Comment on Are you not entertained?
Doomsider@lemmy.world 16 hours agoI was saying we need something positive to benefit society and the wealthy person to deal with people accumulating too much wealth.
The story just shows us it is possible and makes me think of other possibilities.
plyth@feddit.org 16 hours ago
Which other possibilities do you have in mind?
Doomsider@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
It has to be a solution that benefits both parties, but I also recognize that one party is giving up something tangible.
They have to be compensated in some real way. That is why I propose make a wish for the ultra wealthy. We pick an obscenely rich person, take 99% of what they own, and give them the one thing money can’t buy. A real wish that can be anything humans can reasonably provide.
plyth@feddit.org 7 hours ago
The problem is that the money comes with power. They already get something just by owning it.
If a billionaire asks you to be their partner for life and to love them, as the one thing that money can’t buy, would you?
I think if people create a community that billionaires want to join in exchange for their money, wouldn’t that community already be so thriving that they don’t need the money? *
And if the community needs the money, what could offload the guilt that comes with the money? The community would become the billionaire.
* strange that people don’t try to do that, even without money.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
It would have to be something society is willing to do (make the wish happen). Obviously what I said was slightly in jest, but I am just trying to think outside the paradigm we seem to be stuck in.
I like your idea of community absorbing the billionaire if they were willing. Yes, they would have to be pretty well off to begin with, but if they did then everyone would get the benefit instead of a minority. Even well off communities could be improved with infrastructure upgrades or other things that would collectively benefit everyone.
You bring an interesting point of the guilt of money and transferring that guilt to the community. I think this might be the rational needed to create a tradition like this. Accumulation of money should be seen as a negative thing and we should have mechanisms to take care of it.