• jpeps@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      While I don’t think it’s true, I could accept the idea that it were possible to make that much money ethically. However, having that much and not doing good with it? To me that’s the bigger evil. Billionaires should be extincting themselves.

      • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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        7 months ago

        Entertainers could be an exception to the evil billionaire rule, but even Swift was doing things like renting out her jet, and her shows have a huge carbon footprint as well.

        If she were paying for the pollution, the profit margins wouldn’t be so high.

        Also we just need to tax most of the income over $1 million a year. Like we did before the 80s greed is good bullshit started.

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        7 months ago

        Nobody earns a billion dollars. Imagine it’s October 12, 1492. One of your ancestors is so excited about Columbus landing in America, that he starts putting aside the equivalent of 5000 dollars every single day. And through good fortune, every heir continues to do the same. 5000 dollars added to a pile every single day for over 530 years. 5000 dollars is more than most people make in a month and it accrues every. single. day. There is no interest on the money, but at the same time there are no taxes and nobody spends it on frivolous stuff like food or shelter or education or healthcare. And now, after more than 531 years you inherit it all and realize you’re not a billionaire. I know it’s an unrealistic thought experiment, but to me it shows that no billionaire ever earned their money.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        I think ever having that money, unless it’s just shit into your lap for some reason, precludes you from being the kind of person who can do that good. It takes a level of cutthroat and a degree of psychopathy to accumulate that much wealth in a single lifetime. So in essence, having and making that much are both fucked.

      • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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        7 months ago

        Bill Gates is probably the better billionaire of the bunch, but I can’t tell if he’s against the anti-billionaire tax policies because it would take away his privilege or if he believes he does more good with the money providing medicine in Africa than the government would do with it. Depending on his answer he’s just as bad as the rest of them.

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      7 months ago

      I have a little bit more respect for artists and top athletes, though. Their money is relatively honest and definitely comes from working hard and smart, not from exploiting others.

      Taylor has a sold out world tour. A lot of people want to see her perform, even if all the way from the back of a huge stadium.

      She could lower prices, but then scalpers would make even more profit.

      In contrast, no one wants to see me sing live.

      We should still tax her money at a higher rate than average.

      • cucumber_sandwich@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        You could argue most of the money some top athletes make is from advertising deals and you might see that as amoral. Being really good at running is impressive, but doesn’t inherently contribute hundreds of millions of dollars worth of value to society.

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          7 months ago

          Brand deals with companies that sell stuff that’s probably made by slave Labor. Not so ethical.

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            7 months ago

            Is anything that any of us do in the western world ethical based on that though?

            I mean who are to judge athletes for those brands deals when we’re buying those products, using those phones/computers to go on Lemmy etc.

            I’d argue musicians/athletes that do this are not the most ethical, but it’s not this stuff that makes them the worst offenders.

            • kurwa@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              They are famous people, if they advertised a more ethical brand, people would buy that brand instead.

      • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        A world tour like that requires a shit ton of labor, sure it’s less straight forward to decide how much surplus value of that labor goes to her, but I would argue it’s certainly not negligible

        • Square Singer@feddit.de
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          7 months ago

          If she had to do everything by herself, the world tour would consist of a few one-woman-gigs at local bars.

          • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            Like all things, there’s a middle ground. No, don’t do everything yourself, but give back proportionally. Swift is better than most in that regard, sure, but she can clearly give more if she’s encroaching on being with 10+ digits. This is the problem.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Just the handful of concerts I’ve been nominally involved in settin up… there’s hundreds of security staff. 20-50 semi trucks for the stage, a hundred or so roadies. Dozens of forklift drivers. Traffic direction.

          And that’s ignoring increases staffing/labor by cities and neighboring properties (increased cops, paramedics, increased security adjacent to the event…)

          Like.

          It’s far from negligible

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    7 months ago

    Ahh yes, the woman who wanted to… (checks notes) hmm copyright a fucking date because she used it for an album…

    Ffs there is no such thing as an ethical money hungry person.

  • Fades@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    For those unaware

    From 2022:

    Taylor Swift’s plane was identified by the report as the “biggest celebrity CO2e polluter this year so far,” racking up 170 flights since January with emissions totaling more than 8,293 metric tons.

    A report published last year by Transport & Environment, a major European clean transport campaign group, found that a single private jet can emit 2 metric tons of CO2 in just an hour. To put that in context, the average person in the E.U. produces about 8.2 tons of emissions over the course of an entire year, according to the report.

    https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021_05_private_jets_FINAL.pdf

      • Skua@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        Swift’s flights were responsible for a thousand times more C02e than an average EU citizen. One has a comma, the other has a dot

        • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          How much more economic activity than the average citizen?

