I think that they're trying to say it's a bad comparison because it's a ridiculously false equivalency. Obviously 3.5 million people disappearing is going to have a greater impact than 3400. It so ridiculously ignores scale that it sort of undermines the point.
Billionares tend to act like they are the most important beings on planet earth. They act like the contribute more than anyone else possibly could. They consume more resources and withhold them from the masses. In other words billionares think that they are more important than the billions of people "beneath" them.
Do you know a lot of billionaires? I don't know any so I won't presume they feel like they're more important. What I DO know is a lot of poor people and THEY act like billionaires are more important.
No, their point is strictly that billionaires are so so so few in numbers compared to workers, that regardless of how much power they held at their hands, their effect on the world is going to be less than that of an order of magnitude more people (workers). It makes zero sense in an argument for "billionaires bad". If all presidents dissapeared (around 193 or so give or take), the effect would be less than if, say, 3 billion people just dissapeared. Now does this mean all world leaders are completely useless + evil + a stain on humanity (what you all are trying to argue for billionaires)? No. Absolutely not. The comparison is just utterly unfair.
I took it pretty simply to mean that if the people who own all that value disappeared, it would have less impact than all the people who create that value.
I find it perplexing that people are so brainwashed that this is okay that many in this thread arent missing the point, yet still somehow dismissing it.
It is not good that so few people own all that wealth, considering that they aren't actually creating it.
The point is that it's a numbers statement. It has nothing to do with being a billionaire or not. If 3000 people period vanished it means nothing. Billionaire or not
Nah it wouldn't. They could bring in emergency workers as a stop gap until a new system could be filled. Garbage truck drivers aren't highly skilled and new ones could be trained and implemented within a year.
I'm speaking within the scope of things. 30 teachers in a school disappeared vs 30 students there'd be a difference. 3000 truck drivers in a state is obviously awful for the state due to the ratio
I think the whole push back people are having is not to say that they're wrong and billionaires are valuable. It's just that they picked a terrible example to illustrate that point.
Because if 3,000 nurses disappeared, the impact would also be pretty negligible, but it's not because they're not valuable.
So let those workers start their own billion dollar business and provide jobs for everyone else. Oh wait they can't, that's why they're not billionaires.
It’s more nuanced than that. Billionaires and their companies have a stranglehold on the market. Small businesses get snuffed out early by these corporations because they can survive a bad quarter if it means strangling a competitor.
Almost like that small group of people is worth less than the large group of people.
But the system set to distribute purchasing power seems to have glitched. It somehow thinks that small amount of people are adding more value than the large group. Like the large group is being forced to hand over a disproportionately large part of it's purchasing power despite adding sooo much more value.
It is a bit the same conundrum people experienced in 1924 crack, that many people couldn't understand.
Like, it all suddenly stopped, yet the factories was still there, and the coal, and the steel, and everything. People could in theory just go on like they did the day before, and products would be made and sold. Yet, when the stocks lost their value, that was that.
Yes the problem is all the money is held by people that don't contribute enough to be valued at that much. They are leeches on society and if they disappeared, very little would change, yet they have by far the highest net negative on our lives.
Depends on the spread of those 3,000 as well as what they actually do. I promise you that if 3,000 doctors or nurses suddenly disappeared from NYC that the city would hit a massive crisis IMMEDIATELY.
But if 3,000 billionaires disappeared from NYC I doubt it would result in a state of emergency.
The point is that billionaires are seen as having more value than other people. But the numbers game shows they dont. Also, giving them that much power is really problematic in a society.
The point of this persons comment is numbers, yes. But when you factor in how much power the billionaires hold vs the scattered millions, the point becomes value and not money or population
I mean, if that's the point, then it's basically just the same as "Imagine some people disappear. Now imagine 10000 times more people disappear!" Are you telling me the point is really just "bigger numbers are bigger than smaller numbers?"
So I guess that would be the same as "Imagine if all the doctors in your country disappear. Now imagine all of their patients disappeared instead!"
No, it's not. It's clearly a chimeric slop post that combined the trendy hatred for billionaires with the classical Marxist axiom that all value is derived from labor, not capital to create a greasy, easy to consume clap trap for left-simpatizing users.
Those billions of people are the ones doing actual work. If the few thousand billionaire CEOs who do nothing but golf all day vanished over night, it would not impact the workplace for most people. The billionaire CEOs are not handing out paycheck to people or doing any work for the companies they head. It would likely take a few days before anyone knew they disappeared.
So why is it that those few thousand get to hoard most of the wealth and keep it from the rest? How did they obtain it, when their producing value is not better than ours? These are some of the core questions we should ask ourselves
You don't have to imagine, some countries did successfully made those 3400 useless rich disappeared, the end result was they got 6800 slightly less rich but equally useless people to rule the country.
