rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

You missed the maybe in my first statement then and the "I'm not sure" after?

A desire for wealth abolition isn't really relevant to my statement anyway - in the world as it is right now, there is a real distinction between an 80-year old Jasper Johns and an 80-year old Mike Bloomberg IMO.

In an economy where money still changes hands, artists continuing to earn money past a lifesworth of $30 million could be entirely voluntary on the part of the audience. If athletics exhibitions were owned by the athletes, same goes there.

xp the 'maybe' is why I pushed for explanation. But I think you can't justify it, and I do think the original exclusion, even qualified with a maybe, reveals some of your own biases. I say this as someone who appreciates many of your posts -- I have learned things from you on this board.

*bias

big 'if' there, sic

But I think you can't justify it, and I do think the original exclusion, even qualified with a maybe, reveals some of your own biases.

I'm not denying those biases, though? I think calling people soulless monsters is pretty explicit about laying out my biases.

I never said "being extraordinarily rich is just fine and dandy and forever okay if you're an actor" - I'm drawing a distinction about why I can see human reasons for why they keep working. Even if you've made your bank as an artist - you're an artist, you're creating. Something I think, again, Jasper Johns would be doing regardless of his bank account, as many other people do as an avocation. Sheldon Adelson is being kept alive by God knows what machinery but exists only to exploit humanity in order to funnel more money into his Scrooge McDuck coin vault.

No individual needs eight digits or more worth of money, full stop. How many things really need to be diamond-encrusted?

xp you recognize the bias, but still the bias and your comfort with it does not seem justifiable.

Do you see no difference in Neil Young and Jeff Bezos, aside from the scale of their fortunes?

I do. Art provides positive value to humanity, people play guitar and sing for the love of it. I can understand how you keep doing it even after your bills are paid forever.

Being a businessman provides no positive value, it only takes.

maybe pick someone on Neil Young's level for that comparison

and your last sentence is probably something I thought in high school but now recognize as ridiculous

big 'if' there, sic

this is all "if" we're restructuring the entire system of financial incentive though, there are no billionaires to own 'em. I'm fine with competitive sports being owned either by the public or by the players, performance athletics I'd lean towards being owned by the performers.

All sports should already be a public utility, the citizens pay for the facilities anyway.

maybe pick someone on Neil Young's level for that comparison

Why? If we're confiscating wealth over, say, $10mn, they're in the same place, right?

(That there is no creator of value who has wealth 'on the level' of Bezos is... kind of justifying my bias.)

then keep it. I definitely think neil young is a caveman that doesn't deserve manymillion dollar malibu houses. and i love him. sic is otm. We are talking about the system. Why excuse a subset that benefit?

I wasn't talking about the system, though. I was talking about people.

Jordan otm

Nothing I said has anything to do with what Neil Young deserves or any system - I drew a distinction in terms of continuing to work. I think Neil Young makes albums for the love of creating his art. I think Jeff Bezos acquires companies and exploits workers for the love of accumulating wealth and power.

I draw a pretty strong distinction between those two.

And it seems like you shouldn't be.
Is the act of accumulating and holding onto excessive wealth monstrous?

(shouldn't be talking about people wrt this issue. it should be an ideal that would apply to all people.)

I think Neil Young likes Zuma beach. He named an album after it and the nearby houses cost 10 million dollars.

you don't know what drives neil young

And it seems like you shouldn't be.

If you can't understand the differentiation, I can't really make you.

(shouldn't be talking about people wrt this issue. it should be an ideal that would apply to all people.)

This is impossible, given that I was talking about individual motivations. Do you think 80-year old musicians should retire and stop making albums? I don't.

Milo hats off for not opening a sock account in order to avoid having every reasonable, noncontroversial post picked to pointless pieces

It’s obv your very signature is bait, and why imo the relentless circularity itt

Wish I had your energy

The problem as I see it is that we start getting into subjective notions of what qualifies as art, creation, etc. That is, obviously there is a huge difference between someone like Bezos and someone like Neil Young or whatever, but who gets to decide whether an 'artist' is creating work because it's all they do versus exploiting a marketplace that's run by ghouls like Bezos?