          Anyway I suppose flying commercial and accordingly taking on a less aggressive tour schedule would help her reduce her footprint. I only know a few her hits (mostly that are more club friendly) personally but acknowledge she’s going to be responsible for more of everything in the aggregate. Way more environmental damage. Way more endorphins.

          So back to “how can she reduce her footprint” while still doing her Swiftie thing? Sure there are plenty of ways.

          • Hiro8811@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            She might do more economic activity but for who? Organizers? Herself? Scalpers? If she has that much money to be considered a billionaire maybe she could do something to cover her footprint. Plant some trees or donate to some organization that occupy with saving the planet.

          • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            Fly commercial. Drive as much as possible. I assume she rents it out when she’s not actively using it. Stop doing that.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        No, a single person is responsible for 8.2 tons and Swift’s JET ALONE did 8.293. That’s not counting all of the OTHER carbon footprint that swift undoubtedly has.

        Edit:uah, even worse. It’s 8 THOUSAND tons for her jet, and 8 tons for the regular person.

    • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Edit: A lot of people seem to have no idea what carbon offsets are. Here’s a reasonably quick rundown:

      https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/carbon-offsets#:~:text=Carbon offsets fund specific projects,and waste and landfill management.

      Basically though, they are tge best market solution we have thus far yo the climate crisis. We need government to do better but in that absence, this is the closest we hve to a free market solution. While appealing, solutions like “bitching online that people should just go back to pre industrial era lives” or “hoping everyone will just vote correctly next time” are definitely fun solutions, carbon offsets have the effect of actually doing stuff in the meantime.

      If we’re crucifying people for things they are expected to have, are you pure evil because the phone youbhad undoubtedly used cobalt mined by children who occasionally lose their arns mining it?

      A cursory google search showed that she paid double her carbon offsets for the current tour. While imperfect, carbon offsets, and people voluntarily paying into them is how we move through and past our current carbon intensive lifestyle.

      • the_q@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        A weird take, but ok… Are you a “swiftie”? Going to bat for a rich popstar is a little weird.

        • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Going to bat for a rich popstar is a little weird.

          Reality should be reality, regardless of the subject.

          Edit: At least 9 people disagree but so far, the closest to a substantive reply is essentially “she’s rich, why do you care?”

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              7 months ago

              I dunno, read again?

              I explained things pretty well in my original post. If you have questions or trouble understanding, I’d be happy to explain.

              • the_q@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                It’s ok if you’re a fan of hers, but her carbon footprint is much more impactful than a regular individuals. Paying into a carbon offset account actually doesn’t offset anything. It’s PR at best. The environmental damage she does just by flying to get lunch is outrageous.

                • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  I listened to her music voluntarily for the first time earlier this year, not my style.

                  That being said, paying into a carbon offset is the best way to advance a regime that actually transitions us to a green economy.

                  Are you a vegan who doesn’t have a car and won’t have children? That’s the best way to reduce your emissions. If not, are you as similarly unethical? And if it’s a scale issue, given the fact she makes so many people happy as evidenced by their willingness to pay seemingly infinite dollars to see her, well, I’m curious as to whether you feel you think you make a fraction of as many people happy?

                  It’s easy to pile upon the rich but compared to most of the world, you are the Taylor Swift of the world. So these “no no, she costs a thousand times more!” Arguments don’t really hold, medium income westerner is responsible for a boatload more emissions than a poor third worlder, so why shouldn’t you be held to a similar nonsensical standard? At least Swift is contributing to the things that help us, what similar contributions have you made?

      • Fades@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I didn’t know you could pay money to reverse the damage you have personally caused to the climate crisis

        • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          You can’t. But in the real world, we aren’t going to stop using planes, cars and heaters in the next few months.

          The best thing that aids a transition are carbon offsets that help subsidize the very technology upon which a Green revolution depends.

          • lennybird@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Ironically inconvenient truths for the armchair environmentalists.

            Besides, I suspect if one gave them all a winning lottery ticket we could observe how quickly their attitudes change.

            Nevertheless I could think of probably hundreds of individuals far less ethical and far more responsible for global catastrophe in this day than Swift. So as far as billionaires go, she’s not all that bad. Let’s perhaps focus more on Musk, Bezos, the Waltons, etc…?

            • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              hundreds of individuals far less ethical and far more responsible for global catastrophe in this day than Swift

              Yeah but hating on those folks wouldn’t be as cool as hating on someone the normies like!

