TFYS (u/TFYS) - Readit News

TFYS commented on Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds theguardian.com/inequalit... · Posted by u/robtherobber

bdangubic · 8 days ago

not that I disagree with you in principle but it is a bad example. there are a lot more places where rich do not want to live than places where they do so rich outbidding you for housing wouldn't make even a top-100 list of issues. the "If you have enough, why does it matter if someone else has more" is basically "rich get to live in Monaco, you get to live in Elmo, Kansas" with all your needs met

TFYS · 8 days ago

A good location means more opportunities. Someone located in the center of a large expensive city will have a lot more opportunities to make money and meet people who have influence than someone in Elmo. A business set up in Elmo will not make as much money as a business set up in Monaco. This means that the best opportunities are reserved for people who need them the least.

TFYS commented on The ultra-rich are claiming an increasing share of global wealth lemonde.fr/en/economy/art... · Posted by u/geox

AndrewThrowaway · 8 days ago

If you take any ancient or not so ancient civilization or kingdom, all the wealth including land and people's lives belonged to king/imperator which was appointed by god or something like that.

Isn't is exactly the same with the system we have now?

The question we have to ask is about 99% of population of peasants who work 8h a day same as they did in Mesopotamia. Do they have a living standard, healthcare, possibility to have social bonds, possibility to retire. Basically all the things to have a life.

If peasants are able to have all this, I really don't care if some King of ours has 20 trillion or 50 bazillion. In money or in gold.

TFYS · 8 days ago

This is very close to saying you wouldn't be against slavery. A slave could be given a decent quality of life. Does that mean slavery is acceptable? A person with 50 bazillion will be able to make you a slave if he wants to.

TFYS commented on The US polluters that are rewriting the EU's human rights and climate law somo.nl/the-secretive-cab... · Posted by u/saubeidl

1718627440 · 14 days ago

And yet that is a problem of the past twenty years while we had markets for centuries. The concept of markets doesn't seem to be the problem.

If you say we need more regulation and an actual Antitrust Division that does things, then I agree. If you say we need to get rid of free markets and capitalism and return to socialism, then I am strongly against that.

TFYS · 14 days ago

A cancer doesn't kill you as soon as the first cancerous cell division happens. It takes time for the processes of markets to develop into something that threatens our existence.

TFYS commented on Britain is one of the richest countries. So why do children live in poverty? cnn.com/2025/11/24/uk/bri... · Posted by u/rawgabbit

csallen · 20 days ago

Partly this is a huge problem. But partly it's intentional.

It's a huge problem for the obvious reasons. Nobody wants a country where only the rich people have a say, or have influence, or wield political power, or own all the land. Because this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where the rich then bend the rules to favor themselves. For example, I personally think it's ridiculous that we need a lower capital gains income tax rate to "spur investment." Investment was just fine back when capital gains rates were the same as normal income tax rates, and I see this as a way for the rich to just benefit themselves.

That said, a system where the wealthy benefit is partly intentional. The whole idea of incentivizing people to earn wealth is that the wealth should be useful. It only works if it's useful. If extra wealth doesn't allow one to buy more land, or exert more power, or gain more attention, or live more comfortably, then it's pointless and does not serve its purposes as an incentive. This is literally the entire point of it. The issue is not that it happened, it's the degree to which it happens.

My fear with #1 is that the degree of difference will be too much. This is absolutely something to keep in check. It's a tough problem to solve. But on the flip side, we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Any political or financial system that we have is going to have some inefficiencies and some disadvantages.

My fear with #2 is that people have lost the plot, and believe so firmly in "equality of outcomes" that they can't stomach any amount of inequality. Some inequality is okay! We're never going to have a completely equal world, and that's okay. I had a happy, safe, abundant middle-class upbringing, and it didn't bother me one bit that Bill Gates is a billionaire.

TFYS · 19 days ago

I think the problem with allowing even a moderate amount of inequality is that over time it'll always lead to large inequality, because after a certain level of comfort the only interesting thing you can do with with wealth is to attempt gain more power and influence, and are even forced to do it because if you don't someone else will. It's like the markets' tendency to consolidate. For example at the beginning we had "low inequlity" media where we had a lot of regional newspapers, but in a competitive system eventually the winners take it all, and now we have only a few large players left. Moderate inequality will be used to increase the inequality, because the people who don't do it will lose to the people who do.

I believe the only way forward that won't always lead to large scale war and destruction is to come up with a system that does not allow any amount of concentrated power. That means as close to zero wealth inequality as we can get while keeping a functioning economy. But for that we'd first need better ways to make decisions collectively, as political power can't have any centralization either.

