Forbes glorifying Kylie Jenner

[Narz]

Actually, positive change only comes from what you call whining.

People take action and organize. No whining alone solves nothing.

Concern-trolling like this is unbecoming, though, just admit you don't want any change and have done with it.

Clearly you dont know me.

Again, I feel the need to point out that I'm not metalhead. Metalhead hasn't even posted in this thread. I suppose I'll go all the way and point out the irony of you telling someone not to take my posts seriously when you apparently can't even figure out my username.

I assumed he was referring to an earlier post. I know your username

 

[Traitorfish]

True, but at the end of the day as we become adults we make our OWN decisions and accordingly must be held to account for our own decisions in life. Sure parent's can influence behavioral and social aspects of their child's life but decisions that adults make are of their own doing.

I agree that people like Bezos should be held accountable for their decisions, specifically, by their necks.

But the problem is, whether or not people should be held accountable for their decisions has only so much bearing on what consequence those decisions have. You can't simply decide to be rich, else, everyone would do it. Those few who set out from humble means, "deciding" to be rich, and making it to the finish line, are so far away from the centre of the curve that they may as well be sitting in a cave eating ten thousand spiders every day. Even if we uphold the unconvincing fairytale that all rich people have exhibited exemplary talent, intelligent and work ethic to get there, it doesn't follow that any amount of talent, intelligent or work ethic are sufficient to make a person rich.

 

[Narz]

See, when I originally said "It's not robbery, but if it was it wouldn't really count", that was me being a bit snide and unfair, but now it's a pretty fair summary of what you're saying.

The problem is, you're taking a narrowly legalistic view of this, and considering Amazon's actual practices, it's not even just "it doesn't count if it's illegal", but "it doesn't count if you don't get caught". Perhaps even "it doesn't count if, having been caught, you are not held to account". Guilt is constituted exclusively in being found guilty in a court of law. And when people say "Amazon are robbers", they are not very generally citing case law, but making a broader claim about the ethics of Amazon's business practices, and the place of such practices within civil society.

Taking advantage of a corrupt system isn't "robbery". There are no Ned Flanders in this world who want to give themselves an audit.

Word usage is important.

 

[Narz]

I agree that people like Bezos should be held accountable for their decisions, specifically, by their necks.

But the problem is, whether or not people should be held accountable for their decisions has only so much bearing on what consequence those decisions have. You can't simply decide to be rich, else, everyone would do it. Those few who set out from humble means, "deciding" to be rich, and making it to the finish line, are so far away from the centre of the curve that they may as well be sitting in a cave eating ten thousand spiders every day. Even if we uphold the unconvincing fairytale that all rich people have exhibited exemplary talent, intelligent and work ethic to get there, it doesn't follow that any amount of talent, intelligent or work ethic are sufficient to make a person rich.

Combo of luck, hard work and connections. The higher you get the easier it will get, this is how it always is. China has a different political and economic system but it will be the same there.

Accepting your lot or spending your time bemoaning unfairness is guaranteed to keep you stuck regardless of the particular flavor of unfairness in the time/place you reside.

 

[Traitorfish]

Taking advantage of a corrupt system isn't "robbery".

You can argue as much, but the term "robber baron" dates to 1859; you're fighting against the weight of the English language on this one.

Combo of luck, hard work and connections. The higher you get the easier it will get, this is how it always is. China has a different political and economic system but it will be the same there.

Accepting your lot or spending your time bemoaning unfairness is guaranteed to keep you stuck regardless of the particular flavor of unfairness in the time/place you reside.

So if you don't "decide" to be rich, you will remain poor 100% of the time. But if you "decide" to be rich, you will remain poor only, what, 99.99% of the time? And we imagine that this vindicates the system?

 

[Chose]

When conservatives suddenly develop class-consciousness because a woman is a billionaire, you know something fishy is afoot. I mean, surely you can appreciate that argument, right? If you spend your days telling leftists that they're just envious and that rich people deserve to be rewarded for success, then suddenly Forbes runs an article about Kylie Jenner being a billionaire and you start talking about "she was born with a silver spoon"...well I don't think you need to be a genius to draw some conclusions from that.

