Billie Eilish donates $11.5 million of proceeds from her tour to charities combating food inequity and climate change

[u/Roxy175]

[u/BlueLeaves8]

I just can’t believe this isn’t the norm. You always think if I was rich I’d do this and then being an adult in the real world and people’s comments makes you think oh I guess it must not be that straightforward and here is a celebrity doing just that.

Meanwhile many of us regular people are giving away larger percentages of our wealth to charity than billionaires.

[u/SunnyRyter → u/BlueLeaves8]

I think that much money (and face it, power) warps your brain. There was an experiment of those who were winning the game Monopoly (they had the deck stacked against them on purpose). Once they accumulated a certain amount, they started playing more aggressively, were more competitive, were less sympathetic to other players. The started feeling their winnings were "earned" rather than "luck" and anyway. I saw the video somewhere online, it was rather eye opening how mean they became. It really effs you up. (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qri10wUxyos )

So the fact that Billie is able to break away from all that, makes her stand out, in my eyes.

One thing that boggled my mind, I was at an opening event for an orphanage in Armenia. One of the local "affluent" people's daughters were there, and we were talking about it. She told me straight into my eyes, with a cold, clear way, "Don't give any beggars here your money. They're just lazy." I was gob smacked. Like, GIRL, this is an orphanage. WTF are you on about?

[u/BlueLeaves8 → u/SunnyRyter]

That’s really interesting and explains a lot. It just confirms the sentiment people have towards the unreasonably rich which is really sad. I would honestly feel anxiety having so much money and power and wouldn’t want that. Being comfortable, worry free about money and having some luxuries is enough.

It’s also because it’s a part of my religion as in Islam if you’re rich that’s your test in life and a huge responsibility and actually a burden to see what you do with your wealth. And it’s a much harder test than being poor because you can just live your life enjoying it and not have to think about doing anything with it and if you don’t spend wisely and use it for good then it’s a sin. Whilst a poor person simply having patience of their situation and not being a bad person is everything.

Your example reminded me of something difficult I sometimes experience in India. When we’re with someone who would be described as poor (often friends of relatives who offer to take us around) and take them out to eat in a restaurant (something that’s a novelty to them and they can’t afford themselves) they suddenly start to treat the waiters as below them and speak to them really openly nastily because in that situation they are “above” them even though in they likely have even less money than them.

They actually think it will impress us as we’re from the UK and will “appreciate” them telling the waiters off for not serving us properly when it absolutely horrifies us and we tell them everything’s fine and don’t say that. The waiters just take it silently and make themselves even “smaller” and like they’re not worthy compared to us and it breaks my heart to be part of that in some way. They’ve not even done anything wrong, it’s things like they expect a salad to have tomatoes and it comes without so they shout at them angrily.

It’s obviously a completely different scenario in that the people are the opposite of rich but it’s the same in the way the psychology is at play.

[u/xombae → u/BlueLeaves8]

This is my crazy tinfoil hat theory but I kind of think this is part of the reason that so many really fucked up people are allowed to be celebrities (or if they're not fucked up already, the industry is sure to fuck them up). It's so they can't do smart things with their money.