Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights • Hacker News Board

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#271

Post by xboxnolifes » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

geremiiah wrote: post #224

masfuerte wrote: post #16

Money is power. That is the problem with extreme wealth. It provides unaccountable power outside the democratic process. It is not surprising that an already powerful man wants even more power, but I do not understand why anyone else would go along with this.

To be fair, this is only true in western countries. It's not true, in for example Russia or China. Or to be more accurate, in Russia and China, no matter how many hundreds of billions you own, you won't be able to bend the party to your will.

They did say for democratic processes.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#272

Post by imzadi » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #141

Oh boy! Can I play too? My system, which I call an expansion of antitrust, requires all people to keep their net worth under one billion dollars. Anyone approaching that number must give away assets to stay under. If you go over that, you must be broken up, by, say, beheading, or being drawn and quartered. I'm not married to that number, if people think it should be half a billion, or 100 million, or whatever, I'll g…

The Catan system

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#273

Post by Maxatar » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 6:22 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #268

Maxatar wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only 900 billionaires in the U.S. Do you think if they lost their voting rights it would affect the outcome of even a single election whatsoever?

It‘s not about the outcome of an election but about putting a symbolic to their power. Billionaires can do what they what without real consequences, this would hurt even if it has no real effect. More psychological

So put in the enormous effort needed to change the Constitution all towards a goal of some superficial and ineffective measure instead of taking a fraction of that effort and putting it towards actual concrete things that might improve society like better health care, better education, infrastructure.

Got it.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#274

Post by senordevnyc » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #107

throw2ih020 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most "normal" people would hit $5-30 million, realize they have enough money for themselves and their descendants to be comfortable in perpetuity with some decent wealth management, and either retire or change careers to a passion project. Going to 100s, 1,000s, or 100,000s of millions inherently filters for people who have either absurd greediness (seeing wealth as a scoreboard) or a desire for power.

This is it, it's absolutely a filter beyond a certain point. I have a family member, far enough removed I'll never see any of it, that sold a business in his early 30s for something like $35-40M. Set his kids up for life with trusts, bought some toys and a second home, and been just sort of hanging out ever since (this was 15-20 years ago). He's happy, has a ton of hobbies, and if you ever suggested he start another…

I totally understand the point you're trying to make, but also...if your friend put their $40M in an S&P500 index 20 years ago, it'd be worth $238M today. So more like 6x rather than 10x, but still, not bad.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#275

Post by croes » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

Maxatar wrote: post #273

croes wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It‘s not about the outcome of an election but about putting a symbolic to their power. Billionaires can do what they what without real consequences, this would hurt even if it has no real effect. More psychological

So put in the enormous effort needed to change the Constitution all towards a goal of some superficial and ineffective measure instead of taking a fraction of that effort and putting it towards actual concrete things that might improve society like better health care, better education, infrastructure. Got it.

You would be surprised how effective such small measure are.

Just look how they react when someone "lesser" denies unconditional consent.

Musk vs. Unsworth comes to mind.

And Elon, if you somehow read that: we all know that pedo guy isn’t South African slang

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#276

Post by jst1fthsdys » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

bad_username wrote: post #199

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #141

Oh boy! Can I play too? My system, which I call an expansion of antitrust, requires all people to keep their net worth under one billion dollars. Anyone approaching that number must give away assets to stay under. If you go over that, you must be broken up, by, say, beheading, or being drawn and quartered. I'm not married to that number, if people think it should be half a billion, or 100 million, or whatever, I'll g…

[flagged]

Do you think the billionaires pushing policy that causes millions to suffer are doing hate speech too?

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#277

Post by rayiner » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #196

rayiner wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regardless, if you work at Shopify, you should consider quitting. You do not have to work for a crazy person like that. Democracy is an engineering exercise, just like any other system. Every part of the system has trade-offs that must be evaluated. You can make a logical argument that any other policy is open to abuse, etc. But why do you have to accuse other people of being “crazy” for having ideas about how to e…

You mean government and society are an engineering exercise. You can't strip people of power and then say it's a democracy, at least not if words mean things.

Words do “mean” things. But the word “democracy” refers to a broader category of government systems, of which democracy with universal adult franchise constitutes a subset of the broader concept. The ancient Greeks practiced democracy, but universal adult franchise was a much later development.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#278

Post by throw2ih020 » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

senordevnyc wrote: post #274

pc86 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is it, it's absolutely a filter beyond a certain point. I have a family member, far enough removed I'll never see any of it, that sold a business in his early 30s for something like $35-40M. Set his kids up for life with trusts, bought some toys and a second home, and been just sort of hanging out ever since (this was 15-20 years ago). He's happy, has a ton of hobbies, and if you ever suggested he start another…

I totally understand the point you're trying to make, but also...if your friend put their $40M in an S&P500 index 20 years ago, it'd be worth $238M today. So more like 6x rather than 10x, but still, not bad.

The people I know personally with that level of wealth will typically set up family trusts to do that and manage how the wealth is distributed to the family, generally some stipend for living expenses + covering education and healthcare costs. The original people setting up the trust give up direct access to that portion of the money for the benefit of their heirs and beneficiaries. i.e. it's no longer "their" money in the personal sense.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#279

Post by joquarky » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 6:45 PM UTC

imzadi wrote: post #11

kennywinker wrote: post #3

[flagged]

My theory about this, as well as how it seems most powerful are abusers, is that you have to be willing to comprosmise your morality to get into that position in the first place. So it is not that being rich and powerful corrupts you, but you have to already be at least somewhat corrupt to get there at all.

Do sociopaths even have a natural sense of morality?

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#280

Post by Ancapistani » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

red-iron-pine wrote: post #227

Der_Einzige wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the stuff all these people post on X is just regurgitation of 4chan circa 2016. The lingo is literally all just /fit/ memes from 10 years ago rebranded. -maxxing, "mogging", "NGMI", I'm literally going nuts waiting for Gavin to start asking trump "DYEL"?

it's not by accident, they're targeting specific demographics for a reason angry young men will vote to abolish democracy -- and have, in Europe circa 1930s -- if you can convince them it'll benefit them. step 1 is to start speaking to them in ways they connect with. put another way, with the boomers dying rapidly, the largest source of MAGA is young men...

Why is the left doing the opposite?

There is no place for a young man who views masculinity through a traditional lens on the left.