I knew about this but it's never made sense to me. If I was a billionaire I'd never drive myself anywhere, particularly not if I was going to be intoxicated.
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Having billions generally means not having to explain yourself
Intelligence hasn't been a requirement for being wealthy for some time. We're dealing with a growing number of mega rich morons now.
To be fair, a lot of the mega rich morons, Musk, Zuckerberg, etc are narrow geniuses (with a lot of luck). They're just not self aware enough to know what they don't know and they think they're renaissance men. If the news media was continuously telling me that I was a genius, I might start to believe it too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think I'm a genius solely because of me telling myself this continuously. I can't imagine how off the rails I'd be if any other people joined in.
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Having to rely on people to do things for you, even if you’re super rich, can be annoying. People that work for you take time off, get sick, so now you need other people to manage the other people to ensure that someone is always available, then you start to dislike some of those people, but managing who is around you all the time also takes effort, etc. etc. You can’t pay your way out of everything. Plus sometimes you just want to do things for yourself, and sometimes you just want to be alone.
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Did you forget? Laws are for poor people.
If you have heard the word “intersectionality” but didn’t know what it meant, this gives us a good example.
Feminists will say that women are not treated fairly overall, BUT if you’re a white woman, you might actually have it better than a black man. And if you’re an extremely wealthy white woman, you might even have it better than most men. All the factors combine.
It also works in reverse. Basically a gay black woman might not feel anything in common with Mrs. Walton, despite them both being women, and might easily see her as an oppressor.
The single biggest difference in the treatment there is, is based on wealth: in other words, one's wealth is the single biggest factor for discriminatory treatment there is.
Anybody genuinelly wanting to end the unfairness of descrimination on things which people did not choose would be focusing most efforts (not all, but the largest fraction) on ending or at least reducing that which is the largest and most impactful discrimination there is (and which is often a pathway through which other kinds of discrimination end up affecting people: i.e. a group is marginalized on some visible trait, so many more in it are poor, and then most of the actual suffering comes from the differentiated treatment dependening on wealth).
Instead, "strangelly", in those countries with voting systems that enforce power dupolies, the mainstream "left"-side party (which alternates in power with the "right"-side party) will at most loudly rage against a few other discriminations, never against wealth discrimination.
I agree that class is incredibly important and yet has a chronic problem getting recognized. The American class system is more flexible and mobile than its European forebears but it’s still there. Wealth buys access to better schools, safer streets, more lenient judges, etc.
Race is also huge in America and a lot of people insist on burying it, too. Their belief is that even talking about it is racist - they still believe in the fantasy of “not seeing race,” where most of us have recognized that the true goal is for everyone to be able to have a distinct racial and cultural identity but not be penalized for it. Not for everyone to be stripped of it all and treated as blank.
Some people say race overrides all. Some people say class overrides all. Intersectionality says that they both matter, and that an extremely wealthy gay black man won’t have the same treatment as Mrs. Walton.
That's a circuitous path to class consciousness, but if it works I'm not complaining.
Class, race, gender, sexual orientation… those are the dimensions that intersect in all of us. I’m sure there are more. Religion used to be more significant, I think. Ability. Age, perhaps. In some countries there’s a concept of caste. Maybe education level and country/city are also involved but those are not the big ones.
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I saw a post once about how discrimination law doesn't recognise combinations.. so a company was found not guilty of discrimination against a black woman because they employ lots of white women as secretaries and black men as labourers, and were therefore 'diverse'.
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Just remember: You don't have to shop at Walmart to support the Waltons. Your tax dollars go to the social programs that many Walmart employees are forced to depend on because Walmart won't pay a living wage.
Getting away with murder is only one privilege of being wealthy.
The US has the best justice system money can buy.
That's true
fuck this, how would you feel if the pedestrian was your family. how do people deal with tragedy like that without... losing the will to be civil?
People like this have money. That creates a barrier between them and "other"people. With enough money you never have to think about anyone below the line.
And this is why I dislike the idiotic temporarily embarrassed billionaires most of all. They're just looking for a way to get away with all of their shitty impulses.
The problem is not them having money. The problem is they're treated differently because they have money. As if laws don't apply to them just because they have money. Their enablers are the problem.
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To be honest I don’t know. I’m continuously surprised by how few politicians and rich people are shot by people they have wronged.
Like if it was your only kid or something I don’t know how you hold yourself back in the face of this kind of injustice.
Wonder what the French would do?
Burn it all down?
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Not to be an Internet edgelord, but if some billionaire killed one of my family and got away with it, I would make it my life's mission to hunt them down and make sure they get some kind of justice.
You would have a great deal of difficulty just getting near them. Billionaires don't hang out at Walmart - ironically enough in this case.
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I'd watch that movie
This reminds me of that movie "Assault on Wall Street" where basically some dude goes on a killing spree and starts murdering a bunch of wall street people. Except, the guy is framed as a hero, which I assume is because it came out not too long after the 2008 financial crisis (~2013). I watched that movie in like 2017, and it felt antisocial and lunatic-ey.
I wonder if we're at a point right now where a similar movie about going on a killing spree against billionaires would do well?
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There’s no such thing as a good billionaire
If you look deep, deep down (approx. 12,500 feet down) I'm sure you can find something nice to say.
Read about Robert H. Richards IV, the Du pont eir whho raped his own children. Guess how much prison time he saw?
Thanks for posting this. More people should know.
It doesn't surprise me. Even regular folks who kill pedestrians and cyclists get off easy. This is just one step further because of $$$
To be fair, I doubt most people who commit vehicular crimes in Texas get charged.
It's not like it was an abortion or anything......
That’s part of it, but vehicular crimes specifically are often overlooked, many people aren’t concerned by high numbers of road fatalities, and often resort to victim blaming, as if it’s just a cost of living.
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This happens a LOT more often than you think. I worked with a well-connected person that killed a dude while she was drunk driving. She was not in jail at any point.
Drunk driving seems to be severely under prosecuted for well to do and connected people.
I think it’s changing partially due to body cams now. But it’s still pretty bad.
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Justice comes ... at a price.
If anything, justice doesn't come if you can pay the price
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Wow, people with obscene amounts of money being treated differently than everyone else. Who would have thought? Did not see this coming.
The Waltons in general appear to be terrible people as a family. But yeah I remember reading this.
“Affluenza” is a totally credible defense, allegedly.
So who did they pay? The families? The police? The politicians? All?
It would take a whole awful lot to keep me from climbing a fence.
They have well-paid paramilitary-style guards that can arrange for you to tragically fall backwards onto twelve bullets from five different guns if they ever thought you were a threat.
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Rules for thee, not for me
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