to shrug and say “that’s inevitable.” No it fucking isn’t! If we as consumers actually cared about real things, like those children, instead of whatever comedian we’re policing on twitter or whatever, we would have ethical mines just as we have ethical clothes, ethical foods etc. But, people’s morality tends to go right up until those morals would become slightly inconvenient.) To the rural citizens in impoverished nations who are already suffering climate change, our desire for plane fueled vacations seems just as unnecessary as Swift’s use of a jet to get to her concerts. In the meantime, paying double the carbon cost to developing the technologies or supporting the agriculture necessary to get us to net zero, well, while there’s room for manipulation and badness, it’s not the worst thing.
I agree that this whole thing is stupid and dumb. There isn’t any reason any of us need planes, to eat meat etc. The things that actually solve this crisis are bottoms up politicial activism rather than whining about a celebrity who is doing their best to offset their carbon emissions and supporting a nascent program that is exactly the type of program that gets us to net zero.
Like we said, stupid and dumb.
I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make in the first paragraph though. Intuitively, I blame corporations but don’t fault them. They are behaving in line with their incentives. It is up to government to create incentives that ensure good behaviour. So to me, the real blame does lie with goverments’ inability to create and enforce a carbon tax (which is generally the agreed upon best way to transition to a carbon neutral economy.)
I’m not sure what the distinction is, there, between blame, and fault, so, constitute a distinction between those two. I would also blame the government partially, yeah, we’re in agreement, but I can also like. If we are seeing the reasons why the corporations are acting out of their own short term self-interest, then I can do the same for government, and basically just find fault with nobody, right? That’s the only difference I can really come to, there, is that the corporations have a clear chain of causality as to why they might act that way, and the government’s is maybe a little bit more obfuscated, or something, but I can still understand the incentive structure there, so I can’t really find fault, if fault is like, who is the cause of all this. I guess I’d fault grug, for making fire, or like, god, or the british, or something along the domino chain there. Probably the british.
I think bottom’s up political activism is essential. But also kind of doomed. If those under 35 voted at rates comparable to those over 65 (and yes, that includes in primaries), we’d be approaching the end of Bernie’s second term and democrats would be arguing about who was best suited to carry on his legacy.
Also this, I think it’s kind of essential to understand this, and your last paragraph about people whining about a celebrity. A lot of it is kind of this social media cynicism that has consumed everything. You know, can’t vote for bernie, have to vote for hillary, because splitting the vote would be bad, so there will only ever be establishment candidates and nothing ever changes at the federal level except on an extremely incremental scale as people vote in local and state level elections, which all tend to have the same problem of fptp systems and the same problem of partisanship. And so it’s very easy for people to just look at that, and then either go for damage mitigation, or, depending on how much cynicism they have for lobbied to shit free market liberal dems, or just give up entirely and only focus on local issues and basically damage mitigation on that scale, you know. Can’t organize some sort of alternative local system for dealing with any of this shit, without registering as some sort of corporation or nonprofit or co-op, and then you’re subject to the same forces that end up fucking everyone else over, even if you can gain traction, so people would rather just volunteer at something that already exists and kind of say they’ve paid their dues. Anything worthwhile is anti-establishment, and if you’re anti-establishment, you will probably get killed or arrested. Or you’re just a skateboarder, I guess, which is still pretty sick. Or, MOST things that are worthwhile are anti-establishment, I guess we still have costco.
Not sure what the iphone venezuala comment is? I bring up the cobalt mines simply to say that it is easy for us to forgive our own sins but castigate those wealthier than us. (Also an example of us just being conditioned to shrug and say “that’s inevitable.” No it fucking isn’t! If we as consumers actually cared about real things, like those children, instead of whatever comedian we’re policing on twitter or whatever, we would have ethical mines just as we have ethical clothes, ethical foods etc. But, people’s morality tends to go right up until those morals would become slightly inconvenient.) To the rural citizens in impoverished nations who are already suffering climate change, our desire for plane fueled vacations seems just as unnecessary as Swift’s use of a jet to get to her concerts. In the meantime, paying double the carbon cost to developing the technologies or supporting the agriculture necessary to get us to net zero, well, while there’s room for manipulation and badness, it’s not the worst thing.
