Capitalism has many benefits, but it has to come at a price. There's no perfect system, but it appears capitalism is the better of the evils.

It's difficult to just single out one aspect of a system and say you have to overhaul it. How would one do that?

It's good to have discussions on how to make the system better, but I feel like more people benefit from Amazon being in existence than not.

The gap is widening because of time and compounding. After a certain period of time, compounding becomes exponential. That's why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

I've learned that some people are just destined to be poor. You can't have everyone be rich, who would work at Mcdonald's? Socioeconomic status is a necessary evil.

Part of the problem is people grouping someone worth 50 mill in with billionaires. Hell people group someone worth $5M with billionaires. They shouldn't be. The difference in scale is immense. Jeff Bezos is worth 4,248x as much as someone worth $50M. Mr. $50M is basically a fancy poor person, not a low end rich person.

If the guy worth $50M loses $50M he's broke. A billionaire can lose (or gain) $50M while they're eating breakfast and they don't even blink. Besides, the billionaire can just make it all again with that fantastic work ethic they have right?

Shouldn't the ideal be automation of all basic functions along with a UBI? I would think that would allow society and technology to progress at an even higher rate. The "system" also doesn't have to be an absolute one way or the other. Amazon can exist and provide value to people without being completely cunty and exploiting the shit out of every little thing that they can.

Again it’s not all or nothing. There’s still going to be rich people and poor people. There’s still going to be business owners and employees. It’s simply putting in measures that prevent the exponential growth from continuing until someone has more than the bottom half of the country COMBINED.
If people want capitalism in some form (even I do) it’s in their best interest to look at solutions for the widening inequality, the threat of automation, etc. as those workers that Amazon employs won’t have jobs forever. They will be replaced as soon as it’s possible and meanwhile bezos will be collecting more money and contributing even less than a shitload of minimum wage jobs packing boxes.
Watch the documentary saving capitalism by Robert reich. Bill clintons secretary of labour, and the voice for a modern capitalism that can benefit workers and still push for innovation and reward for those with the big ideas and big risks.
You can buy 10 mansions and 50 cars for 100 million, why is it reasonable to believe someone needs 330 billion more on top of that? You still get to be rich, and many more people will get to be rich, and many more will be lifted out of poverty.

I think we are on the same page. And generally I feel like everyone here can agree with what you’re saying.

However, on many other platforms I basically see this sentiment that anyone with any sort of wealth is the enemy. This is where I have an issue with this sentiment against capitalism. We see it in Vancouver where there is this idea that people who own their homes are the reason others don’t.

This seems to be fairly widespread as well, these bottom feeders who will likely never amount to anything think their lot in life is due to any person who has more than they do.

Westopher starts a restaurant, invests all his personal savings and works his ass off to create somthing from nothing. His restaurant is so successful in fact, it becomes a chain. Westopher now has a chain restaurant that’s doing amazingly well

There are many people out there in this current state that would say, that fucking peice of shit westopher, capitalist asshole making me wash dishes for him! He’s the reason why im renting a room in a crack house!

This is a very real sentiment going on.

^^ I've learnt that some people just want hand outs and bitch, or live on welfare for the rest of their lives. Why get a job when the government gives me free money every month, just poop out a few kids and they pay me even more. They literally have no motivation to do better for themselves, and live in their vicious cycle.

That’s true. People are too divided to have meaningful conversation which is beneficial to the current establishment. It’s exactly what they want. Blame your neighbour and you won’t blame the flaws in the system.
People want healthcare and they get called lazy commies, people want lower taxes and they’re called fascists.
Sometimes I don’t know why I try and make a point that there’s a better way when I have no fucking clue how to implement it and no power to do so, but I do know people don’t get anywhere by ignoring it.
Edit: lol perfect example posted above me. Like people actually think social programs are just a handout for the lazy.
Just because 5 lazy people take advantage of the system that it shouldn’t be offered for the 100 that benefit and succeed because of it. More people need to talk to fucking poor people instead of living in their own RS bubble where everyone only fucks supermodels and makes 250k a year.

Well just look how gross politics have become and how intertwined they are in this discussion.

6 years ago the NDP promises $10 a day day care. Nothing happens

Now federal liberals piggy back on their daycare idea and promise to take care of it well after the election is done. But only if you vote for them!

As you said, it’s not surprising people are disenfranchised.

This isn’t just a slight on the liberals and trudeau either, this would have happened with any party that was in power. You come to expect it

That’s for fucking sure. A news story came up about the federal election potentially being on the horizon and I said to my wife “you know what, I don’t even know if I can fucking vote. What’s the point?” I was probably being hyperbolic after a couple of beers, but I’ve never even considered not voting in my adult life before now.
I’m not sure if politics has gotten greasier or if I’m just becoming more aware as I get older. If I believed the libs would actually institute the 10 dollar child care, or any of the other budget promises I’d be at the polls wearing a fucking Canadian flag as a cape via a hired snowbird jet, but as it stands I can’t believe anyone will be making a meaningful change for the average person.

I thought the exact thought in the last couple years.

What is the point of voting anymore? Does it really mean anything?

