7 ms·

I definitely believe that wealthy people should be taxed at similar or higher levels than the average middle class employee, and I am definitely not some Elon f

by rocgf 3y ago

I definitely believe that wealthy people should be taxed at similar or higher levels than the average middle class employee, and I am definitely not some Elon fanatic. With that said, I do think that there is a reason they have so much money and that they are inventors that are pushing the boundaries. I don't understand why people refuse to accept that some people are smarter, work harder, think at a grander scale.

actionfromafar 3y ago
Does that make them deserve to also be your Lords? Because this is what is happening in practice.
- rocgf 3y ago
  Obviously not. As I said, I think taxation for anyone making say 500k+ should be comparable percentage-wise with any regular employee. That is indeed happening in practice, through the influence that money gives them, though not sure how this argument fits into the discussion.
lapcat 3y ago
> work harder When's the last time you've done manual labor full time? I'm so tired of this "hard work" meme. The hardest job I've ever had was to stack shampoo bottles in boxes for shipping. After 8 hours of that, I had to curl up in the fetal position. And the job paid crap. I also don't believe that Elon Musk is smarter than the engineers who work for him and make nearly infinitely less money. In any case he's certainly not orders of magnitude smarter.
- rocgf 3y ago
  I see this argument frequently and I never could understand quite where it's coming from. Throwing manual labor into the conversation is disingenuous since nobody would ever make the argument that some tech billionaire has a harder working life than someone shovelling gravel 16h per day. It's obvious that's not what anyone means, so why even point this out? Elon Musk may not be "smarter" than the engineers who work for him, but then why didn't they start a company like Tesla? The argument for Elon's success is built into the results themselves. There's no going around that, without serious mental gymnastics.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > nobody would ever make the argument > It's obvious that's not what anyone means I disagree. Citation needed. Regardless of what other people mean by "hard work", what exactly do you mean by it, and how exactly do the wealthy work harder than everyone else? > why didn't they start a company like Tesla Musk technically didn't "start" Tesla, but anyway there are several reasons. For example: 1) They didn't have the capital. Musk himself didn't have the capital to invest in Tesla or SpaceX until several previous businesses were acquired by bigger businesses. eBay acquiring PayPal was the big one. 2) They didn't want to? The smartest people in the world tend not to be motivated primarily by money and greed. Also note that Musk started out working on websites and financial services, which is how he made his initial capital, but that wouldn't necessarily interest auto or space engineers. Remember that Steve Jobs made most of his wealth from Pixar and selling it to Disney rather than from Apple. Was Steve Jobs "smart"? Sure, but WTF did Steve Jobs know about making films in 1986? Nothing. He was just a rich dude with some capital to invest. Why didn't some indie filmmaker become a billionaire instead? Because indie filmmakers don't have the capital.
    - rocgf 3y ago
      > Regardless of what other people mean by "hard work", what exactly do you mean by it, and how exactly do the wealthy work harder than everyone else? You get too caught up in the meaning of "hard work", as if your only purpose it to use its pedantic definition as a gotcha. Hard work in the way you define it is not and should not be rewarded just for the sake of hard work. It cannot work this way and you don't want it to work this way, regardless of what you may think. If we did that, the world would stop working. So whether the wealthy work more or not is irrelevant. > Musk The anti-Musk sentiment is now at cult-like levels and I'm afraid that rational conversation is not on the table anymore. Somehow Elon's name is associated with some of the most revolutionary companies of the past decade, yet still you'd argue that he doesn't work hard, isn't smarter than his engineers, is basically just lucky. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself. If the guy who created SpaceX is not impressive to you, then I'm not sure who is. He is kind of a moron in his tweets and has done some despicable shit, but I am able to separate this from his accomplishments.

by rocgf 3y ago

actionfromafar 3y ago

Does that make them deserve to also be your Lords? Because this is what is happening in practice.

rocgf 3y ago
Obviously not. As I said, I think taxation for anyone making say 500k+ should be comparable percentage-wise with any regular employee. That is indeed happening in practice, through the influence that money gives them, though not sure how this argument fits into the discussion.

lapcat 3y ago

> work harder When's the last time you've done manual labor full time? I'm so tired of this "hard work" meme. The hardest job I've ever had was to stack shampoo bottles in boxes for shipping. After 8 hours of that, I had to curl up in the fetal position. And the job paid crap. I also don't believe that Elon Musk is smarter than the engineers who work for him and make nearly infinitely less money. In any case he's certainly not orders of magnitude smarter.

rocgf 3y ago
I see this argument frequently and I never could understand quite where it's coming from. Throwing manual labor into the conversation is disingenuous since nobody would ever make the argument that some tech billionaire has a harder working life than someone shovelling gravel 16h per day. It's obvious that's not what anyone means, so why even point this out? Elon Musk may not be "smarter" than the engineers who work for him, but then why didn't they start a company like Tesla? The argument for Elon's success is built into the results themselves. There's no going around that, without serious mental gymnastics.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > nobody would ever make the argument > It's obvious that's not what anyone means I disagree. Citation needed. Regardless of what other people mean by "hard work", what exactly do you mean by it, and how exactly do the wealthy work harder than everyone else? > why didn't they start a company like Tesla Musk technically didn't "start" Tesla, but anyway there are several reasons. For example: 1) They didn't have the capital. Musk himself didn't have the capital to invest in Tesla or SpaceX until several previous businesses were acquired by bigger businesses. eBay acquiring PayPal was the big one. 2) They didn't want to? The smartest people in the world tend not to be motivated primarily by money and greed. Also note that Musk started out working on websites and financial services, which is how he made his initial capital, but that wouldn't necessarily interest auto or space engineers. Remember that Steve Jobs made most of his wealth from Pixar and selling it to Disney rather than from Apple. Was Steve Jobs "smart"? Sure, but WTF did Steve Jobs know about making films in 1986? Nothing. He was just a rich dude with some capital to invest. Why didn't some indie filmmaker become a billionaire instead? Because indie filmmakers don't have the capital.
  - rocgf 3y ago
    > Regardless of what other people mean by "hard work", what exactly do you mean by it, and how exactly do the wealthy work harder than everyone else? You get too caught up in the meaning of "hard work", as if your only purpose it to use its pedantic definition as a gotcha. Hard work in the way you define it is not and should not be rewarded just for the sake of hard work. It cannot work this way and you don't want it to work this way, regardless of what you may think. If we did that, the world would stop working. So whether the wealthy work more or not is irrelevant. > Musk The anti-Musk sentiment is now at cult-like levels and I'm afraid that rational conversation is not on the table anymore. Somehow Elon's name is associated with some of the most revolutionary companies of the past decade, yet still you'd argue that he doesn't work hard, isn't smarter than his engineers, is basically just lucky. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself. If the guy who created SpaceX is not impressive to you, then I'm not sure who is. He is kind of a moron in his tweets and has done some despicable shit, but I am able to separate this from his accomplishments.