Do you know what the difference is between a millionaire and a billionaire? About a billion.
A million seconds is 11.574 days, a billion seconds is 31.7 years
I always think it as the difference between a nice vacation and a whole generation.
Many years ago, I used to work in infosec. One of my employer’s clients was a big and famous brand well-established in the luxury sector. One day, a colleague of mine was sent to test their POS. Inside one, he found a single transaction for around 6M € from a credit card swipe. It wasn’t a payment made from a bank transfer or a check, just a single credit card swipe! At the time, I couldn’t even dream a card with such a credit allowance would exist. I had a pretty good living then, with money for the rent, daily expenses, and even some savings. Still, for an instant, I remember feeling like a poor child living in a house made of mud.
It’s interesting that the wealth bar of the 400 richest Americans is about 6-times as long as the author needs to say some interesting points.
I’d argue that’s another good argument for seizing their assets and making them pay for their asshole behaviour.
The owner’s deluded peasants would never allow that.
Honestly, probably the only way to save the Environment and Democracy. Too much power in the hands of the few leads to perpetual effective monarchy. It’s why the Founding Fathers were against large amounts of inherited wealth, particularly inherited wealth that creates dynasties in perpetuity.
I know people don’t like the Founding Fathers that much lately, and I see why, but conservatives really don’t understand them, and deliberately misrepresent them, because not doing so would undercut all conservative “policies”.
World’s a mess because of inequality and the concentration of almost all wealth and power into the hands of a small amount of sociopaths. I honestly think the only way to solve this permanently is to cap the amount of wealth and power any individual or family can have.
You put that perfectly. Thank you.
I don’t like how American - centric this is but otherwise very… impressive
I recommend visiting Gapminder. For example the Dollar Street, where you can get an inside how different life around the world is, depending on income.
Also, it’s various other statistical tools like this animated graph, where you can see the billionaires running away to the right. Also interesting is the short blip of people having more wealth at around 1980 - 2010, which immediately got sucked back into “slightly right of extreme poverty mountain”.
Imagine showing this on a linear axis
Also an inflation adjusted graph would be really nice.
It also seems very American to me that there is not a single mention of climate change in there
Because America is where most of the world’s wealth resides
There are a bunch of other languages and countries here https://github.com/MKorostoff/1-pixel-wealth/blob/master/README.md
I’ve lost the will to live. Why do this place even exist?
There is no reason
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I have a friend that used to be super into watching morbid stuff like gore and snuff videos. He stopped a few years ago and last time I asked him he told me that he can’t handle them anymore, same goes for another person I know.
In my case I’ve never been able to watch too much of those things, but I know I’m able to handle situations where blood and stuff is involved as I’ve studied anatomy with dead human bodies and also worked with injured people. I like to think I’ve had a bit of a healthier relationship with the effects of violence on humans.
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They are so rich that my browser crashed while I was trying to speed scrolling the page to the end
On Android - it just kept resetting back to the left again…
to the left
Sounds like Android is correctly interpreting how to respond to this webpage.
“It has to stop” I agree. But how do I make it stop? There’s a lot of talking about what is the issue and its consequences, I say this also for climate change. But they don’t say what can we do about it
Ok tankie
See, this is the fucking problem right here. You are a commoner. The person you replied to is a commoner. Compared to the ultra rich anybody but that tiny tiny subset of people are commoners. As long as we keep name calling and pointing fingers at each other this shit will never change and we’ll be rolling around in the mud until we all fry under the sun.
I understand your frustration, we all feel the same way. Let’s direct that frustration at the people and the system that is telling us to turn on each other simply so we are blind to how we’re all being played for fools.
Aye the rich are likely very nutritious
A possible solution could be to limit the personal (family?) wealth, fortune, possession, etc. to for example 100 million. That should be enough to live a luxury lifestyle and give your children’s children a ‘care free life’. Everything above that amount goes to the aid of the less fortunate, public and social improvements, energy transition, solving pollution problems, etc. (worldwide). In exchange you get a certificate with: “Congratulations you won capitalism!”
P.S. When you ‘cheat’ you get 1 dollar (or equivalent) and may start over. In addition and not exclusive of all possible legal proceedings.
P.P.S. The above is just an example to illustrate that there are possibilities. But this doesn’t solve all problems of inequality or everything else that is wrong on this planet.
