111–120 of 142 posts
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Is your thought that education in particular should be available to all (i.e. the oxen represent a fundamental good), or that we shouldn't live in a world where some entities have more resources than others?
That's a false dichotomy.
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Is your thought that education in particular should be available to all (i.e. the oxen represent a fundamental good), or that we shouldn't live in a world where some entities have more resources than others?
On that spectrum, my thought is more towards that education should be available to all, but also that the economics we live under doesn't have a process to distribute sufficient goods widely enough such that people have strong practical independence. It's not that some entities cannot have more than others, it's that we have entire classes where their first order needs (food, shelter, clothing) aren't met despite bei…
You know, I'm happy on some level for that individual. It seems like a great stroke of fortune. On another level, it bothers me that there are such large institutions that can arbitrarily "bless" random people like a deity or something. I also can't help but look at this cynically as a largely self-interested PR grab by Apple that is not a real sacrifice on their part.
honestly this just seems like a waste of time.
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Seemed like a dubious claim, so tried to find a source and found this old article: Did the Forbes 400 Billionaires Really 'Build That'? https://www.cnbc.com/id/49167533 Trimming a lot: "United for a Fair Economy breaks down the Forbes list using a baseball analogy. It says - 35 percent of the list was born in the “batter’s box,” with a lower-middle class or middle-class background... - 22 percent of the list were bor…
I honestly expected significantly less (I figured home plate would be the largest group) but was not surprised at all to learn 3rd base was the smallest group.
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> On another level, it bothers me that there are such large institutions that can arbitrarily "bless" random people like a deity or something. It's not all that different than in the past some regular person assisting the royalty, and being rewarded for it with some money or small title or allowance, such as being able to utilize a natural resource that's controlled by the crown. It's just a consequence of a massive…
The difference being that apple earns its own money which we have volunteerly given to them for iphones. Royal titles etc. however are from taxpayers money a bit like US aid to other countries or subsidized housing etc.
Before someone gives me the standard "don't hate the player hate the game" speech. I do hate the game. It's fundamentally broken and I think we need to do a 2.0 version.
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Seemed like a dubious claim, so tried to find a source and found this old article: Did the Forbes 400 Billionaires Really 'Build That'? https://www.cnbc.com/id/49167533 Trimming a lot: "United for a Fair Economy breaks down the Forbes list using a baseball analogy. It says - 35 percent of the list was born in the “batter’s box,” with a lower-middle class or middle-class background... - 22 percent of the list were bor…
I honestly expected significantly less (I figured home plate would be the largest group) but was not surprised at all to learn 3rd base was the smallest group.
I mean, it considers Donald Trump, whose father died with a net worth of about $300 million to start on 2nd base!!
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Most people on US Forbes top 500 came from poverty and / or other disadvantage.
I don't think this is true. Forbes says 67% of their list is "self-made", meaning they're a 6-10 on the 10 point scale defined here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2018/10/03/the-forbe... As you can see, only a 9 or 10 should really count as coming from significant disadvantage. Mark Zuckerberg is an 8 on the scale (where 10 is most disadvantaged), and I think we can all agree he did not claw his way out of…
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This is a very easy problem. If you feel this strongly stop buying their products. If you don't do that clearly you don't feel strongly enough. Blaming them when they do the right thing is just going to discourage them to do so in the future
I've never bought an Apple product, but I can still be bothered by the fact that such huge corporations exist and can completely change random people's lives if they choose to.
The article only says: "[Apple] said it would compensate the Thompson family and make an additional gift toward 14-year-old Grant’s education."
For all we know, they got a check for $250.
How do you reconcile your statement with the fact that you, yourself, can confer life-changing benefits to all sorts of people?