u/OldSchoolPimpleFace

I often try to make my case for the implementation of a wealth tax on the 1% richest people of the world.

Usually when I have this conversation, it's either with poor people or with middle class people.

Basically I advocate that the assets (not their income) of these people should be taxed by 1%.

For some reason, middle class people have a really hard time wrapping their heads around this idea and almost all of them start talking about already paying enough taxes. I always need to explain to them that they certainly aren't the 1% richest people of the world and that I would definitely steer away from taxing them even more. We are trying to end poverty, not create more.

Quick numbers if anyone asks "but is there even enough money":

Top 1% globally sit on about $226 trillion. A one-time 1% tax on that is roughly $2.26 trillion. Ending world hunger costs somewhere between $40-267 billion a year depending on who you ask. Even at the high end, that's 8+ years covered from one tax hit. And in the US alone, top 1% average $16.5 million net worth vs $9,000 for the bottom half. Not a typo.

I've noticed discussions about poverty on here can turn political fast. There seem to be a lot of opposing views on how to solve poverty. It's left me wondering if there's stuff we can all agree on concerning this problem.

If we as mankind are ever gonna solve poverty, I guess we'd better start with the stuff that's most easily agreed upon.

So what is that?

I think we can all agree astroturfing is a thing these days. Eversince AI has gotten better at pretending to be human, you can be pretty sure that there's people out there with a political agenda that have started using bots to push their agendas, instead of using oldschool human troll farms.

If this is a group that has a large budget, then you can assume they are getting pretty good at training AI to be very human like. The data is out there, all you have to do is train it and give it the agenda you want pushed.

I believe that a well trained bot is almost impossible to spot and it's impossible to give it a prompt that will prove beyond any doubt that it's a bot you are talking to.

The only bots we are able to spot, is the poorly trained ones and even then, it's impossible to prove because any human can act like a bot.

Therefore the only thing we humans can do to fight these bots, is just simply not being on social media, so they don't get anymore data...

Just ordered a single item from a non choice seller using coins.

For the hell off it, I checked how much the total is, if I bought 2.

Turns out it's cheaper if you order 2 seperate times, versus both items in one package... What the hell aliexpress.

Apparently over there, you need to take an exam to become a neet.

Seeing all you guys struggling so often, I think that would be a pretty good idea.

What's something you learned as a neet, that should really be an exam question?

There seems to be a lot of right wing propaganda going around, specifically targeting the poor, the sick and the needy. I notice a lot of talk on the internet, claiming that these groups are responsible for the current economic crisis.

Meanwhile people ignore all the money going to the defense and war machine, they don't even look at all the loopholes the ultra rich exploit and all the money spent on subsidising their projects that will make the rich get richer and do nothing at all for the middle class.

People's heads are filled with propaganda and every argument you make that will actually help the middle class get what their hard work deserves, gets countered by some bullshit propaganda they read in the right wing news they consume.

If you have a look at who actually pays for this news and who is funding the political parties that are shouting out this message, you will find that all of this is being paid by the people who will profit from this propaganda. The people who will be far worse off by all this news, have nothing to say about it, because they are unable to get their voice through all this noise, that is created by the people who profit from it.

"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another." This quote is attributed to Voltaire and I feel it has been valid throughout all of history.