              …/s

      • daltotron@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I think people tend to dismiss carbon offsets on the basis that they are a free market solution to a problem that the free market has (mostly) caused. You could maybe blame government for lacking regulation on the free market in like the 19th and early 20th century, but me and I think most people would probably think that’s full of shit and kind of kicking the can down the road, foisting the responsibility on the government and not the corporate world for basically no reason, other than that we would expect the corporate world to be a bunch of little scamps or something. I think it would be better off blaming the government for basically just being in a revolving door sort of affair with corporations, but then, I think the answer to that wouldn’t be like, dismiss the government in exchange for the free market, but instead more along the lines of, you know, as you’ve said in response to carbon offsets, more regulations against such things.

        And before you come at me for wanting top down government solutions because they’re “unrealistic”, and also thinking that bottom up political activism is “unrealistic”, I dunno, like. If your solution is just kind of to believe in solely the free market, I really wonder what leftism you’re doing there, especially if you’re bringing up cobalt mines with children losing their arms. That’s some iphone venezuela latte level shit, there, that whole deal just seems like nihilism. Like we all get that you can’t ethically participate in capitalism, but that’s not really a good argument to double down on capitalism and be like “well, if I have to…”, because it’s seen as “more realistic”. By even that logic, it would be better off if most of us just used our excess finance to stop contributing to the climate crisis directly in our own lives, but then I dunno whether or not I can predict your response to that, based on your disdain for cobalt mining. If you don’t like electric cars on that same basis, and you don’t think top down or bottom up government intervention would be likely to happen, then there’s not gonna be many solutions, for you, for getting rid of your own carbon emissions even from a car, outside of maybe a really shitty ebike with lead batteries that probably won’t be able to take you 30 miles to your job because we live in a suburban hellscape shithole america, or whatever.

        I dunno, I gotta go walk my dog. I think the most obvious solution here is just for her to not like. Fly around in a private jet everywhere. Even trucks, which would probably be the other solution, would make more sense, and for the rare inter-continental flight she could probably just take first class with like, a mask and some sunglasses on, and I dunno if anyone would give two shits about that. There’s not really any reason she needs to have a private jet in the first place, so this whole argument is STUPID and DUMB.

        • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Lots to digest here!

          I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make in the first paragraph though. Intuitively, I blame corporations but don’t fault them. They are behaving in line with their incentives. It is up to government to create incentives that ensure good behaviour. So to me, the real blame does lie with goverments’ inability to create and enforce a carbon tax (which is generally the agreed upon best way to transition to a carbon neutral economy.)

          I think bottom’s up political activism is essential. But also kind of doomed. If those under 35 voted at rates comparable to those over 65 (and yes, that includes in primaries), we’d be approaching the end of Bernie’s second term and democrats would be arguing about who was best suited to carry on his legacy.

          Not sure what the iphone venezuala comment is? I bring up the cobalt mines simply to say that it is easy for us to forgive our own sins but castigate those wealthier than us. (Also an example of us just being conditioned to shrug and say “that’s inevitable.” No it fucking isn’t! If we as consumers actually cared about real things, like those children, instead of whatever comedian we’re policing on twitter or whatever, we would have ethical mines just as we have ethical clothes, ethical foods etc. But, people’s morality tends to go right up until those morals would become slightly inconvenient.) To the rural citizens in impoverished nations who are already suffering climate change, our desire for plane fueled vacations seems just as unnecessary as Swift’s use of a jet to get to her concerts. In the meantime, paying double the carbon cost to developing the technologies or supporting the agriculture necessary to get us to net zero, well, while there’s room for manipulation and badness, it’s not the worst thing.

          I agree that this whole thing is stupid and dumb. There isn’t any reason any of us need planes, to eat meat etc. The things that actually solve this crisis are bottoms up politicial activism rather than whining about a celebrity who is doing their best to offset their carbon emissions and supporting a nascent program that is exactly the type of program that gets us to net zero.

          Like we said, stupid and dumb.

          • daltotron@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make in the first paragraph though. Intuitively, I blame corporations but don’t fault them. They are behaving in line with their incentives. It is up to government to create incentives that ensure good behaviour. So to me, the real blame does lie with goverments’ inability to create and enforce a carbon tax (which is generally the agreed upon best way to transition to a carbon neutral economy.)

