• Smeagol666@crazypeople.online
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    59 minutes ago

    Thanks for the fucking tip, Sauron.

    On another tangentially related topic, Smaug wouldn’t even be in the top ten richest beings if he and his stolen wealth were real.

  • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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    2 hours ago

    The CEO of a… checks notes… mass surveillance company named after a skrying orb used by an evil sorcerer in arguably the most famous fantasy series of all time… warns that a… wealth tax on billionaires (like himself)… would cause… mass surveillance…?

  • AzuranAurora@piefed.ca
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    3 hours ago

    I, with a straight face, suggest we should fire the Palantir CEO out of a cannon off a tall cliff into the ocean. Preferably one with jagged rocks on the coastline.

    • nastronot@lemmy.zip
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      33 minutes ago

      Whoa whoa whoa.

      We went through all this trouble making the CEO cannon. Let’s not stop at one.

  • kbal@fedia.io
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    5 hours ago

    I thought maybe he meant that taxing them would anger the billionaires and more mass surveillance is just what they do when they’re angry, but no. He just means surveillance of billionaire’s bank accounts. I’m not sure that really counts as “mass.”

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 hours ago

      Every time I deposit more than $600 cash I’m getting monitored. These fuckers have no clue how we live.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        In the 60 Minutes interview, when the interviewer reminded Trump his wealth had increased by $3 billion, Trump immediately shot back “Well, so did everyone’s.” I dont think they even remember that non-billionaires exist, and if they do they don’t consider it important.

      • 2ndDegreeOWO@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        And that’s just the mandated monitoring – it doesn’t include the monitoring that businesses and banks are doing for free, on their own.

        I hear rumors that many places are rolling out systems to record and track the serial number of every bill of cash that goes in or out, because they can sell that information to big data collectors who can use it to piece together a picture of where cash flows – previously the only flow of money they couldn’t completely monitor. And, of course, that big data is available to the government at any time, either by buying it or by getting a friendly judge to sign off on sweeping warrants.

  • RedWeasel@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    So Mass surveillance CEO say taking away their power will cause more of it? Makes sense /s

    • Zephorah@discuss.online
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      5 hours ago

      It’s threat of punishment. There’s the money, and then there’s the rest of us. We’re at the point where the money doesn’t expect further pushback (with teeth) from us.

      • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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        4 hours ago

        Which surfaces? If we’re talking nails on chalkboard then it’s all smiles. But a well greased main gear? May wanna push for a harsher threat.

    • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nz
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      3 hours ago

      No, they are sane. Just completely evil. Not even human anymore. I don’t know what it is about money that makes someone despise their own species, but it’s very consistent.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        27 minutes ago

        Saying “anything” for personal gain indicates a lack of empathy and consequences of ones own actions. It’s indicative of “cluster B personality disorders” (mental illnesses) associated with empathetic impairment, like narcissism and psychopathy.

        If you listen to what many billionaires and their lackeys say very publicly and openly to journalists, they do not even attempt to hide their mental illness. Most of them are evidently sociopathic or psychopathic. The fact that these people rise to positions of power indicates systemic failures across society.

  • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
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    3 hours ago

    Financial obesity is neurotoxic, an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.

    Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but trillionaires should be forced to transition into billionaires, and billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.

  • Potocobe@lemmy.zip
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    5 hours ago

    Conveniently glossing over the fact that we, in a normal world, would only be using the AI to look at all of their stuff and not ours. Stupid idea all around.

    Why can’t we just use the numbers we already have? I mean they say Musk is worth x amount, Bezos owns x amount. They get those big numbers from somewhere. Tell them how much tax they owe based on how much they theoretically own. They can pay their taxes with their theoretically valuable stocks/shares whatever. They are going to be all like, “I can’t afford that. Nobody has that much money!”

    To which we will say, “Fine then, uh give me that super yacht right there and 10 super cars and we will let you start a payment plan.”

    If people don’t pay their taxes the government can seize their property to cover it, right? This is how we can achieve the reduction of billionaire wealth and find a path to balancing out all of the money we owe ourselves from all the government shenanigans over the last century or so.

    • Cosmoooooooo@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      You’re trying to be fair while they are hanging you by the toes, beating you with a rake, and then catching the nickels that fall out.

      Then they use that money to buy more rakes, and do that to everyone you know until they’ve robbed the entire world.

      They’re not planning a fair fight. They never have fought fair once in their entire lifetime. The more you fight fair, the more people die horribly.

      • Potocobe@lemmy.zip
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        3 hours ago

        How is taxing someone an unreasonable amount of money based on what seems to be an arbitrary gross calculation of their apparent wealth with the intention of taking their assets to pay for it fighting fair?

        To actually be fair, I would prefer my government be more fair than less fair as a general rule.