Right, you don't need to be a genius, you need to be extremely far left to think that was a valid argument. As a matter of policy I typically don't "appreciate" prejudice. Your weak conclusion of "something fishy is afoot" doesn't get you to "sexism", even if your premises are true, which I have no idea idea if they are.

I'm sorry that my initial comment was unclear to you and that you misinterpreted it so drastically. It's weird that @Traitorfish pretty much instantly understood what I meant though.

No, it's not that weird that someone who shares you political opinions defended your baseless accusation of sexism. And you keep reaffirming that I interpreted it correctly. You do think the OP is sexist for singling her out, right?

 

[Narz]

So if you don't "decide" to be rich, you will remain poor 100% of the time. But if you "decide" to be rich, you will remain poor only, what, 99.99% of the time? And we imagine that this vindicates the system?

The statistic from my ass says 90%. Also "decide" is kind of a wishy-washy word. Lots of people "decide" to diet or exercise or travel but alot fewer succeed, you could argue that much of it relates to the strength of their decision (and some of it is "the man" and his oppression but alot less than 99.99%)

Tell me about your utopia where 100% of people are rich even if they dont try.

It seems to be your message to people is "life is unfair, dont bother to try"

 

[Traitorfish]

Tell me about your utopia where 100% of people are rich even if they dont try.

This is just a bizarre non-sequitur that I can't even think of something snide to say.

 

[Lexicus]

You do think the OP is sexist for singling her out, right?

No considering that the OP walked back their comments in the OP subsequently after realizing that singling Jenner out was unfair.

There is also, as I have told you a number of times, a big difference between calling the things someone says sexist and calling them sexist. It's weird how I'm constantly accused of being unable to see nuance yet the same people accusing me of that can't seem to grasp that nuance.

 

[caketastydelish]

Amazon are basically robbers in the sense that their working conditions are horrible at best and that they get all kinds of tax evasions.

However, they are an amazing company for an individual consumer.

I think the average consumer is already aware of amazons dark side but they don’t care because of how great amazon is. Fast, free shipping, tons of selection, great prices, stellar customer support. And amazon kindles cost a fraction as much as an iPad and are just as good for the purposes of what people actually care about. Amazon actually loses money in each kindle they sell but that’s nothing to them. With that kind of money amazon has the loss on each kindle is barely chump change. And they more than make up foe the loss because it gives the kindle book store great market share, so people continue to buy books off of amazons platform (which they use to get even more money.)

And this is why Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet. Because amazon rocks for consumers, that’s why

 

[Chose]

No considering that the OP walked back their comments in the OP subsequently after realizing that singling Jenner out was unfair.

There is also, as I have told you a number of times, a big difference between calling the things someone says sexist and calling them sexist. It's weird how I'm constantly accused of being unable to see nuance yet the same people accusing me of that can't seem to grasp that nuance.

Then provide the actual quote from the OP that is straight up sexist. Oh and good luck.

 

[Narz]

Amazon are basically robbers in the sense that their working conditions are horrible at best and that they get all kinds of tax evasions.

However, they are an amazing company for an individual consumer.

I think the average consumer is already aware of amazons dark side but they don’t care because of how great amazon is. Fast, free shipping, tons of selection, great prices, stellar customer support. And amazon kindles cost a fraction as much as an iPad and are just as good for the purposes of what people actually care about. Amazon actually loses money in each kindle they sell but that’s nothing to them. With that kind of money amazon has the loss on each kindle is barely chump change. And they more than make up foe the loss because it gives the kindle book store great market share, so people continue to buy books off of amazons platform (which they use to get even more money.)

And this is why Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet. Because amazon rocks for consumers, that’s why

Exactly.

Saying they make their money by thievery is stupid. They make their money by providing a service that everyone uses. Certainly they keep and invest their money shadily but that's what all big corps do. The point that big business can shield their income and the middle class can't is one of the biggest problems of inequality but singling out Bezos is stupid. Go complain about big meat/dairy, they are far more unethical than Bezos.

Complaining about people playing the money making game makes no sense, change the game rather than complaining about the winners.