I don’t think it does, Russell Brand is a bit (I’m being nice) of a nutjob, but he has some fascinating takes on things at times and voting and why he’s never done it is definitely one of them… it really does throw you for a loop.

He talks about it in one of his books a lot, but this video really heats up about a minute in:

Billionaires and a mom and pop restaurant that gets popular are so different it's ridiculous. It's a classic deflection scare tactic much like gun lovers who say "just wait, first they want to make it harder for mentally ill people to get a gun, then next thing they'll be breaking down your door and taking your guns!!"

Sure there is lots of haters out there who hate any successful person, but none of them have any power to do fuck all about it and they never will.

My feeble attempt at effecting change has usually been to spoil my ballot. It's unlikely, but my slim hope is that if "spoiled ballots" is ever a large enough percentage of the vote someone might notice how many people think they all suck. I'd love to hear a more effective idea though, because that's the best I've got so far.

You can say that again. They all know full well they can say whatever they want to get votes, because if they don't get elected it definitely doesn't matter and even if they do get elected there's absolutely nothing that actually holds them to their word anyways.

Isn't the presumed logic of a spoiled ballot that the person just messed up on their ballot? It's not usually an intentional thing, it's generally treated as a user error?

Lol I tried to “spoil” my vote in a municipal election and not vote for anyone (because I didn’t want to support any of them). It was one of those scantron things and the machine alerted the person working there that my sheet was blank, so I was forced to vote for someone. Guess I could have filled in multiple boxes...

I actually got my phone case from XSkin in Crystal Mall. I met the owner when he just had the tiny storefront in Crystal Mall. Really nice guy. Hard working. Now that he has a couple of locations, I don't see him that often. Plus, he has a family now..............

As for other things, I try my best to always buy local. My car audio systems are all locally bought. No Crutchfield or amazon or whathaveyou. I have no idea why you jumped to conclusions like that.

Then again, I don't really give two slugs what others say. Anyway, god bless.

Not really. I wanted to exercise my franchise, but didn't have any candidate I trusted in my riding. I spoiled it by a very big no in all spaces. Spoiled is spoiled and nobody knows or cares how it was done, but if a shitload of people do that, maybe it might send a message. Again, nobody is going to care. It makes me feel better. Of the many opportunities I was able to vote, this happened maybe three times?

Anyway, home run derby is on.....................

The problem is also these billionaires or quasi billionaires able to use "philanthropy" as a tax write off.

Sorry but no, you setting up a thinktank or "foundation" at a university or private institution to write white papers and propagate free market and libertarian values is not philanthropy.

You essentially have a class of wealthy families using this broken system (the Kochs, Waltons, Mercers, Coors, etc.) to funnel their millions into organizations to push political agendas and philosophic ideas both within education, and civil governance. This allows them to elect judges and politicians to further push laws and initiatives to grow their wealth, that isn't capitalism in the slightest.

Such undertakings shouldn't be a tax write off, and is a total joke that it's legal. The entire system is broken and requires an major fundamental overhaul.

Still, Richard Branson using his wealth to launch his boomer ass into space is not even at the base of the totem pole of problems discussed here -- I'm all for advancing tech in the private sector to this capacity.

Wait, are we still allowed to say totem pole?

So, people say, "I'm just the low man on the totem pole." Well, without the low man's strength, everybody on top falls...............

Yeah, the Thunderbird on top just flies away, gulolol.

I honestly don't know, but I'm not sure what other option I have. If you vote for someone they assume you like what they're saying, if you don't vote at all they assume you don't care either way. It would be nice to have an actual "none of them" box to tick so it could be counted as such.

Realistically you're probably right, my single vote likely gets lumped in with the mistakes. But if collectively a good portion of the votes showed up as spoiled that would seem like a pretty clear "you all suck". At least I like to think so.

Kinda back on topic

https://i.imgur.com/EnJmYFd.png

Its actually "carved and painted tree trunk" these days. Hope this clarifies.

I'm going off topic of the space ship, but on topic of the things we were discussing, just in case someone wanted to see something hilarious.
https://scontent.fcxh2-1.fna.fbcdn.n...9a&oe=60F3ABAA

Do you really expect more from someone who had failed to get their GED multiple times?

Hahah this is really, really wild though.

This post couldn't be more wrong. Horribly pessimistic.

Henry Ford built his first car in a workshop behind his house. 7 years later the Ford Motor Company built it's first car in it's first plant. He went on to revolutionize the idea of mass production and assembly lines.

Two brothers opened a neighborhood restaurant in California and soon learned from the mass production / assembly line method and brought it to the food industry. Driving costs down, making food faster, serving more customers. That monster is known as McDonald's.

Amazon started as an alternative to the brick and mortar book store at a time when the internet was in its infancy but already revolutionizing commerce. He sold his first book online in 1995 to someone on dial up using Netscape, a barely year old new way to browse 'websites' and send 'email'.

I could go on but ALL these corporations started as someone with an idea. The difference is scale of time, ingenuity, and hard work. And a lot of luck. These billionaires were LITERALLY mom and pop style businesses when they started that went beyond popular and into to the category of revolutionary and integral in modern society. There are people out there right now who are working on ideas and businesses that will make them household name billionaires in 10 years, or less.