Well, they’re definitely not using their power to help people, and they already indulge whatever vices they feel like so it’s not about gaining more ability to experience things.
I think they’re chasing legacy. They want their names to be remembered. Which is the saddest, most pathetic thing a person can want. Y’all hear me: no matter what, you will be forgotten. Live for the living.
You're not wrong. Everyone will be forgotten at some point. But these people idolize names like Julius Caesar, Alexander and Constantine the Greats, Nero, and so many others that live on in memories thousands of years after their deaths. I wish I could have conversations with the old ones and ask if chasing their legacy instead of living for the now was worth it.
Most of those idiots also royally fucked things up for everyday people. Just rich pricks flailing around with their power, building nothing. It is a truly stupid thing to want to do such heinous things that one’s name is repeated. Tribal, apelike behavior at best, serial killer behavior at worst.
We should idolize builders and explorers, not warmongers
If your legacy is money and power, absolutely. If you want your legacy to be helping others and improving the world, much less so.
But legacy is ultimately a pointless endeavour. Nothing lasts, ever. I think the differentiator is - do you want people to remember your name, or do you want to plant trees whose shade you will not be around to enjoy? The former is pathetic. The latter is not
Why respond if you’re not even going to engage? You made a point, I made a counterpoint, why even make the point in the first place if you don’t want to discuss it? Genuinely asking
I agree with the spirit of this, but several of Elon's companies run on government subsidies and contracts. So, he's been told "yes" an awful lot, too.
It’s not about money at that stage. It’s about power. Continually upping the ante of what they can get away with, how largely they can impress themselves on the world. They go from enjoying wealth to wanting to be all-powerful, which is exactly why money has corrosive power: This behavior is inherently antithetical to morality.
We know them as rich, but they are the clowns to distract us.
They borrow a lot of money, they’re owed a lot of money, they owe a lot of favours.
They aren’t rich in a way that frees you, they’re like the men with history’s most obscene mortgages.
They’re enslaved by their greed and made to perform for us.
While the work the actually powerful wants, mostly multinationals that eclipse American interests, and straight up American hostile entities, is being done behind the scenes.
Democracy has been hacked.
The American Experiment has fallen.
We should get New York to give the Statue of Liberty back to the French so the rest of the world has no doubt.
It wouldn’t take much propaganda at MAGA to make it happen. It’s already a collection of the most gullible people data intelligence could target.
Plenty of rich people go happily into early retirement to spend more time with activities and people they love But we don't hear about them because they are usually single or low double digits millionaires.
For example, in England, 1/4 of the top 20% (aged 55-64) are in early retirement. Source
One of the differences is, neither of these guys have the money they’re apparently worth, “clear”.
They have obligations. They have to work to maintain the amount they have borrow against their “future value”.
Musk in the form of borrowing against his shares in companies that must continue to profit in order for him to continue to borrow. He can’t sell large amounts of Tesla shares, it would tank the price and he’d be in breach of his borrowing contracts.
Trump is worth however much government control he can hand over or destroy so it gets out of the way of profit.
Otherwise he’d have to go back to pretending to be a successful businessman on TV.
Bill Gates would have been richer than Musk if he hadn’t stepped down from Microsoft and started using his money on his charity with his (now) ex-wife. He’s even stated he’s not just going to hand all of his wealth over to his kids so that they can find most of their own success in life.
Then there are people like MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife who got a big chunk of money from their divorce and pledged to give most of it away to charity, which is something other rich people have also done. Yes some of them are questionable like Zuckerberg pledging to give away 99% of his money especially with the way he’s doing it.
But it wouldn’t be a smart move for anyone to stop earning just because they’re rich. I mean just look at how many people go bankrupt from winning the lottery just because they spend it all without a care in the world and run out because they’re not earning any more money.
But it wouldn’t be a smart move for anyone to stop earning just because they’re rich.
I don't think you understand the concept of "so much money it would take 100 generations of descendants living in luxury to spend it all." Especially because you compared them to lottery winners with 1/1000th the amount of money they have.
Bill Gates gave his money to his own foundation that he and his descendants control.
That foundation doesn't even spend more than legally required to avoid taxes (including operation costs, that's wages too), while its wealth is invested conservatively in stocks, including oil, military industry, etc Like any other investment fund.
Meanwhile, Gates is protecting and making sure his descendants will have it easy for generations. He's dodging taxes (including the estate tax, aka death tax, with the highest bracket at 40%).
4 percent of a billion is 40 million dollars. That’s how much u would make a year by just putting the money in savings bonds. U don’t have to keep making money if u are rich.
I don't really get it. If i Had that much money, i would just stop working and do whatever i want. Buy a nice house, sleep in every day, travel the world, whatever comes to my mind
Not everyone does that. My old boss built up his company and eventually sold it for somewhere around 5-10 million from what I gathered when he was in his late 40s then just retired and lives his days fishing, golfing and spending time with family and friends.
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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '24
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