• theneverfox@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    A billionaire is a business themselves. One person can’t even passively possess a billion dollars without tons of support staff

    If you separate the direct actions of the person from the actions of the staff required to maintain and grow their wealth, you’re missing most of the reason why billionaires are so harmful to society

    • tee9000@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      Either we need the figures to represent a billionaires emissions when dealing only with their personal benefit, or we offset the current figures with the benefit to society for their ventures.

      Im sure their personal emissions are bad enough. We dont need to make shit up. If willful ignornace had a physical form, it would be Lemmy’s mascot. Truth is the only thing that matters.

      • theneverfox@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 months ago

        But again, it’s all for their personal benefit. A human Their money is managed to grow by any means, and that has a lot of knock on effects

        They generally either put their money in funds with the highest returns (which often use unethical and illegal but accepted practices, and the best ones require large minimum deposits), or they directly own large percentages of a company and use that influence when it suits them

        I see where you’re coming from, but I think the line is blurry. Their direct personal actions don’t capture the full extent of their actions, but this also assumes full responsibility for their ownership, where honestly it’s impossible to know what level of emissions the companies would have if the billionaire’s wealth machine wasn’t involved

        I wouldn’t say this is totally unfair to say though - at the end of the day they own what they own, and letting others do your dirty work doesn’t absolve you of responsibility

        The fact that their life would barely be affected if they added emissions to their criteria for investment makes this worse - these are the figures the billionaires should be looking at to make decisions