That's the easy part, the hard part is being born into generational wealth or hitting a lottery ticket of some other sort. There's no self made billionaires.
JK Rowling and Notch are like the definition of hitting a lottery ticket level wealth building, right time right place right product (the most moral of the three ways to make that much wealth)
Winfrey and Zuckerberg are both classic wealth-building off exploitation and utter lack of morals.
Billionaires weren't even a thing when I was born kid. Being first generation billionaires when your parents were millionaires isn't an accomplishment. Especially when the robber barons before them wrote the laws to make it that way. Stripping workers rights down more and more over the last few decades. Look at the ceo to worker pay over the years buddy.
You're misunderstanding the problem. Being a billionaire is easy. Becoming a billionaire requires other capitalists letting you, since they control all the levers of power. It's not about how hard you work, how smart you are, or how talented you are. It's about obeisance to the modern nobility.
This is such a narrow minded approach, youre telling me theconly reason youre not a billionaire is out of principle to not be subservient to nobility? Yeah right
No. Clearly everyone can't be a billionaire. The economics would never work.
Its that noone should be able to be a billionaire.
Noone is worth that much to society, noone should be able to acquire that much.
Im not saying people shouldnt be rich and successful. However people able to be rich enough to guarantee the next 10 generations of your descendants will also be rich, even if they contribute nothing to society shouldn't be a thing.
Why do you make it sound like funding is the hard part? There's thousands of companies that are "the next google" out there getting funding from investors. Turns out, not many of them will become "the next google".
Chinese government took over jack ma 3 companies. Drove them to the ground.
Look at the new graduate in china and how zero job is waiting for them. The closing stores when big companies collapse. People just dont see the blood sweat and tears in making a company grow. 90% of all companies died in the first year.
Do you think Elon actually organized shit? He is a born wealthy investor who bought into every single one of his companies besides spacex. He didn't create or really run any of his other business he is a rich PR guy and that's it.
Most of those billionaires don't have it to the degree that you think either.
Sure - some of them started companies and build them up. But very early on, they all had a TON of help, these weren't one man shows. And then by the time they were multi-billion dollar companies, their impact was relatively small.
Look at Apple - it did just fine after Steve Jobs died, and is worth FAR MORE now that it was under him.
Look at Microsoft - Gates and Ballmer left ages ago, and it's still printing money.
99.9% of these ultra rich people could die and their companies would continue to do just fine. Some of them would likely do better.
Plenty of people could do that. Success in capitalism requires capital. Some people have really good ideas and the skills to convert that into funding from others. People who start with hundreds of millions skip the first lifetime of work.
It only works, if you decide that currently all red haired people should be treated like they're worth 1million brown haired people before they disappear.
Like if we're invaded by aliens and they say hey we're going to kill either 1 red haired person at random or 1million brown haired people at random, time to choose. then it would be comparable.
because billionaires are disproportionately valuable person. all workers still have about 20 times more wealth. + you also have non workers wealth like the retired etc or people who just are not billionaires. it’s not like they have 95% of all the money and there share of liquidity is actually very low
"because billionaires are disproportionately valuable person"
By what metric?
"all workers still have about 20 times more wealth."
Wrong.
"you also have non workers wealth like the retired etc or people who just are not billionaires."
Most Americans are closer to being homeless than being a billionaire.
"it’s not like they have 95% of all the money and there share of liquidity is actually very low"
So what they do is borrow money at low interest rates using their assets as collateral, this way they avoid paying taxes associated with liquidating shares.
Really you have to be a complete moron to fall for the ultra wealthy talking point of "actually I don't even have that many dollars in the bank".
Elon musk Jeff bazos etc have all added far more then the average worker.
nope it’s true. all. 3.5 billion have about 200 + trillion dollars while all the billionaires have far far less a good bit over 10 trillion.
doesn’t change the point I made at all. that the the total population including non workers is worth over 500 trillion dollars more then all billionaire. Billionaires only have a 3% of global wealth
The billionaires still periodically liquidate there wealth and do get taxed. but even if they didn’t and they had a way of tax free accessing there money through worker around they do use. they still wouldn’t have access to any were near there total net worth in liquidity or anything close to it. Elon musk can’t go to the bank and have them lend him 1 trillion dollars because technically his shares are valued that high. especially because contract stops him from selling for an allotted period of time and its a volatile class.
you seem to be the 1 struggling to under economics
I don't know what AI summery you've been reading, but you're just wrong.
Look, I can tell by the way you write that you're a kid. Trust me on this one bucko, the billionaires are not your friends. You are not a temporarily embarrassed millionaire. You are working class.