 

[caketastydelish]

You could call it thievery in the sense that his working conditions are so horrible which he deliberately does so he can have huge profit margins. But that doesent really meet the classic definition of “thievery” although I would certainly call it immoral.

Bezos is pretty unethical and there are tons of legit complaints about him. I still don’t think he’s a thief exactly.

Perhaps my biggest complaint is that he has almost single handedly turned Seattle into a sausage fest by overwhelmingly just hiring males. I am not exaggerating. The dating pool in Seattle is skewed against guys specifically just because of amazon.

 

[Synobun]

Perhaps my biggest complaint is that he has almost single handedly turned Seattle into a sausage fest by overwhelmingly just hiring males. I am not exaggerating. The dating pool in Seattle is skewed against guys specifically just because of amazon.

Lol hilariously untrue.

 

[caketastydelish]

Elaborate

 

[Lexicus]

Then provide the actual quote from the OP that is straight up sexist. Oh and good luck.

Sounds like a waste of my time. Here's the wikipedia article on subtext for further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtext

Stop misrepresenting my arguments and we can talk.

 

[Modder_Mode]

Wow there's a lot of new posts to digest here!

My position is basically that no one can actually become a billionaire without doing stuff like this (and more besides - wage theft, using accounting fraud to report profits in lower-tax countries, etc, etc).

When you say "wage theft" are you referring to a billionaire who specifically by law illegally underpays workers, or are you simply stating that a billionaire should pay his/her workers more simply from a moral standpoint? If it's the latter, this is a far cry from "robbery". If workers should be payed more, who gets to decide how much more workers should be paid and what are some of the factors that should be taken into consideration when deciding how much more?

In relation to accounting fraud this again I perceive more of a moral position than a legal one although you use the term fraud so you must be talking from a legal perspective. What a lot of these big corporations do in lower tax "havens" from a legal stand point is perfectly legal, laws would need to be changed to to prevent this from happening. This all comes down to how we both define "robbery", robbery can be defined from both a moral and legal perspective and can be totally different.

Jeff Bezos makes $36,000 a minute. No one's marginal contribution to the economy is worth $36,000 a minute, and in an actual free market Jeff Bezos would have way less money.

Actually, if you took away free market enterprise, Amazon.com would not exist and the consumer driven market that we all enjoy and often take for granted would be very sparse. But I think that particular debate topic (free market vs. socialism) would be best suited to a new thread, care to create the debate thread (or anyone else for that matter) and I would be happy to join in the conversation.

I will get to the other replies as soon as I can, it's a Saturday here and a very busy Saturday at that.

 

[Lexicus]

When you say "wage theft" are you referring to a billionaire who specifically by law illegally underpays workers, or are you simply stating that a billionaire should pay his/her workers more simply from a moral standpoint?

Bolth

But I think that particular debate topic (free market vs. socialism) would be best suited to a new thread, care to create the debate thread (or anyone else for that matter) and I would be happy to join in the conversation.

Socialism is a free market. There is no other system that can produce a free market. Capitalism by definition is a system where capitalists control and manipulate the market for their own ends.

 

[Modder_Mode]

Bolth
Socialism is a free market. There is no other system that can produce a free market. Capitalism by definition is a system where capitalists control and manipulate the market for their own ends.

No, free market is mostly controlled by the consumer and that's the beauty of free markets, consumers have more of a choice, if a service or a particular good is not to their standard then they will simply go elsewhere and the consequences to the business is that they either improve or perish. Free market enterprise is where the entrepreneur begins the journey to a successful business.

Where capitalism has its failings in my book is when a monopoly of a particular niche occurs, e.g. Google, Apple, Amazon,Ebay etc. but looking at why that can happen is usually because they are providing an excellent service/product, this is when corruption and bad practices can occur.

 

[Traitorfish]

Where capitalism has its failings in my book is when a monopoly of a particular niche occurs, e.g. Google, Apple, Amazon,Ebay etc. but looking at why that can happen is usually because they are providing an excellent service/product, this is when corruption and bad practices can occur.

I mean, poverty, war and fascism are kinda black marks against it, too.