Like, sorry, but Julian Schnabel can get bent, so can Carrol Dunham and his daughter, and don't get me started on fuckwads like McCartney. They still make tons of money off their art, and they still make art, but fuck their art. They should be forced to give up their money to people who actually need it.

Dunham and Schnabel sell paintings for amounts that would alter most individuals' lives forever, and probably for the better. Just because they're 'artists' doesn't change the fact that they're also pieces of shit who need to gimme that loot

agreed, table

xxp lol reasonable posts like

Being a businessman provides no positive value, it only takes.

It's completely subjective! And it's not universal inside of the not-businessmen category, nor did I suggest it was. I doubt the Stones are touring for the love of the game at this point but rather because Mick Jagger wants a bigger yacht.

That's why I never said it was about the broader capitalist system or even about wealth per se.

Is the act of accumulating and holding onto excessive wealth monstrous?

yes, by definition

I thought that was the most uncontroversial stance of all on ILX? The one that we all agree on?

Me too. I didn't know there was a "well you might accidentally do it in some jobs where I like the product" clause for some.

No one said there was?

Referring to wealth confiscation:

obv I'm on board with the above but I'm just talking about my view on people in the world as it is - musicians and actors are doing things people do or would do for free but getting paid for it. No verifiably human being on death's door would be engineering a hostile takeover of a century-old retail chain, but someone on death's door might like to get in one last game of pickup basketball.

if Neil Young wants to make music after he hits the arbitrary lifecap of $30 million, tens of thousands of individual people can make discrete decisions about whether to access it

the current system is rigged so that Jeff Bezos makes more than he could spend in 20 lifetimes, every week, by exploiting and limiting the options of tens of thousands of individual people


Paul McCartney should definitely be barred from releasing new albums of songs as Paul McCartney though. Twin Freaks and The Fireman and Liverpool Sound Collage are allowed.

If one cannot grasp how I'm simply making a potential value call between a 50-year old musician with $30mn in the bank continuing to make music as opposed to a 50-year old corporate raider gutting Sears, I really cannot help them.

eg: if Neil Young wants to continue touring, he can blow a load of his $30 million on setting up a network of collectively-run barns with great sound systems and public transport, and hire a dedicated road crew & support bands to travel with him for a year, and work his way back up to the $30 million cap, and then blow a chunk of it again inventing Pono 2.

xp ok, Marc Maron but see tables' posts

If I had $30 million, I'd spend $60 going to see Dead Man with Neil Young doing live score, but I wouldn't buy any of his records.

Yes, there are bad and avaricious artists, too. Think I referred to them way up there and also "maybe" etc.

The difference, again, is that there are no good billionaire businesspeople. Or $50 millionaire businesspeople. Or billionaire heirs and heiresses, obviously, though I suspect they would consider themselves businesspeople. And so on.

man we really ruined the thread for jon v/c today

So millionaires should be allowed to keep their millions if they're good people and make nice art? I'm sorry but this actually doesn't make any sense.

This is the problem with deontological ethical positions-- those who invent them often want exceptions that skew toward their own biases. I understand it and in many ways sympathize, but also just think it's ludicrous for one to say big corporate duder worth 20 million is a shitstain who deserves the axe while Justin Bieber is a-okay because he makes art that people enjoy.

So millionaires should be allowed to keep their millions if they're good people and make nice art?

Redistribute it all above a certain threshold and fuck the value judgments beside that one.

I think the value judgement is pretty important! A mini-Bezos isn't going to be any better of a person or any more valuable to society if we cap his wealth.

I just think the differences between these supposed entities are a lot murkier than you do.

hope you don't cap it before the creation of Bosch

how would we live without Bosch

Are you talking sinks or Hieronymous

Dishwashers, Art Pepper loving murder mystery solvers...i love em all