Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1

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Almost every problem in the world would be dealt with meaningfully if we outlawed billionaires. (self.showerthoughts)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by ininewcrow to c/[email protected]

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Everytime I look at small problems or big global problems, if you follow the money trail, it all leads to some billionaire who is either working towards increasing their wealth or protecting their wealth from decreasing.

Everything from politics, climate change, workers rights, democratic government, technology, land rights, human rights can all be rendered down to people fighting another group of people who defend the rights of a billionaire to keep their wealth or to expand their control.

If humanity got rid of or outlawed the notion of any one individual owning far too much money than they could ever possibly spend in a lifetime, we could free up so much wealth and energy to do other things like save ourselves from climate change.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

where their wealth is just slowly absorbed into public services

yeah this is in line with the plan of not needing money, providing resources and services without need to pay. Things like public housing, free public transit, etc.

[–] ininewcrow 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's the frustrating thing I see about this debate about billionaires. There is more than enough wealth and resources around the world to have enough food, water and shelter for every living human being on the planet. If we wanted to we could also provide each one of those individuals with an education for the first 20 years of their lives.

Instead we would rather bottle up all the wealth and resources in the world and keep them under the control of a few hundred people who do nothing but keep that wealth away from everyone else and allow the world to stagnant in place for no reason other than to maintain their positions of power.

If we freed up all the available wealth and energy we have for one another towards creating highly educated, highly mobile productive people .... we would have engineers, doctors, scientists, inventors, technologists and mathematicians everywhere working on every known problem we have.

Instead, we use the majority of all our energy and capabilities in fighting one another for the right to eat, to find a home or just to live another day.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Wealth still isnt the same as resources. Just because you could afford to purchase an education for everyone doesnt mean we can provide one. It also doesnt mean everyone would want or be able to achieve these higher careers.

[–] ininewcrow 2 points 9 months ago

Correct and I agree .... it's about creating the opportunity for people.

In our current system, not everyone has the opportunity for an education. For those that have the opportunity, they often don't or can't take the chance because they can't afford it. So instead, those that could have possibly become a professional at something do not because they couldn't afford it.

The other half is also true ... there are some people who have the opportunity and have the wealth but choose not to do much with that opportunity because it wasn't their passion.

The same thing would happen if you handed out scholarships to everyone ... some would take up the opportunity to fulfill their goals and do great things ... others wouldn't care and probably wouldn't participate ... and many others would take part without achieving much because they weren't capable.

The difference is that everyone was given a free choice to decide if they wanted to or not ... in our current system, no one has a choice because they have to fight an unfair fight in order to get what they want ... and more often than not, they can not win.