Posting women as the targets is such easy pickings and it’s so fuckin lazy. Where’s the white guys? Why aren’t they the face of this, since they’re the hand choking the poor?
You’re missing the point. The point is that people always defend TS because they like her but she is still a billionaire. You can’t just snap your fingers and turn this into a conversation about sexism because that’s not related to the point in the least.
You also can’t snap your fingers and take everyone off the street. Sure, you can pay for places and help, but people aren’t obliged to take it. Unless you’re arguing for forcing that situation?
I understand the argument is simply “billionaires shouldn’t exist”, but that’s a job for the government by way of taxation. There’s no reason to point fingers at TS, she sells something people want really bad for some reason. Instead, point your finger at any of your asshole friends who don’t vote or show up to help the cause.
Otherwise what? TS sucks because she’s disgustingly rich, and the only way out is to give it all away? And then of course all other billionaires will follow suit?
These posts really seem like nothing more than “it’s cathartic to yell at the sky, and it’s even better if some people like the sky”.
Man, sometimes people have a point even if other points exist. The point is that it’s a bad thing to ignore one example of badness because you want to. If you wanna paint this as a moral judgement of TS, ok fine, but my issue here isn’t so much with her but with people who want to have exceptions to their own moral code. And yes that moral code in this case is the job of the government.
As someone else pointed out a while ago, Dolly Parton isn’t a billionaire because she tirelessly gives away her wealth to the poor.
It’s not the same level, but there are other musicians who have fought to keep ticket price affordable for their fans, Minor Threat/Fugazi being the most notable but far from the only ones.
So… The endgame here is that billionaires CAN exist, but any of them who don’t give away their wealth are assholes? So are we all here on these posts just to peer pressure billionaires to give away money?
That’s certainly going to be a helpful approach.
Getting some Pol Pot vibes from this. Ideology can lead to some really weird conclusions.
Somone like Taylor Swift isn’t destroying people’s lives and she’s not overworking other people to make that money.
Sure she has too much money, but that can be solved by having more sensible tax policies. Show me where she’s bribing congress and donating to the GOP to keep her taxes low.
These kinds of memes only exist to prove how edgy people are but they don’t accomplish anything. Saying “I’m so hardcore I even hate the billionaires people like” doesn’t do anything other than push people away from whatever movement you claim to support.
But congratulations, you’re the edgiest socialist edge lord on the internet. That sound you hear is the Swifties (who might otherwise care about the issues you care about) heading towards the door.
People like Elon Musk and Donald Trump divide people so they don’t think about what they’re doing. You’re helping them.
and don’t stop to help and the person would have lived if you stopped but instead that person dies then yes, you are evil
Also that’s actually a crime in many places. Well here in Finland at least. You have a duty to render aid if no-one else is there. Obviously you can just drive by an accident if someone is already helping but if there’s no-one else around, you’re required to stop to help, by law.
Ahhh yes. Celebrities can just magically end world hunger and stop world suffering
These kinds of memes only exist to prove how edgy people are but they don’t accomplish anything. Saying “I’m so hardcore I even hate the billionaires people like” doesn’t do anything other than push people away from whatever movement you claim to support.
So true. Learn from the edgy George Floyd protests and the Palestine protests, which at best accomplished nothing and more likely played a key role in cutting off formerly-rising popular support for the causes they were advocating. Being edgy feels good to the person doing it, but it makes everyone else say “fuck that guy and whatever they’re in favor of.” Be smart not angry.
These meme would be far more effective if it didn’t have the bottom picture at all.
Which world do you live in? People voted for Donald Trump, a guy who wanted to shoot BLM protestors and says he’ll let Israel do whatever they want.
The edgelord bullshit only makes you popular with people that agree with you. It has demonstrably failed to bring people to the causes you care about.
Such a normie reaction. I just wanna differentiate myself from all the NPCs who have let ideology replace their reasoning capabilities, as well as “rational centrists” who consider conceding to irrational Republican arguments to be a form of rationalty. If I’ve said something irrational, you can feel free to call me out on it. My username is an invitation to do just that.
The point isn’t “Taylor Swift is immoral”. The point is “the system is immoral and the evidence for it can be seen by looking at, for instance, Taylor Swift.”
Being against billionaires doesn’t mean one is genocidal ffs.
People like Elon Musk and Donald Trump divide people so they don’t think about what they’re doing. You’re helping them.
No U, bootlicker.
“Kill all billionaires” isn’t a genocidal statement, since it’s not based on genetics, language, or culture.
I think it’s a bad plan, but we shouldn’t conflate genocide with mere mass murderous intent. (Also, “all billionaires” is only like 10k people at most, so it would be a very small mass murder compared to most genocides.)
You could point fingers to almost anyone, this is not specific to extra wealthy. All of us here probably have it better than 70% of humanity, yet we choose to watch a movie instead of go help others. Dedicating a large part of your life in helping others is very admirable, but it’s not something you can expect everyone to do.
Not the same.
Imagine you had an income of 100K a year (as far as I understand this is considered nice but not rich) You pay tax, rent, food, car (maybe a beater, maybe a nice one, not a luxurious one), anything else that most would consider basic expenses. Now you are left with maybe 30K extra? Sure, that is a lot of money, but you do need to save some for you retirement, health complications, and plenty of unexpected things, not to mention if you have kids.
Let’s say that you could save only 15K a year and donate the other 15K to charity, this means that you are donating 15% of your income, or more importantly, 50% of your savings. All of this while living a pretty average life style.
