• Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Nobody’s “selfmade”. That’s a myth perpetuated by Forbes, WSJ and the like to decrease resentment towards the people whose boots they lick for a living.

    In reality, no matter how hard you work, you need the help of others to be successful and to be downright RICH, you need a whole lot of luck too.

    • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      it’s less about working harder, and more about seeing opportunities and being able to take the risk to go after them.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Nope. If someone with a net worth of $100m or more takes a gamble and loses, the company goes under and people lose their jobs while the rich guy gets a loan or a tax write-off.

        “Seeing opportunities” for huge possible gains for yourself with all significant risks being to people much less fortunate than you and taking it isn’t a virtue, it’s self-centered greed.

        • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          the key to my statement is “being able to take the risk”. poor folks can’t take the same risks that the wealthy folks can take.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            And what my statement was meant to convey is the fact that the ventures you so laud are all reward and no risk for the rich and all risk and no reward for the poor.

            If it had been a game of crabs, the rich would be rolling 4 loaded dice, picking which two count after throwing. The poor would have one dice at most, the most beneficial numbers missing at all times.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There’s like 8 billion people, statistically there will be a few honest to god self made millionaires.

      They’re just so rare that it’s not worth considering as a real possibility for the average person.

      I wouldn’t call it impossible, just statistically insignificant.

      Edit: self made billionaires. Stupid inflation.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        statistically there will be a few honest to god self made nillionaires

        That’s not how statistics work. There being a lot of people doesn’t change reality to make the impossible possible.

        You literally CAN’T become a billionaire without a SHITLOAD of help from and exploitation of others and that’s the case whether the world population is 30 or 30 trillion.

        I wouldn’t call it impossible, just statistically insignificant.

        Again, not how ANYTHING works.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            As is made abundantly clear in my reply to your other comment, it is you that is confidently wrong and it’s an important issue.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You can’t just say that’s not how something works and have it be true wtf kind of ridiculous world do you live in

          That literally is how statistics work.

          It is impossible for gravity to not function.

          It is not impossible for a self made billionaire to exist.

          Monkeys, typewriters, Shakespeare

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Here’s how it works: people work in exchange for much less than the value they produce.

            That surplus value is turned into profit for the company, exorbitant salaries for executives and stock market value. Those are the sources of income that makes a billionaire.

            No matter how and where a billionaire started, that is how they became a billionaire: value produced by other people becoming wealth for one person. And a shitload of hoarding, of course.

            Statistics document reality, they don’t change how it works.

            • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Ooof. God I hope you’re not old enough to vote cause you have no idea how anything works. You’re parroting things you’ve read but applying them to a whole different concept, with the fervor of ignorance.

              Did someone quote a few lines about surplus value at you, and now you think you have the whole world figured out?

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                God I hope you’re not old enough to vote cause you have no idea how anything works

                Says the worst case of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome I’ve come across all month 🙄

                I’m bored of your pompous mouse roars and will let you be a willfully ignorant tool (in both senses of the word) without wasting any more time and energy on you. Have the day you deserve.

                • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Have the day you deserve.

                  Oooh another phrase you just saw and repeated. Have you ever had an original thought?

    • dansity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      You don’t understand what selfmade means. It means they did not inherited a fortune500 company at the age of 25. Selfmade means they started from a situation where they had a degree and a simple common job and made into a billionaire. Obvioisly no single person can create and manage a 20000 person company on its own, no one ever said it is like that.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I understand just fine. What I’m saying is that using that word implies that they have earned all their wealth and are more deserving than others who didn’t have the same help and luck. More deserving than others with the same background who have worked just as hard with less help and/or luck along the way.

        Whether or not that’s the intention, that’s the implication and thus why using the word at all skews the conversation.

        • pinkdrunkenelephants
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          1 year ago

          You’re purposefully skewing the meaning of the word to fit a narrative to justify hating capitalism.

          It’s a stupid thing to do because there are far better reasons to hate capitalism, you alienate other working and middle class individuals who actually are self-made, and you completely twist around what it means to be helped by others.

          Like you would look at someone who used to be homeless talking about how they’re self-made because they escaped poverty all on their own, a feat that you would argue is not mathematically possible, and you would shoot them down by claiming they had help because they got sandwiches at a homeless shelter and people gave them like ten dollars when they panhandled.

          What you’re doing is stupid.

    • Torvum@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Literally semantics and who gives a shit. Erm ackshually, type beat. Obviously money flows, no one just generates money on their own without the creation of value by the governing body, or can provide goods/services without the goods/services needed to even start their own trade. No one legitimately believes selfmade means you did literally everything yourself, everywhere. It’s just people who earned a wealthy life without inheritance.