            I’m not sure what the distinction is, there, between blame, and fault, so, constitute a distinction between those two. I would also blame the government partially, yeah, we’re in agreement, but I can also like. If we are seeing the reasons why the corporations are acting out of their own short term self-interest, then I can do the same for government, and basically just find fault with nobody, right? That’s the only difference I can really come to, there, is that the corporations have a clear chain of causality as to why they might act that way, and the government’s is maybe a little bit more obfuscated, or something, but I can still understand the incentive structure there, so I can’t really find fault, if fault is like, who is the cause of all this. I guess I’d fault grug, for making fire, or like, god, or the british, or something along the domino chain there. Probably the british.

            I think bottom’s up political activism is essential. But also kind of doomed. If those under 35 voted at rates comparable to those over 65 (and yes, that includes in primaries), we’d be approaching the end of Bernie’s second term and democrats would be arguing about who was best suited to carry on his legacy.

            Also this, I think it’s kind of essential to understand this, and your last paragraph about people whining about a celebrity. A lot of it is kind of this social media cynicism that has consumed everything. You know, can’t vote for bernie, have to vote for hillary, because splitting the vote would be bad, so there will only ever be establishment candidates and nothing ever changes at the federal level except on an extremely incremental scale as people vote in local and state level elections, which all tend to have the same problem of fptp systems and the same problem of partisanship. And so it’s very easy for people to just look at that, and then either go for damage mitigation, or, depending on how much cynicism they have for lobbied to shit free market liberal dems, or just give up entirely and only focus on local issues and basically damage mitigation on that scale, you know. Can’t organize some sort of alternative local system for dealing with any of this shit, without registering as some sort of corporation or nonprofit or co-op, and then you’re subject to the same forces that end up fucking everyone else over, even if you can gain traction, so people would rather just volunteer at something that already exists and kind of say they’ve paid their dues. Anything worthwhile is anti-establishment, and if you’re anti-establishment, you will probably get killed or arrested. Or you’re just a skateboarder, I guess, which is still pretty sick. Or, MOST things that are worthwhile are anti-establishment, I guess we still have costco.

            Not sure what the iphone venezuala comment is? I bring up the cobalt mines simply to say that it is easy for us to forgive our own sins but castigate those wealthier than us. (Also an example of us just being conditioned to shrug and say “that’s inevitable.” No it fucking isn’t! If we as consumers actually cared about real things, like those children, instead of whatever comedian we’re policing on twitter or whatever, we would have ethical mines just as we have ethical clothes, ethical foods etc. But, people’s morality tends to go right up until those morals would become slightly inconvenient.) To the rural citizens in impoverished nations who are already suffering climate change, our desire for plane fueled vacations seems just as unnecessary as Swift’s use of a jet to get to her concerts. In the meantime, paying double the carbon cost to developing the technologies or supporting the agriculture necessary to get us to net zero, well, while there’s room for manipulation and badness, it’s not the worst thing.

            People usually bring up the whole cobalt mine thing as a “gotcha” moment for like, any level of leftist action. uhhh you’re using an iphone so you can’t be a moral beacon! you can’t have any opinions on what’s right or wrong! sort of thing. It’s also a mistake of scale, the relative scales at which, say, 71 companies 99% of pollution yadda yadda, it’s way different, the level of fault there, compared to like, the person who has a 3 year old iphone SE which was maybe constructed with a lithium cobalt battery from some imperial african child slave mine. Or people obviously bring it up as a way to disparage the adoption of electric cars, usually from the position of “electric cars suck” rather than “we should have better public transit and bike everywhere”. I dunno I’d probably set something up that like, increases tariffs on shit like that, or maybe just fund the shit out of the FTC so nestle goes out of business, or whatever, but as an individual consumer there’s really not much you can do. It’s much easier, or “more realistic”, I suppose, for most people to get off their 9 to 5 of shithole labor, and then just like, buy whichever water is the cheapest, buy whatever choccy milk is the cheapest, rather than looking into the rather hard to parse information of which company’s using the most child slaves, or what have you. Because they’re basically all doing it, and, say, in the case of a car, it’s not much like you can live without one. It doesn’t even have to be impossible, really, it just has to be extremely difficult, which, in most cases, it is. It’s not realistic, in my opinion, to expect everyone to suddenly pivot to like, supporting more ethical companies and voting with their dollar when most people are put upon enough already, and the american economy is fundamentally built so it’s like 3 steps away from slave labor, and if any of us did anything different then the economy would crash, the companies would get bailed out, and we’d all be forced to bite the bullet, like what’s happened every single time. Not that any of that would necessarily happen but that’s kind of the chain of logic of the american mind.

            Anyways, I gotta go feed my dog, and also join a CIA honeypot whatsapp group for leftist activism, cya.

