• TTH4P@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    68
    ·
    5 months ago

    It works in their heads because they think billionaires and poor people both deserve their fate. It’s some kind of Divine Right thing.

    • cerement@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      ·
      5 months ago

      prosperity gospel

      and we’re right back to the doublethink – “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

  • KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    It’s not doublethink. It’s the belief that separate classes of people exist - “hard workers” who “create value” and rightfully become rich - and “lazy people” who just work because they have to and would otherwise do nothing. The people who push this propaganda see themselves in the first group, and if they aren’t yet rich, that’s because the liberals and commies prevent it. And they see the majority of others in the second group.

    • Ænima@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      5 months ago

      Came to a recent epiphany that we have proof that people would still work even if basic needs were provided without worry…

      Simulation Video Games

      Many people, myself included, play a lot of job simulator games. I found myself asking, while playing some of these what makes this more fun than doing it in real life and the answer was almost always the pay for the job and the basic needs not existing.

      Turns out, the old adage of giving someone UBI, and having it turn everyone into lazy layabouts, is bullshit. We may actually choose to work if we didn’t have to worry about how the cost of my labor would need to be spent to keep myself alive, and not merely extra to throw back in the system.

      Shipbreaker, Power Wash Simulator, and Euro Truck Simulator are a few games I’ve enjoyed playing, but would never do IRL.

    • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      5 months ago

      Yep, conservatives think they aren’t “poor”, just a temporarily disgraced billionaire. They’ll get it back in just a minute. You just watch.

  • barsquid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    5 months ago

    Billionaires are special job creators without whom jobs could not be created. Prior to having billionaires we all wandered around aimlessly looking for snacks or TV shows.

  • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    5 months ago

    Billionares can afford great marketing?

    I’d suggest the existence of billionares is a sign of a failed society is a more realistic meme

  • Godort@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    5 months ago

    Im sure that there are cases of both.

    Some people probably wouldn’t work if all their basic needs were met.(No judgement, i’d definitely consider it myself) And some billionaires probably are hard workers(although that is definitely not why they’re billionaires)

    • cerement@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      5 months ago

      one of the main results out of the various UBI trials so far – even with a few so-called “freeloaders”, overall productivity goes up

      • Starkstruck@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        5 months ago

        For the most part, people like to work. To feel like they’re doing something, to be productive. This is within reason of course. The work should be something they enjoy, and no one likes being overworked.

  • varoth@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    5 months ago

    Right? There’s people still spouting that “all of that money from the pandemic” is somehow still sustaining the lives of thousands and thousands of people 4 years later.

      • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        so “people won’t work if their needs are met” is patently untrue

        It’s not true or untrue for “people” as a monolith. People differ.

        Lots of people are happy to do literally nothing productive, if they could. And lots of people hate being professionally idle, so much so that they can’t stand not finding at least a part-time job, even after they’ve “retired”. At my current job, we had a 99 year old who was basically FORCED to retire (for the second time, she had ‘retired’ already, before she came to work here) by management, after she had a health scare at work. She was literally angry and grumbling about it during her retirement party, lol.

        Different people are wired differently. Nuance is important.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Yeah they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, with nothing more then a couple of million from their parents.

      • Mocking Moniker@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        It’s not fair but it’s the only way. Stewardship is hard. Business is hard and risky. People often fail to recognize the risky nature.

        • exanime@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          5 months ago

          Trump has literally failed at every business ventured he has spearheaded… he is still a billionaire… where is the risk again?

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          5 months ago

          I have no problem with people making money. Why would I have a problem with people making money if they’re successful?

          These people are not successful because of their talent, they are successful because they have money. Success breeds success and riches breed more riches. If they do well enough they can stick everything in a high interest saver account and live off the interest.

          So it’s a bit rich when they claim to be some big shot and to lecture everyone else on their secret magic talent, which is usually nothing else other than they were lucky with their birthright.

          See Donald Trump is a classic example of this. The man couldn’t think his out way out a wet paper bag, and yet he’s fabulously wealthy even if he’s lying about 90% of his income he still has more money than most people would know what to do with. Everything he is is because of his father, all of his success has been despite his personal “accomplishments” not because of them.

    • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      People can live comfortably and still work hard. It’s almost like poverty doesn’t encourage work, but infact only makes life more difficult and stressful in myriad ways, ultimately decreasing effective productivity.

  • MercurySunrise@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    5 months ago

    People are really inconsistent in general. Most people don’t seem to have a defined moral code even when they’re religious. This is a really good example of the issue, though. I’ve seen this too and it’s hella frustrating. I don’t know if there’s really a solution. Capitalism encourages this phenomena though, for sure.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    5 months ago

    Yes it’s obvious from the fact that rich people exist, that people don’t stop working just because their needs are met.

  • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    5 months ago

    Billionaires are often workaholics. They work extremely long hours because they’re obsessed with winning, with crushing the competition. I’m sure there are also plenty of billionaires living it up Great Gatsby style but those obviously don’t fit the “hard working billionaire” stereotype.

    • GreatDong3000@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      5 months ago

      The point was the other way around, we are not supposed to believe people with basic needs met don’t work.

    • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      5 months ago

      I mean, its not like they’re just going to tell you “lol no, I paid some mug to do all the work, with money I inherited, and took all the credit and money” (actually how they earned it) now is it?

      No, we know they work harder than we do and obsess about winning which is how they did it. We know this because they told us so.

      No follow up questions or thinking allowed!

    • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      5 months ago

      The biggest recipients of government handouts are the billionaires. And how do they repay us? By evading over $150 billion in taxes every year. That’s more than every EBT and WIC program combined.

      • StaySquared@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        Are these billionaires providing goods and services?

        Are the recipients of EBT/WIC programs providing anything to the market? Anything at all? Granted a sum of them get off the programs and do provide to the market.

        • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          When I first started my business I had to rely on food stamps to stay afloat for a few months after my savings ran out, but it let me keep trying and now I’ve been gainfully in business for over 15 years. Just anecdotal, but I would have had to give up or starve without assistance.

          • StaySquared@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            5 months ago

            I agree there’s people who do not end up domesticated by government handouts, they just need assistance long enough to land their next job.

    • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 months ago

      People dislike government handouts to corporations, banks and the already-wealthy. Taxing Billionaires could pay the entire cost of Welfare four times over.

      AKA, Billionaires are stealing 4x as much money as all of the ‘Welfare queens’ you try to demonize.

      • StaySquared@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        I demonize welfare abusers who instead of using these programs to get themselves back on their feet, they rather pop more babies for bigger payouts at the expense of American tax payers. These are the kinds of people (regardless of race, don’t come at me with racism) who will easily prove socialism or even UBI would fail, immediately.

        If you don’t like what the billionaires are doing, well… close the loopholes. Even Trump called out Hilary on it, because he knows, she and her friends would never shoot themselves in the foot. Don’t hate the player, hate the game - don’t hate the billionaires, hate the financial policies/laws/regulations and the loopholes that the government implemented and wont change. :)

        • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          “Don’t hate the player, hate the game” is impossible when “the player” is the one creating the rules of “the game”. Don’t be daft.

          • StaySquared@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            5 months ago

            That’s… how the game is created and evolves. So those politicians who take advantage of these loopholes, along with many other wealthy citizens, call them out. And demand to close the specific loopholes.

            • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              5 months ago

              C’mon now, I said to not be daft. Think this through for more than 5 seconds.

              Call them out TO WHO? Themselves?

  • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    People do stop working when it’s all provided. Anyone with simple pattern recognition has seen that happen, not everyone of course, but a lot give up. Like this pattern I noticed of people saying stuff like this pretending to be altruistic and empathetic but really are just salty they don’t have the money to lie around all day.

  • dillekant@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    So I have been asking myself why I held some of my beliefs, and the answer is that I “learnt” them at a really young age, maybe 4-10 years old. It was an age where I basically knew “nothing” and I guess I filed it away for clarification later and that “later” never came. All of a sudden I’m much, much older and asking myself why I even believe this strange thing and the answer is “they got me when I was young”. If I wasn’t exposed to other thinkers who asked me to re-evaluate my ideas, I might never have questioned them.