P.P.P.S. Too many people think the have the possibility to also collect wealth above the 100 million ( or think they are entitled to an amount above that). They will protest and vote against any such solution. (I’m not talking about those 400 Americans from the website graphic).
Reminder that the money is printed out of thin air and it’s not really that we need anyone’s stored wealth. Not even liquidating a mansion or ten from a billionaire, or from all billionaires, is going to solve our problems. Sure they are worth a lot to one person, but how much is a mansion worth to society in effect? Not much really.
The system is designed to have poor people. It must so that there is incentive to work. Otherwise we would have to force people to work. I’m not trying to justify the ways things are, I just don’t see going after stored wealth as solving the problem especially when it is not their assets we need or their made up currency.
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I think their question is more about how we would implement that. Marx believed that proletariat uprising would be the “how,” and that it is an inevitability of end stage capitalism. But the nature of capitalism keeps people from attempting that. This is a system that we are forced to participate in if we want to survive. We need food and shelter and we don’t want to get arrested and/or murdered by cops for revolting. With that in mind, we have to get to a point where we collectively have nothing left to lose.
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Not to be fatalistic deliberately, but what can we do about it? If we try to take on the system individually, we face the Plucky Ninja problem. If we try to coordinate, it’s too big a movement to keep secret, so the rich and powerful can subvert it before we get anywhere. (They’re doing a pretty good job of it already.)
We have had the solution for hundreds of years. Most people, however, don’t want to hear it.
Very well made. Is the definition of doomscrolling.
this reminded me of how 4channers purposely desensitize themselves to gore and other heinous stuff, but they cant escape the pain of loneliness. and it could be solved if they just didnt act like massive pieces of shit. then they blame it on women and the supposed phenomenon of them only dating the “top 20%” of men! its probably the stupidest self-fulfilling prophecy
jfc, you dont even have to have basic hygiene (tho that helps), just be nice!! dont be a misanthropic shut-in with a hyper-inflated ego and unearned confidence in ur intelligence. but when they try to be nice it isnt bc they want others to be happy, its to get something, so they come off as a disingenuous Nice Guy. i hate them but also kind of feel bad for them. maybe if they didnt get caught in this vicious cycle some of them wouldnt be reactionary assholes
sorry for the tangent, good meme
They competitively numbed themselves with gore/torture treats to try to impress other numbed people and are shocked that being emotionally numb makes them repulsive.
Spoliers! You owe it to yourself experience it first without anyone else's comments, it only takes a few minutes.
An extremely powerful infographic, well designed and well sourced. I love how after they said everything they said, they leave you to keep scrolling the last third of the 3 trillion. No more commentary, just letting the scale of it sink in.
Though, something I wish they touched on is rebuking the argument of “all that money is tied up in stocks! they don’t have that much money sitting around!” There are plenty of issues with that rebuttal of course and it’s not actually a valid defense of the ultra rich, but it’s a common enough counter that I think it warrants being mentioned to cover all your bases so to speak.
Also, there’s another one on the page about prison incarceration in the US, you should check that out as well
I knew the ultra-rich were unimaginably wealthy but this still blew my mind. Got through Bezos, expecting for the site to end, stopped when I saw the blue rectangle starting.
You made it almost halfway
we may have to start making excuses for the lack of terror
Visited the site, and holy fucking shit
holy shit it’s spez
fuck you
/s
Why do people hate spez, he did a great job bringing people to Lemmy
I don’t hate spez
"fuck you"
The fact that the account has his name proves that it really is spez. This is exactly how the internet works.
Thanks Abe
As a Discord user, I am sad if this person took the username of the real spez, it means spez cannot use his username anymore :( no one would ever do that, it must therefore be the real one
WTF, bro, what are you doing in Lemmy?
HOLY CRAP ITS SPEZ
I went to that link and it was horrible, no the site is simple it’s just when it went to Bezos … then look at all the things we could have to make things better (free healthcare, free college, etc) just sickening.
BuT hE’s A pHiLaNtRoPiSt! He HeLpS SoCiEtY…
…to maintain the status quo of undertaxing rich people and letting monopolies rule industries.
And actually he does not have any money because its just his assets and what other people think they are worth but he is actually quite poor because he immediately spends all the money he makes to invest into new ideas to make the world an even better place for everyone.
We know he can’t quickly withraw the money at a good rate bit that does not make him not rich AF.
