this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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Work Reform

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[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago (25 children)

I've often said we don't need billionaires. That when one reaches that milestone anything above $999,999,999 should be taken as taxes from that person.

When I say this people often become defensive saying that the government shouldn't be able to dictate how much wealth one person can accumulate. (It also happens that many of these people are prolife but that's neither here nor there.) Often times comparing this action to communism which of course it isn't.

The issue of course is that many people don't understand what a billion of anything is. The human brain can't comprehend such massive numbers. But nevertheless, there are people that are approaching the trillion dollar mark a number even further removed from a billion by several magnitudes.

Should there be billionaires. Probably not... What do you think?

[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 14 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I was thinking about this the other day, one of my favorite analogies is seconds.

A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is ............ 31,688 years.

The analogy already breaks down, because while most people could understand 12 days and a lot of adults can understand 31 years for having lived it (some even twice or more!), 31,688 years is completely incomprehensible again. How many human generations is that? All of recorded human history is only like 5,000 years. It's utterly, mind-numbingly insane. No trillionaires, ever! No billionaires!!!

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/17/business/elon-musk-richest-person-trillionaire/index.html

This was published on September 17th of this year, after most of the nonsense of Twitter and utter things. He's still on track, by 2027 no less. There's no telling how directly and flagrantly he'll benefit from a Trump win, either.

[–] Womble@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Use milliseconds instead: a million milliseconds is 17 minutes, a billion milliseconds is 12 days, a trillion is 31 years.

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