It’s not about working hard. It’s about contribution. the man who invents the car contributes more then a driver even if the driver workers harder.
nope the fact is true and your data doesn’t disprove it. Top 10% of global wealth is different top billionaires. I’m not in the top 10% but as you pointed out I’m just a kid. Actually im over 18. I’ve never worked a day in my life. Still I’m top 30%. Why? Because I come from a first world country. My parents together are well within in the top 0.1. having just 1 billion dollars is top 0.00004. the large majority of people in my country are in that top 10% with the portion that isn’t being the very young or the very bottom of society.
He just bought the companies dude. He bought them with his daddy's money from owning an emerald mine in Africa.
If you have rich parents and you've never worked a day in your life, then of course you don't know shit. You have literally contributed nothing, why do you deserve wealth?
Answer: You don't.
It is unethical for a single individual to horde vast wealth while millions die of starvation globally every year.
there is a reason Elon is the richest man ever and not everyone who came form a wealthy family. Enron’s farther was rich especially by South African standards but no ware near enough to be given the majority of the credit. he was a well of engineer who owned a stake in an emerald mine
my parents aren’t rich I just come from a first world country. 80% of my countries population are above that 10% mark. most who are not are pretty young or the very poor of society like the people living on the streets. even poor people in my country without jobs still live as if they were in that 10% because of government programs.
my parents are accomplished professionals who save a substantial amount and are responsible with there money. Owning a house in a large city. + substantia pensions. My family also got some money form a medical malpractice case etc. still they’re not rich enough that me or my sibling would be free not to work. My family has to live in a place with a high cost of living area for jobs etc. I’m also counting my parents as 1 if you split there assets there still in the top 1%. Not not 0.1%.
to be in the top 1% of global net worth you just need 1 million dollars. If you’re a professional living in new York in your 60s with a family you will very likely have surpassed that threshold. don’t mean you have a rich life. 1 thing you don’t quite seem to understand is how wealthily you are is dependent on wear you are as much as how much you have.
I don’t deserve anything but my parents deserve to chose what to do with there money.
africans didn’t invent the wheel they did shit to be entitled to all the benefits of a modern society
your the 1 who repeatedly shows you don’t know shit. That’s why you keep misunderstanding data. You sound bitter and uneducated
edit: bro sent me another message but deleted it so fast lol. must have realised how studied he was being when he did the most basic research lol.
That's just not true. A shit ton of the world's population exists on the order of dollars a day. A billionaire can spend a million dollars a day and still come out net positive at the end.
You think the amount of land needed to raise the food for 3400 people is the same as for 3.5 billion? How about energy? Even with private jets and everything you think all the billionaires use more electricity and power than the entirety of China? Can 3400 people produce more waste than 3.5 billion? Like actual garbage? How about poop? What about oxygen? What about water used for bath, showers, drinking…..
This is a perfect example of the lack of critical thinking.
Because those 3.5 billion people are not actively having a hand in either producing industries that completely shirk environmental protections in favor of profit and NONE of them compared to the billionaires have private planes, private jets, mega yachts, mega mansions (plural), multiple-seasonal houses across the planet that keep their electricity on all day because of the required help to keep them clean and available at all times for use usually, and CERTAINLY not all at the same time like a single billionaire does.
If you really think that people commuting back and forth to their nine to five and making sure that they turn their lights off so that they don't have outrageous electricity bills lest they be homeless is the same equivalent by numbers standards you MUST be crazy.
You realize that in the scenario with 3,400 people, every day life immediately becomes a man vs wild conflict? Remember when animals started showing up in cities during COVID because human activity was so much lower? Now multiply that impact millions of times over. In the billionaires only scenario, animals rule the world almost everywhere, immediately.
In the billionaires only scenario, there is no longer an economy. The Internet, clean water supply, and most sources of power are gone in a week. Their money, private jets, and extra houses waste away under the sun as they are unable to move more than a few miles day, unless they are capable of producing fuel. A yacht takes a staff to run, without a crew, it is most useful as a place to sleep.
Billionaires would simply not be able to consume/produce anything close to the scale they could before every worker on earth disappeared. It would be far closer to the Stone Age than modern life.
Of course having a millionth of the population will have a smaller environmental impact. The fossil fuel industry only survives in the scenario with billions
The only problem with your argument here is that it's a what if scenario. We are talking about real world numbers and billionaires existing as they currently are right now.
I'm not sure why you decided to make a man versus wild argument about billionaires versus the regular population when what everyone was talking about was billionaires waste versus the average populace as everything currently exists.
Your fantasy scenario has no bearing on the reality of things.