      • PostingPenguin@feddit.de
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        7 months ago

        Well if you really start looking into it, carbon offsets are mostly a scam.

        For instance just declaring: “I will cut down this forest” without ever having the intention to do so, and then not doing it counts as a carbon offset. This is what abgreat part of companies are doing. Just saving forests that nobody wanted to cut down in the first place from being cut down. This they then sell to the consumer as a carbon offset.

        John Oliver had a great segment on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0

        • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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          As are the childlike “I refuse to acknowledge how to actually make things better but complaining on the internet is free and easy!” Levels.

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    Dunno about you all, though I’ll take the slightly less villainess billionnaire that might have a positive impact for $500, Steven. Cause fuck if I won’t side with the potential enemies of my enemies at this stage. Playing it cool and acting like we’re doing fine doesn’t seem to be doing much after all.

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      If I have to see this little capitalist darling at another football game trying to secure the young female demographic for the NFL again I’m going to vomit.

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          As an Eagles fan, fuck all of that. She’s not even dating one of our players. She’s dating his brother, and we still have to hear the national announcers go on about how their mom hangs out with Swift and how they’re all going to Tinseltown together.

          At least Merril and Mike don’t spend any time on it.

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    7 months ago

    There are ethical billionaires, but nobody would have heard of them because they do not advertise and show off how much of a good person they are for donating. A good person do not look for validation. Charles Feeney comes to mind who donated 90% of his wealth and died with net worth of $1 million. He also lived in a rented apartment despite having become a billionaire for managing Duty Free.

    Edit: okay some have been pedantic on here about Charles Feeney and his wealth, and some of my figures have been wrong, but the overall point still stands. He was worth $8 billion, donated over 99% of his wealth and spent the rest of his remaining days with $2 million.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/nyregion/james-bond-of-philanthropy-gives-away-the-last-of-his-fortune.html,

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Incorrect. The only way to acquire a billion dollars in net worth is to exploit labor.

      Doesnt matter if they donated to charity. Its a tax shelter for them. Im sure Feeneys employees would have preferred to be paid higher wages.

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        7 months ago

        Maybe. But we don’t know how he managed his business. His wealth was, after all, came in the 1960s and 70s at the height of air travel which he sold his items to travellers, unions were also powerful and the world was operating under the Bretton Woods agreement.

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        7 months ago

        What if someone suddenly inherited 1bn from an estranged relative, or if they won the lottery? I’d say that’s an ethical way of gaining that much wealth

        I think what defines an ethical billionare from one that isn’t, is how much they share with everyone else and how much they consume for themselves. Spending that much money properly would take time. They’d have to vet charities, hire people to help them spend it on the best things, research where to invest in (i’m talking about things like green energy) etc.

        Just food for thought. I tend to like looking for exceptions to rules (idk why)

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          7 months ago

          There is no ethical billionaire because to amass a billion dollar means other people that produced that much value did not get paid properly. Simple as that. If you inherit a billion dollars, it was still made on the back of workers.

    • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      That’s reeeeeeally far from a billionaire. If he donated 90% and died with a million, he died with 10% so he had 10mil.

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Bill Gates is much the same, he’s given away over half his net worth to charity at this point.

  • JimboDHimbo@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    Fully extend right arm, lift arm 15 degrees, rotate wrist 90 degrees to the right. Resume.

    • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      That’s why he’s pretty cool. Also he’ll probably never BE a billionaire, because he’s pretty cool. The two rarely meet.

      • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        He would probably stop making money at some point because he felt he didn’t deserve more.

        “That is too many zeros, I just want the SAG minimum and to have fun making this project with you. Just spread the difference among the other staff as a bonus, I’ll match it so they can have a great Xmas.”

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Isn’t she constantly screwing her fans over with Ticketmaster and stuff? Why do people think she loves her fans?

    She doesn’t seem like the most evil billionaire but she definitely likes to squeeze people for cash. The blame just lands elsewhere.

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Isn’t that just deferring the blame

        She chooses who to associate with She’s the person holding all the power. She could easily cut out Ticketmaster if she actually wanted to. It’s just easy to defer the blame on a rando corpo group that’s running everything behind the scenes while she’s making billions from it.

        • meliaesc@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Ticketmaster has exclusive contracts with most venues. Do you really think that not having tours is what any manager will allow a music artist to do?

          • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Then don’t play at those venues or get them to bend over.

            It sure seems like she isn’t putting in effort to evade Ticketmaster. They actually seem to love it

            • Neve8028@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              Lol you have no idea what you’re talking about. There aren’t many non-ticketmaster venues big enough to accommodate the amount of fans she has.