People usually bring up the whole cobalt mine thing as a “gotcha” moment for like, any level of leftist action. uhhh you’re using an iphone so you can’t be a moral beacon! you can’t have any opinions on what’s right or wrong! sort of thing. It’s also a mistake of scale, the relative scales at which, say, 71 companies 99% of pollution yadda yadda, it’s way different, the level of fault there, compared to like, the person who has a 3 year old iphone SE which was maybe constructed with a lithium cobalt battery from some imperial african child slave mine. Or people obviously bring it up as a way to disparage the adoption of electric cars, usually from the position of “electric cars suck” rather than “we should have better public transit and bike everywhere”. I dunno I’d probably set something up that like, increases tariffs on shit like that, or maybe just fund the shit out of the FTC so nestle goes out of business, or whatever, but as an individual consumer there’s really not much you can do. It’s much easier, or “more realistic”, I suppose, for most people to get off their 9 to 5 of shithole labor, and then just like, buy whichever water is the cheapest, buy whatever choccy milk is the cheapest, rather than looking into the rather hard to parse information of which company’s using the most child slaves, or what have you. Because they’re basically all doing it, and, say, in the case of a car, it’s not much like you can live without one. It doesn’t even have to be impossible, really, it just has to be extremely difficult, which, in most cases, it is. It’s not realistic, in my opinion, to expect everyone to suddenly pivot to like, supporting more ethical companies and voting with their dollar when most people are put upon enough already, and the american economy is fundamentally built so it’s like 3 steps away from slave labor, and if any of us did anything different then the economy would crash, the companies would get bailed out, and we’d all be forced to bite the bullet, like what’s happened every single time. Not that any of that would necessarily happen but that’s kind of the chain of logic of the american mind.
Anyways, I gotta go feed my dog, and also join a CIA honeypot whatsapp group for leftist activism, cya.
The neoliberal levels are through the roof!
As are the childlike “I refuse to acknowledge how to actually make things better but complaining on the internet is free and easy!” Levels.
Ahh yes, the woman who wanted to… (checks notes) hmm copyright a fucking date because she used it for an album…
Ffs there is no such thing as an ethical money hungry person.
She did actually get those trademarks:
- https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86369161&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
- https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86363039&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
- https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86838684&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
Trademarks for years (and others shit) like that are pretty common. Like this one for 2023: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77026303&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
Here is one for “LOL”: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=77669187&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
She doesn’t own the year, I think she is just the only one allowed to use it for merchandise, albums, and a bunch of other stuff. Basically no one in the USA is allowed to make a T-shirt with 1989 on it. Maybe it would be fine if the t-shirt has no other connection to Swift. Dunno.
She has a fuckton of trademarks. Just search for "TAS RIGHTS MANAGEMENT, LLC " on https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-information
jfc, it’s actually worse than I thought
I mean, there’s probably a ton of crap on her. I have no idea, I haven’t read up on her, but I would assume that every billionaire has a lot of smoking guns with regard to pollution, bad work conditions and unethical handling of capital. But if the worst you have on her is that she attempted to copyright ‘1989’, it doesn’t really seem too bad.
Her private jet has the most CO2 emissions out of any celebrity. She defended that by saying she rents it out, so it wasn’t all her; as if that changes how much the private jet she owns has emitted. As far as the rest of her environmental impact, it is likely no worse than other performing celebrities so not great but in larger amounts than other celebs.
She does seem to do well by her support staff. She gave out $55m in bonuses to everyone who worked on her last tour.
She has donated a lot, but I couldn’t find out if she has donated over the deduction cap or if she claimed the donations. As far as I can tell the majority has been given to food insecurity charities and disaster relief. So even if it is a tax scheme, she seems to be giving in the right direction.
I am not a fan of her music, but she doesn’t seem like a terrible person except that she has unimaginable wealth, a massive platform, a highly influential brand, and isn’t doing as much as she could to help others.
This is, unironically, the best meme about leftists ever made.
In my experience, leftists are like Star Wars fans, in that no one hates leftists like other leftists.
The right, when issues arise, circle the wagons. The left, when issues arise, form a circular firing squad.
The let’s fractured nature is both its greatest strength, allowing for innovation and new thinking, and its greatest weakness. We often fail to come together for good, when we all want perfect. We often end up with neither.
Eh, keep in mind that the right have been gridlocking each other in US Congress with the weird alt-right RINO stuff. There’s infighting on both sides; the US essentially has multiple parties within each major party.
Youre not lumping liberals in with leftists are you? Because liberals arent leftists. Liberals are status quo aka conservative.
No, they’re lumping them with progressives.
I’m honestly not sure of the difference between any of those, and I’m certainly 1 of them if not all 3.