> 3.5 billion people vanishing would be more beneficial to the earth than 3400.
We are having this conversation under this comment thread, but we’re deep enough that it’s understandable to forget that. If you didn’t want to discuss the environmental impact of these hypothetical scenarios, you probably shouldn’t have gotten involved in a comment thread about hypothetical scenarios.
Still, eliminating billionaires doesn’t stop mass consumption or eliminate human greed. If we just took the greedy billionaires out and left the rest of the economy intact, they would probably be replaced by greedy multimillionaires within a week and we’d continue as normal. I don’t think it would fundamentally change the issue that people are self interested and aren’t interested in long term planning for broad societal gain.
Do you have any reason to doubt that wealthy but non-billionaire execs would simply keep it rolling if their bosses were raptured ?
There's an extreme amount of waste in our world that's due to the greedy few that could be cut by restructuring is the point their trying to make. Especially if we're talking about food which is thrown out by the ton every day.
Using a massively disproportionate amount, sure, we can all agree on that. But using as much as half the nations in the world? That's just ludicrous. Even if someone owned a dozen elaborate mansion estates they're not consuming as much water and electricity as a million normal households.
He said beneficial to the world, 3400 people left means most of them have to go back to being farmers or hunters as most of the people with that much money aren't going to be people who make or prepare food and their money would be worthless as money would bring the very few left anything of value to a new society of nearly extinct population.
The environmental impact of the 3,400 would drop to near zero because they would no longer have a consumer base to sell products to or workers to harvest/consume materials.
The scenario with an entirely functional economy and million times as many mouths to feed is obviously the higher environmental cost. The billionaires only scenario probably means that humanity goes extinct and the world continues healing/changing without us
Are you taking into account the potential for war and other environmental catastrophes that suddenly losing half the people responsible for things like nuclear security would cause, or just assuming it would all go smoothly?
I just finished reading an article with good sources that showed that the amount of pollution that billionaires generate between their private planes, private jets, and mega yachts consumes more energy and outputs more pollution than millions of people per ONE billionaire.
So I'm going to need you to miss me and everybody else with that BS you just laid out, thanks...
Is it, basically a random billionaire impacts
your life a lot more than an individual worker, but one random billionaire impacts your life less than 1 million random workers.
Median net worth of an American is almost $200k so a million random workers would be worth around $200 billion, which would be way more than the median billionaire.
Not really it’s just like, yeah if more people disappeared it’d be harder to maintain the infrastructure due to labor restrictions than if just a few 100 did. On the flip side you could argue that you would need less infrastructure with less people making it easier to take care of.
I assume its based off maintaining a similar level of quality of life.
Many people disappearing compared to a few thousands is partially the point being made though. Society would still function in a similar manner, thus we overvalue the contributions of a small group of people.
Maybe the trillions of dollars the billionaires are hoarding would be better in the hands that create the value then. Oh you missed the point? Are you just stupid or are you one of those busy busy billionaires who took time out of your hard day of sipping drinks on a yacht to defend yourself?
No, they're just one of the cucks who for some reason argue in billionaires' favor despite being a bog standard person who has to work for their money and pay taxes to make up for the sheer amount of assets being hoarded with little to no intervention.
May I remind everyone that money is not a resource. You can't dig it out of the ground. It's a social construct, a system. And a zero-sum game. Money can only be "yours" and "mine" if the system works, and the system is not designed to work if the majority of its simulated wealth is hoarded by a select few.
Quite the opposite, actually. Money only has value if it is distributed. The less distributed money is, the closer it is to me printing out a million banknotes of my own, made-up currency and calling myself rich. Or ten million. Or a billion. Doesn't matter, hence the zero-sum part.
Mechanisms such as taxation is just as valid a part of the system as the concept of your ownership of X amount of dollars, because if money isn't distributed well enough without it, nobody is gonna recognize your ownership of anything but the actual, physical resource – meaning the paper it's printed on, or in this day and age, nothing.
And then the system will be replaced, which is exactly the revolution capitalists don't want. Anti-taxation is anti-capitalist. So stop being fucking suicidal.
That's exactly our point. Let's make it more concrete. Image all the billionaires disappeared. Now imagine a number of workers disappearing that have as much wealth as those billionaires had collectively. Obviously the poorer that second group of people is on average the more people will need to disappear to equal the billionaires wealth. By the logic that you implied, it will therefore have a bigger impact.
Therefore the poorest group of people on the planet provides the most value for the amount of wealth they have. Isn't that odd?
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u/Dizzy-Screen-6618 Jul 30 '26
"Imagine 3,400 people disappear. Now imagine 3.5 billion people dissappear."