Now take someone who earns just 1M a year, not even a billionaire. Sure they might be living some crazy lifestyle that probably costs them a lot, but that is a choice that is wildly different then the choice of living bare bones compared to an average lifestyle. Meaning, that if they were to live an average lifestyle, maybe a bit extra, let’s say that they pay all the same things but with an added 10%, they will now be left wit about 920K a year, even if they donate only 10% of their savings, they would still donate 613% of what you donated. And if they went with saving like you, heck, even 6 times what you save, so 90K a year, they would be able to donate 830K, so 55 times what you can donate.
And this is a millionaire, not a billionaire…
So yes, if you have expendable income I think it is your moral obligation to figure out how much you can donate and do that, but you will never share the same responsibility as a millionaire, let alone a billionaire.
Fuck em.
Sure they have more money to donate, but most of population is not donating even a single cent even if they could. I do have savings which I am keeping to buy a decent flat. In theory I don’t necessarily must have it and I could settle with worse option and instead help someone who is worse than me, yet I am chosing to not do it.
We can also help by donating our time instead of money, go volunteer in soup kitchen or something like that. I don’t ever see myself doing that.
I donate maybe 15 eur per year through some store options (I either get 1 cent per each 1 eur I spend or I can transfer it to charity. Or with deposit system I can donate 10 cents per each can, bottle of beverage I buy instead of getting that deposit back). I don’t think I have explicitly transferred money otherwise. Relatively speaking I am just as bad as any billionaire when it comes to charity.
I would start by saying that we should all keep the idea of donations in our minds everyday in my opinion, and maybe you should consider donating if you say that you can, you know, be the change you want to see.
But I think you are missing the point that even if your final decision is the same as a billionaire, that is to donate 0%-1% of your savings, you are still not in the same category, not amount wise, not savings wise, and not impact wise. You not donating 10% of your savings does actually make a significant difference in you life while making an insignificant difference in comparison to what a billionaire can donate. A billionaire can donate a significant percentage of his savings with an insignificant difference to himself, while making a significant difference for others.
The billionaire is choosing not to make a really really significant good deed with almost zero consequences to himself, you are choosing not to do an admirable deed that has a tolerable but very real difference to you.
So it might seem the same, but in reality these are not even comparable situations.
But she’s a self made hard worker!
Sure the lowly paid worker cleaning the stadium she performs at is exploited and yes sure the factory worker sewing her next shirt is exploited, but Taylor earned her billions through her own hard work and she deserves it.
As a swiftie, I can say you’re right. However, there’s also no such thing as a purely good or purely bad person, and liking a billionaire does not make someone good or bad. People, it turns out, are complex.
I can love Taylor’s music while also criticizing her for her excessive personal jet use and massive pollution problem.
I think if we stop making it a binary decision that more people will start opening up about changes need to make. In Taylor’s case, most Swifties would never dare say anything negative about her for fear of others in the fandom thinking they aren’t true fans, and vis versa, I’m sure people here will read this as I must support billionaires because I like her music. No, complex multifaceted opinions are valid.
I think we should abolish ICE vehicles. It doesn’t mean I think I need to yell at family members who pull up in their 02 Camry because they can’t afford to upgrade.
You need to be evil to accumulate billionaire levels of wealth, no one forces her to be that wealthy, she could give hundreds of millions to MSF and other reliable charities and still be richer than 99.999999% of people on earth.
Completely agree. Went to her show, loved it. She’s donated to every food bank in each city she’s stopped at, but I don’t think it’s nearly what she could be doing. She has “put an actual dent in climate change” money bur instead gives a few thousand to food banks. Like I said, people can hold 2 opinions.
someone of her unique status cannot fly scheduled commercial flights without causing significant disruptions everywhere she travels to and from.
and liking a billionaire does not make someone good or bad.
Buddy we all make mistakes. Liking a billionaire is simply not good don’t try to hide yourself behind an excuse. The world has much better artists and music to offer.
So what as soon as a musician or artist hits a big enough line in the sand we all have to stop liking their music?
Musicians and artists are people who focus on music and art. Billionares are businessmen who focus on making money. As many others are highlighting in the thread a billion dollars is a ridiculous amount of money that you don’t simply hit, you have to seek profits above everything else and work your way up there.
Disagree here. I’d argue being good and being a billionaire are mutually exclusive. You can be good before you are a billionaire (rare) but it’s not possible once you enter that class.
100% agree.
For anyone who may disagree, consider thinking of excess wealth as excess food.
If you were in a stadium full of people that represent all of humanity, and you have more food than you could ever even eat in multiple lifetimes are you not an evil person for not sharing with those who are literally starving to death?
These are people with the amount of wealth who could easily subsidize paying a team of people to plan out how to appropriate give away most of their wealth so they don’t have “excess food” by the time they die - and not have it impact their day to day lifestyle. Instead they let others starve.
These are people with the amount of wealth who could easily subsidize paying a team of people to plan out how to appropriate give away most of their wealth so they don’t have “excess food” by the time they die - and not have it impact their day to day lifestyle. Instead they let others starve.
Exactly. If we only had one or two billionaires do what they do in the Maya Rudolph show “Loot,” we could probably provide housing for every homeless person in America.
Hello! If you aren’t aware we do have a community over at !taylorswift@poptalk.scrubbles.tech if you’d like to join! Always happy to have more!
I recently had this conversation with my sister who’s been a huge swiftie for years. Her reaction:
