You say "they like the lifestyle it brings", but that feels like a euphamism. Cannibalism is a lifestyle some might not want to give up, if they're into that. When your conspicuous consumption is on the scale of peoples' whole livelihoods just winking out of existence, it's clearly not about anything material anymore. I'd suggest rather they are addicted to the power and status, to having people fawn and grovel, 24/7. Their careers are likely the place they get to exercise power the most, so it makes sense to keep "working" well past your material needs to keep your lording-over-people addiction sated.
I mean, your consumption is on the scale of people’s whole livelihoods, as soon as you leave a developed country. Are you just addicted to having people grovel? Or is it possible that people with a different baseline and experience have a different baseline and experience?
I don’t understand, especially on an SV-dominant board, this “anyone who has more than me is necessarily evil” mentality.
You’re purposely muddying the waters. These people don’t just have “more than me”. They have enough money to ensure their entire family will be set for life for generations if they were merely more modest.
They could do something good for humanity or something. But they don’t. This correctly raises eye brows and makes people question their motives.
And you have the same, compared to most of the continent of Africa. It just feels like blame-shifting, in GP’s frame.
Most folks on this board have vastly more wealth than I do - that doesn’t make them/you bad people, even if they/you pursue that raise and promotion at work. I dunno, I just think this recent tendency to call anyone with “more” inherently evil as a result (or to dog whistle at evil) is thoughtless, trite nonsense.
Comparing a middle class existence in a western country to average Africans is nonsense. What should I do with that information? Sell all my assets and move to Africa to try and live like a king? What's the point of this comparison? I live in a western country, my friends, family and responsibilities are here. That's what we have to navigate.
I'm not saying trying to be rich is bad. I want to be rich. But for most people, if you gave them enough money to never have to work again, but they would be permanently middle class, they would take it. I am very jealous of people that can do that. But eventually jealousy turns to suspicion. These people have enough money for their families and many generations after them to be better than middle class comfortable and they are doing shady things to acquire more wealth?
>These people don’t just have “more than me”. They have enough money to ensure their entire family will be set for life for generations if they were merely more modest.
This is my point. If someone's got under 10 million, and a large family, sure, keep working, that 10 million will be gone in a generation if not properly managed.
Someone's got 100, 200, 300 million, has no family to speak of or whatever? Dude, take a fucking break and live a little. Do some good for your community, your neighbors, your friends, etc.
You've got over half a billion, just stop - you've won capitalism. Congratulations. Sleep in. Go take a walk in the woods. Cook yourself a meal. Read a book. Just stop slaving away, you're not going to really make a difference in anyone's lives but your own if you don't stop and look around you.
> I mean, your consumption is on the scale of people’s whole livelihoods.
No, and particularly not my "conspicuous consumption" which is what I said.
> this “anyone who has more than me is necessarily evil” mentality.
That's not my mentality. I didn't say necessarily evil or even evil.
I'm postulating on the motivations of people who have access to every material comfort they could ever want, but still want 1000x that because someone else has 100x that. I'm nothing like them, nor the people in my wealth range that seem to have similar motivations --splurging on status signaling, doing anything to get more. It's irrelevant that I am richer than 3rd world people.
> No, and particularly not my "conspicuous consumption" which is what I said.
I mean, it is. There are multitudes in rural Asia and Africa who don’t have a fraction of a fraction of what you have and would regard most of your consumption as “conspicuous”.
And you may not have said the word “evil”, but your intent was quite clear. I’m suggesting that, as I said, your baseline for what someone has, and their baseline for it, are inherently different, and that ascribing motive to that doesn’t make sense.
Mostly, I think that pretending your ostentatious wealth is actually totally ok to flaunt, just because it’s yours and you don’t care about the people who see it as flaunting and ostentatious, is a moral relative, just like the one you’re suggesting is so bad.