TFYS commented on Britain is one of the richest countries. So why do children live in poverty? cnn.com/2025/11/24/uk/bri... · Posted by u/rawgabbit

csallen · 25 days ago

This is the fixed pie policy, which assumes there's a limited amount of wealth to go around. And therefore, any time somebody gets "too much" of it, the conclusion is they must be why others have less.

This is not true.

And it's important to understand that it's not true, because understanding a problem is the key to helping solve it.

In pre-agricultural times, the average person was lucky to own a few dozen items. Today, the average person in a developed Western country owns a few thousand goods. Western households possess over 100,000 goods on average. There's vastly more wealth than ever. Especially if you multiply these numbers by the massively expanded population of Earth compared to prehistoric times.

Therefore, it's necessarily the case that wealth can be created and not merely stolen or shared.

TFYS · 25 days ago

While that's true, there's still enough "fixed pies" that inceasing inequality does make people worse off. Land, attention, positions of power, etc. will all be taken by the wealthy, because only they can afford those things in an environment of high wealth inequality.

TFYS commented on Meta buried 'causal' evidence of social media harm, US court filings allege reuters.com/sustainabilit... · Posted by u/pseudolus

tock · a month ago

We are in this situation because we elect people who do not hold the capital class accountable. Look at the people we elect. How would them running companies be any better?

TFYS · a month ago

The capital class chooses and presents the people you can vote for. They decide what issues are talked about in the media, they decide who gets the most funding, and they probably have ways of getting rid of or corrupt the people who somehow get popular without first being accepted by at least some people from the capital class.

TFYS commented on Mag Wealth (2024) saul.pw/mag/wealth/... · Posted by u/andsoitis

SilverElfin · a month ago

Agree. Focusing on the inequality bit feels closer to envy. But if the quality of life or something like inflation adjusted wealth is going up for everyone, or if it is above some acceptable minimum, then is it really a problem? Or just a reflection of how concentrated things can be in a technologically advanced world?

TFYS · a month ago

Is criticizing dictatorships just envy? Because wealth inequality is the same thing as power inequality. Wealth doesn't just mean more goods to consume, it means power, and that power is mostly used to gain even more wealth and power. Eventually we'll have power concentration similar to a real dictatorship. Opposing such a future is not envy.

TFYS commented on New study finds users are marrying and having virtual children with AI chatbots psypost.org/new-study-fin... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

giuliomagnifico · a month ago

Having a virtual girlfriend is not selling toxic yoghurts, it doesn’t harm anyone, it’s like if you buy yoghurt and put in on a pizza… you can do want you want with the yoghurt like with the AI.

The important thing is keep the data safe, like the yoghurt that must not be expired when sold.

TFYS · a month ago

Despite what the free market religion has been telling for decades, we actually don't live in little parallel universes that don't affect each other. Even putting yoghurt on pizza has on effect on the world, not just the individual doing it. Not understanding this is what'll be the end of humanity. AI girl/boyfriends will have a huge effect on society, we should think hard before doing things like that. Slightly slower technological progress is not as disastrous as fast progress gone wrong.

TFYS commented on Older Adults Outnumber Children in 11 States census.gov/newsroom/press... · Posted by u/geox

dariosalvi78 · a month ago

Except religious fanatics, the trend is universal and driven by other factors than abortion or contraception

TFYS · a month ago

The trend is universal because birth control is becoming universal. The only places that still have high birth rates are places where birth control isn't easily available (and religious cultures). It could be driven by other factors as well, but I'm betting it's mostly just birth control. We don't have a very strong innate desire to have kids, it is the desire for sex that human reproduction has mostly relied on. We're only a couple of generations into birth control, so we're only now starting to feel the effect.

TFYS commented on Older Adults Outnumber Children in 11 States census.gov/newsroom/press... · Posted by u/geox

nsoonhui · a month ago

I feel that demographic collapse is the single biggest crisis facing the developed world now. In this regard US is actually doing better than East Asia countries and Europe, but still, the trend is unmistakable -- modern, affluent states are commiting voluntarily suicide because their citizens are not too willing in giving birth.

All the climate change problems, wars, pandemics and natural disasters won't devastate human simply because we been through all those and we recovered. But demographic collapse because of high living standard? It's uncharted territory here and I am really, really worry.

TFYS · a month ago

Natural selection will fix this in no time, as the genes and cultures that lead to people not making kids die off. Widespread availability of contraceptives and abortion is recent enough that we just haven't had the time to adapt yet. The desire to have sex has been enough to keep birth rate high for most of human history. Now evolution is strongly selecting for cultures and genes that lead to more kids even in the presence of birth control. In a few of generations we'll start seeing birth rates recover.