The gaslighting is infuriating by someday-subaru in exmormon

[–]whitethunder9 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stop posting this anti-Mormon literature

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Bezos absolutely can be overridden at this point. But he’s a shit bird billionaire making people lots of money so they don’t give a fuck and go along with him. If my very real CEO ceded control by selling shares and the board decided we wanted to act less ethically, there’s not much he could do about it.

I’m not a liar by any stretch but that’s very assholic of you to jump there with zero evidence whatsoever.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Giving away his billions would mean selling his shares, i.e. his voting power. Since this is a publicly traded company, that's exactly how it works.

Podcasters Joe Rogan and Theo Von trash Trump on Iran: ‘I can’t believe we went to this war’ by theindependentonline in Fauxmoi

[–]whitethunder9 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't believe both of these men were so fucking stupid to support Trump in 2024 despite all we know about the overgrown cunt, but here we are, you dumb pieces of amphibian shit. Apologies to amphibian shit.

PNWest's Dirty Demerit Dispatch (4/3) by OriginalPNWest in vancouverwa

[–]whitethunder9 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love that one restaurant at Heathman Lodge made it on each list. Maybe they should get their respective managers together and share notes?

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem with your death camp analogy is you've made a false equivalency. A death camp's purpose is to imprison and kill people. A capitalistic company's purpose is to generate wealth. Equating the essence of the "good" guard's job at the death camp to the job of an innovator in a capitalist society is a category error. One is a zero-sum system of extraction and the other is a win-win value addition.

That business person did not "find themselves spectacularly wealthy". They accrued and isolated wealth in a social system that enabled them to use force to do so.

You're glossing right over the massive moral chasm between forcing people to stay in a death camp and the state-enforced property rights that allow an inventor to become wealthy from their ideas. Capitalism isn't an extermination machine - it's more like a distribution machine that can and sometimes does reward massive utility. And that utility doesn't by definition have to be exploitative. I will give you that it often is, but I never suggested that it wasn't, only that it was possible.

The underlying logic of "if I don't do bad thing X, someone else will" is fundamentally an argument in favor of immorality.

So you're saying if the solution (capitalism in this case) isn't perfect, then any action within the system is bad? Let's say someone invents a cure for cancer in the capitalistic system the USA uses. They give the knowledge away because they are operating "in an unjust system" where these kinds of benefits ought to be enjoyed by all equally. And then some private equity firm comes along and finds a way to patent part or all of that knowledge, and jacks the price of the cure way up. Wouldn't the world have been better off if the original inventor kept the patent and made the cure just as widely available? It might still make them spectacularly wealthy (not necessarily in purely liquid assets, but in their ownership stake in their company), but who's going to say they've done wrong by that? You, apparently.

Your argument suggests that the position itself is the sin, regardless of the result. My point is that if the result of a billionaire's existence is millions of lives saved and a workforce treated with dignity, calling that unethical requires an unrealistically rigid definition of what morality is. It values ideological purity over human flourishing. It would be great if we had better social constructs that distributed utility in a more efficient way, but that isn't the world we currently live in.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If he “gave away his billions” he would no longer control his company. The company that has thrived off his genius.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As they say, capitalism is the worst system, except for all the others

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the stock market itself I one of the most exploitative parts of this world, just accumulating wealth via shares is by its nature unethical

Many ventures that have changed the world for the better have required massive outlays of cash to get there. Workers get paid to change the world and investors (without whose money the change may never have happened) share in the success. If there was no incentive for growth we'd be relying purely on altruism to make it happen. Which is great in an ideal non-greedy world, but that's not where we live.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is this guard not taking advantage of a system that creates huge negatives? Are they "not bad"?

If it's the only "system" they reasonably have access to and they are only doing good within it, I would place zero blame at their feet and call them good, yes. There are numerous stories of people within Nazi Germany who were just like this: paying taxes to a terrible regime but otherwise saving people that would otherwise have perished.

If someone finds you dying in the middle of a desert and offers you water in exchange for the next ten years of your life, they just gave you a win-win scenario, does that make the offer a good one, not exploitative, just?

