• slaacaa@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Being a billionaire (aka wealth hoarder) is a mental illness.

    If they were hoarding anything else to this extent, going way beyond their rational needs, e.g. billions of tables, pokemon cards or toilet papers, everybody would know they are insane. But as it’s money, somehow they are supposed to be the smartest people in the world, and we should worship them.

    • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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      16 hours ago

      If there are 10 monkeys in a zoo and they give them 10 oranges a day as a treat and one of the monkeys would hoard 6 oranges every day and left them to rot. Do you think that the zookeepers would keep an eye on it because it’s clearly mentally ill or an asshole, or would they point at it and go: damn, that’s one cool and smart monkey.

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        If the monkey traded the oranges to other monkeys for other treats, or for something intangible like status or privacy, the zookeepers would think it was a cool and smart monkey, but they would think the other monkeys who took the extra oranges in trade and let them rot were less intelligent.

      • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        Great example, makes the contrast even more obvious. Insane people are controlling the world, and we are wondering why it’s going to shit

      • bennypr0fane@discuss.tchncs.de
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        14 hours ago

        It’s a bad example, because we are not monkeys, we lack zookeepers and money normally rots only at a much, much slower rate than oranges and increases itself over a certain threshold

      • Piemanding@sh.itjust.works
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        16 hours ago

        That’s just what monkeys do and if you give the weakest monkey an orange the strongest will go and kill them.

        • Honytawk@feddit.nl
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          14 hours ago

          Only if they are in captivity.

          In the wilderness they share their resources. The strongest would defend the weakest, especially if they had an orange.

    • ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      You can’t really do anything useful with a billion Pokémon cards, there’s always something you can do with a billion dollars

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        But you could do lots of useful things with a billion pokemon cards - either bartering them for goods and services or converting them to money first, effectively “spending” the cards on useful things.

        But practicality isn’t the issue when people see someone hoarding incredible amounts of something - it’s the abnormality of devoting yourself to accumulating vastly more than what we interpret as anywhere near normal. We treat hobby objects that way but not money.

    • JacksonLamb@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      This. It’s literally no different, and the fact that so many people idolise this kind of hoarding shows how powerful the processes of hegemony are.

    • rah@hilariouschaos.com
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      15 hours ago

      Being a billionaire (aka wealth hoarder) is a mental illness.

      No it isn’t.

      e.g. billions of tables, pokemon cards or toilet papers

      These aren’t directly related to sex appeal whereas money is.

      Edit: I mean I assume. Perhaps there are some people out there who see pokemon cards as a good measure of offspring-raising potential, I dunno. In which case, accumulating pokemon cards wouldn’t be considered a sign of mental illness either.

      they are supposed to be the smartest people in the world, and we should worship them

      Who told you that?

    • shplane@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      And if normal people suddenly became billionaires, they’d act just as awful as the current billionaires

    • Owl@mander.xyz
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      21 hours ago

      And the inverse statement too: If normal people became billionaires, they would act stupidly too

    • AreaKode@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      As in, they’re power tripping? Absolutely. When you get a false sense of importance, especially when you have sycophants reinforcing this image, narcissists in particular tend to act poorly toward their fellow human beings.

      • AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social
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        20 hours ago

        This is one of the best reasons to socially stigmatize wealth hoarding, even if you can’t change the fundamentals of the capitalist system that causes it in the first place.

        If enough people make people who hoard money feel lesser than, to the point that having less is a preferable alternative, then they’re more likely to give away their wealth and become at least a little bit less shitty people.

        This is also, coincidentally, why rich people isolate themselves within bubbles of similarly rich individuals, who won’t look down on them for being so greedy and narcissistic.

      • LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe
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        19 hours ago

        This is why we should have mandatory testing for NPD and be institutionalising anyone who tests positive. Narcissists cannot be allowed to walk the streets freely, their mental illness is too dangerous.

    • dustycups@aussie.zone
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      17 hours ago

      The solution might not be easy but it is simple: tax. Good on the cuurent Australian governments increased taxation of superannuation over 3 million $.

      • bennypr0fane@discuss.tchncs.de
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        14 hours ago

        There should be an income maximum. It should be a little above the maximum happiness threshold. Any income above that should be taxed at 95%

    • Onionguy@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      Imagine if people who really should go to therapy (like melon usk in this one) actually went to therapy.

  • rah@hilariouschaos.com
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    15 hours ago

    This is nonsense. Wealth translates directly into attraction as a mate. More wealth means more attraction. There’s no point at which increasing wealth stops increasing attractiveness. This is true even for the person with the most wealth because increases in wealth still increase relative wealthiness, which is still an increase in attractiveness.

    Whoever thinks wealth accumulation is a mental illness doesn’t understand humans.

    • Grimtuck@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      You get diminishing returns pretty quickly unless you’re a really disgustingly ugly person both inside and out.

      • rah@hilariouschaos.com
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        13 hours ago

        diminishing returns

        If there are any returns whatsoever, diminishing or otherwise, then that’s enough for humans to chase after it.

        unless you’re a really disgustingly ugly person both inside and out

        Indeed, humans are pretty ugly. Same with the rest of nature. Look around you. Would you say it’s ugly or beautiful when a gazelle is still alive watching a lion eat its insides. Or when a fly is immobilised as a spider wraps it in silk. Humans are no better. We are animals. The same forces are active inside us as in every creature. This is life on planet Earth.

        • Honytawk@feddit.nl
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          14 hours ago

          You seem to be worshiping billionaires who would never give one iota of care about you

            • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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              10 hours ago

              The part where you say that wealth attracts you.

              Since billionaires are the most wealthy, it must mean you find them super attractive and thus worthy of worshiping.

              • rah@hilariouschaos.com
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                9 hours ago

                where you say that wealth attracts you

                That’s not what I said.

                super attractive and thus worthy of worshiping

                And this is a non sequitur.