It’s simple. Do you want to abolish private property and eliminate capitalism? Then you’re a socialist/ leftist. If you don’t, you’re a at best a market socialist. Or a social-democrat/liberal.
Seems like the above comment was attempting to provide a genuine answer. Judging by vote count, people disagree with that answer.
Would be cool if they would say why they disagree or provide their own answer to the question in addition to down voting.
Over here, the Lib Dems, while traditionally center/center-right, are actually more left leaning than our left wing party (labour) in many ways.
Oh, and you are doing a wonderful example of it.
The left covers all the way from slightly left of center, to extreme left. It gets blurry at the extreme, however. It seems to lurch into authoritarianism, which is a lot more in line with the right wing.
If you look at manifestos and voting records, the Lib Dems are just the Tories but less deranged and corrupt, so are basically what a lot of Tory voters think the Tories are. Recognising that threatening to send two hundred people a year to Rwanda won’t fix the tens of thousands of people long waiting list for asylum hearings is independent of thinking that the invisible hand of the market is the ultimate force of benevolence as long as it’s set free.
Eh, authoritarian isnt necessarily increased the more extreme you go. The foaming at the mouth anarchist who wants to go full john brown on a prosperity preacher isnt necessarily authoritarian, homicidal and fucking crazy? Yes. Authoritarian? No.
But this is probably due to the fact a lot of those types are usually smart enough to hold their tongues. But tankies will happily go on and on about how theyll kill all the folks who dont fall in line blah blah blah. If I ever have to deal with a tankie IRL id probably flop between laughing and wanting to fight them.
The fuck is this nonsense?
I always wonder why the workers of the world don’t rise up together. We could easily take over without any violence.
Then I remember we all hate each other and refuse to work together and it makes me sad.
Because it is hard for the individual to risk being destitute if he rises up and no one follows.
The petite bourgeoisie has become invested through 401k’s and healthcare benefits in the system.
Dunno about you all, though I’ll take the slightly less villainess billionnaire that might have a positive impact for $500, Steven. Cause fuck if I won’t side with the potential enemies of my enemies at this stage. Playing it cool and acting like we’re doing fine doesn’t seem to be doing much after all.
nah, fuck em all. I don’t trust that nepo baby psycho
If I have to see this little capitalist darling at another football game trying to secure the young female demographic for the NFL again I’m going to vomit.
You can choose not to see stuff.
As an Eagles fan, fuck all of that. She’s not even dating one of our players. She’s dating his brother, and we still have to hear the national announcers go on about how their mom hangs out with Swift and how they’re all going to Tinseltown together.
At least Merril and Mike don’t spend any time on it.
That’s not their point, they just don’t want girls in the tree house.
Fully extend right arm, lift arm 15 degrees, rotate wrist 90 degrees to the right. Resume.
In my experience, people don’t respond very well when you try to cut their arm off
I think they were aiming for the neck
Ah, that makes more sense. Much more efficient kill, just have to do it quick so they don’t have time to react.
I was for sure aiming for the neck 😂
Pfft…they just don’t understand
Keanu Reeves is pretty cool. He’s not a billionaire though
That’s why he’s pretty cool. Also he’ll probably never BE a billionaire, because he’s pretty cool. The two rarely meet.
He would probably stop making money at some point because he felt he didn’t deserve more.
“That is too many zeros, I just want the SAG minimum and to have fun making this project with you. Just spread the difference among the other staff as a bonus, I’ll match it so they can have a great Xmas.”
An ethical billionaire is impossible. Hoarding that much money in itself is unethical.
Isn’t she constantly screwing her fans over with Ticketmaster and stuff? Why do people think she loves her fans?
She doesn’t seem like the most evil billionaire but she definitely likes to squeeze people for cash. The blame just lands elsewhere.
She has absolutely zero control over how her show is run or sold.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift–Ticketmaster_controversy
Isn’t that just deferring the blame
She chooses who to associate with She’s the person holding all the power. She could easily cut out Ticketmaster if she actually wanted to. It’s just easy to defer the blame on a rando corpo group that’s running everything behind the scenes while she’s making billions from it.
Ticketmaster has exclusive contracts with most venues. Do you really think that not having tours is what any manager will allow a music artist to do?
Then don’t play at those venues or get them to bend over.
It sure seems like she isn’t putting in effort to evade Ticketmaster. They actually seem to love it
Lol you have no idea what you’re talking about. There aren’t many non-ticketmaster venues big enough to accommodate the amount of fans she has.