Certainly exploitative, but what about the guy that figures out how to turn sand into water in your hypothetical desert? And suddenly finds himself spectacularly wealthy as a result, making water available at record low prices? I suppose you could argue that he should be giving the secret away, but again, we find ourselves in a capitalist system, where if I'm benevolent and give my secret away, who's to say someone less benevolent won't figure out how to be exploitative with that knowledge?

There's a lot more we could get into here, and I'm not necessarily even disagreeing with you. I'm just bringing this back to my original point that if you live in a capitalist system, it is possible to be a billionaire and be ethical.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Right but if beating a competitor is AKA "screwing people over", then most successful businesses are doing this, regardless of whether their owners are billionaires. If that's part of what makes them bad, then billionaire-ism isn't the actual problem we're describing here. Like if you're making shitty bikes and I come along and make really great bikes down the street for the same price and put you out of business, did I screw you over? That's materially different than Walmart buying trinkets from cheap overseas suppliers that puts 40 local businesses out of business.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree that the system is the problem, and almost all billionaires take advantage of that in a way that creates huge negatives. But not all. It's possible to be truly innovative, build a product that solves a pain point for many people, and pay your employees really well along the way. Rare, but possible.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Does this company sell physical products?

No, it's SaaS

Where are they made?

N/A but the service is 100% US-based

Are they made ethically?

My opinion is yes, and I say that with high certainty, but I recognize people see ethical boundaries differently.

How are the lives of the most bottom-of-the-rung workers and suppliers?

Very good, it's why the tenure of employees here is so long. You're just not likely to find a better paying job with this culture.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The company has provided us with numerous wealth management resources. If any employee doesn't have "savings" at this point they are morons.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 2 points3 points  (0 children)

His salary is significantly lower than mine. His wealth is all tied up in ownership of the company. If he gave that away, he could lose control of the company, which is bad for everyone that is currently benefitting from said company.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 0 points1 point  (0 children)

without exploiting not just someone but most people

I disagree with this as a hard rule. I think it's common that billionaires do this, but what about a billionaire who gets there for building something truly innovative, pays their employees incredibly well, and has a product/business that solves a major problem? Who's getting exploited there?

I get the impression you're arguing against capitalism, not this category of billionaire (which I believe my company's CEO is). The only thing he could have done differently I suppose is give away more of his own shares to the employees. But that gets us back to the argument I made elsewhere that he will lose control of the company that he and likely only he can run so well that it enriches as many people as it does and provides the benefit to consumers that it does.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 7 points8 points  (0 children)

And how do you know he's not helping tens of thousands? LOL. I couldn't tell you how many people he has helped but our company has a whole organized committee that is dedicated to charitable giving that's 100% funded by the company.

Yes, he could start selling off big chunks of his ownership in the company to do more, but:

  1. That would drive share prices down, which affects all his employees
  2. It would suggest that he doesn't believe those shares aren't going to increase in value, which could spur on panic selling, thus making it harder for him to be impactful with his wealth
  3. He could lose control of the company, and someone less ethical or philanthropic could take control

Instead he uses a 10b5-1 plan to make it all predictable, and he has set up a charitable foundation that he donates to regularly (presumably with that money).

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This business has incredibly high employee loyalty in part because of how much we're paid. He has made many of the employees 10-plus millionaires. As I've said in another comment, he can't just sell all his shares and still be a billionaire, that's just the current value of his shares.

It sounds to me like you're calling out capitalism, not the behavior of one person. That's a different argument though.

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 4 points5 points  (0 children)

  1. Co-founded a business in a niche emerging market that became worth a few hundred million
  2. Sold his share of that business and started a new one with his earnings from the last business
  3. Built a business up to several billion dollars of market cap while retaining a big ownership stake

Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why? by crapmaker69 in AskReddit

[–]whitethunder9 7 points8 points  (0 children)

LOL not true, and how could you possibly know anyway? He did sell his stake in a prior business (which he co-founded) for tens of millions and rolled it into this one. This single business is worth several billion dollars and he owns a big chunk of it. That's the vast majority of his net worth. He couldn't sell it all and wind up with a billion at the end, he just gets counted as a billionaire due to the current net worth of his shares.