It’s a couple of Star Trek episodes too. Similar idea is how they found Khan.

Bill Gates makes a strong argument for becoming beloved while you’re still around to enjoy it.

I think a lot of resistance to this is most people want their kids to be comfortable, and it’s a lot harder to make sure that everyone is comfortable than just making sure what you have can be transformed into keeping your kids in a good spot.

None of that means there shouldn’t be an equal process, just that there isn’t one at present. I think you both are completely correct, the challenge is how do we reach a society that can hold someone accountable, no matter what their wealth level? Alternatively, how do we prevent someone from becoming so wealthy they suborn society?

I think relative harm factors in too. Decimating someone’s resources when they’re likely to struggle to feed themselves next month? Or course that’s reprehensible. Taking a tiny portion from someone who won’t even notice, especially when you’ll probably get a lot more out of it? Now you’re practically Robin Hood

They do have something special that the rest of us don’t have. They have money.

That’s what I mean when I say they have room to try again. They don’t go broke when their business fails, so they can try more than once. Most of us don’t have the time or resources to have another go without some serious recovery time.

Great! Most new businesses fail, which makes sense given the people starting them are new at this. Billionaires often have had several failed attempts. The difference is, they have room to fail and try again.

How do we give others that chance, if not by keeping billionaires from hoovering up all the resources?

What billionaire didn’t start out with a healthy infusion of cash? Sure, some turned millions into billions, but I don’t know of any that didn’t start with a line on several millions of investment available.

It’s not the decomposition, it’s the bladder and bowels slowly emptying themselves!

On the other hand, if body odor bothers you…

I prefer to think of Chase as what a cop should be. As a strong contrast to the cops the kids will later become familiar with; so they can understand that we could do better.

At least, that’s how I felt before he got all the spy gear…

If the CEO disagrees with the directions of the board, the CEO has a number of options. They can easily be considered culpable.

Per NPR, an annual investor’s conference for their parent company was scheduled to start this morning - https://www.npr.org/2024/12/04/nx-s1-5215881/brian-thompson-unitedhealthcare-ceo-shot-new-york

Do you really not know who your family likely voted for, or your roommates? People like this don’t need a registered ballot result to make an inference that lets them act violently; unless he’d had the foresight to play at being a Trump convert months ago, I think this story is extremely credible.

…I think that might be less far-fetched. After all, our black VP is competing for her next job with a guy who’s a few oranges short of a basket…

Leaving aside for the moment the free speech issues inherent here… if you want to control what someone does with a book after you sell it? You can’t sell it. Lend it, rent it, whatever; but if it’s sold, you’ve given up all right to determine what happens with it.

Don’t want to invest in the infrastructure to do that? Then is it really that important to you?