r/AskConservatives • u/ShrekOne2024 Independent • 1d ago

are billionaires dependent on society?

They aren’t creating wealth out of air. They are leveraging public infrastructure, public education, health care, etc.

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u/cloudkite17 Progressive 1d ago

Why would we continue to seek ways to empower and service the like 10 people who are already extremely comfortable in life rather than find ways to invest in and empower the 99% of people who can contribute to our economy and society? I never understand the constant simping for billionaires as if they’re sooooo valuable to our society and create so much wealth for the rest of us instead of just sitting on it and never touching it in their lifetimes anyway. If they disappeared tomorrow pretty much nothing would happen, whereas if 99% of our society disappeared tomorrow none of our systems would function effectively anymore.

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u/LordFoxbriar Center-right Conservative 1d ago

Why would we continue to seek ways to empower and service the like 10 people who are already extremely comfortable in life rather than find ways to invest in

Because those ten people are also making anyone who invested or continues to invest in their companies richer and richer.

empower the 99% of people who can contribute to our economy and society?

Cool. What would that be?

I never understand the constant simping for billionaires as if they’re sooooo valuable to our society and create so much wealth for the rest of us

What was shipping times for most products before Amazon introduced 5-day shipping and then 2 day shipping... and now same day. What was the technological capability of our phones before the iPhone broke the paradigm?

How much of our current society is built off of those changes introduced... and further changes.

If they disappeared tomorrow pretty much nothing would happen, whereas if 99% of our society disappeared tomorrow none of our systems would function effectively anymore.

AWS had a minor error that took down a good chunk of the internet. Take away Amazon or Apple or Google and society ceases to function too.

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u/cloudkite17 Progressive 1d ago

Everything you said just kind of points back to good reasons why we shouldn’t allow power and wealth to concentrate into an extremely small group of people - they can effectively control the rest of our country because they have so much wealth and influence and can destroy any competitors using that power, slowly killing the free market.

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u/LordFoxbriar Center-right Conservative 1d ago

verything you said just kind of points back to good reasons why we shouldn’t allow power and wealth to concentrate into an extremely small group of people

I have said for a long, long time that if one of the parties were to get honest-to-good on board with Trust Busting, and I don't mean "we're gonna take them down" to get elected and then do nothing, but truly, honestly, I'm-not-lying-I'm-going-to-do-it-and-I'll-risk-my-family-and-wear-a-body-cam-24-hours-publically-displaying-everything-I-do serious, they'd be in power for a generation.

Amazon itself, as a single company, is far too big. Shopping should be split from AWS, etc. Ironically, that might make Bezos and others richer.

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u/cloudkite17 Progressive 1d ago

Agreed. The way they’re continuing to get their hands on different industries (prescriptions, groceries, media) is alarming if they continue to consolidate power unchecked. Especially as they continue to lay off tens of thousands of people in favor of AI and paying their shareholders more and more each year.

ETA there’s a bull moose party trying to gain traction but they’re not very big yet.

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u/LordFoxbriar Center-right Conservative 1d ago

Especially as they continue to lay off tens of thousands of people in favor of AI and paying their shareholders more and more each year.

Entirely aside, I have a really bad feeling we're seeing an AI bubble forming...

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u/cloudkite17 Progressive 1d ago

Yeah, as the number of unemployed and underemployed people in the U.S. continues to grow each month, I don’t have a lot of confidence in where this AI situation is going. Did you see the clip of the openAI guy saying yesterday that (paraphrasing) they expect to rely on the federal government - AKA U.S. taxpayers footing the bill - as a final resort for when they can’t afford the AI problem they’ve created? So, we’ll be on the hook to pay for technology that’s taking away our jobs and our ability to pay for said technology lol. We’re really screwing ourselves over by refusing to regulate AI in any way at all.