j4k3@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I owned my own business with employees twice. I’ve faced decisions where I needed to screw over people to grow my business or make more money. “I owned my own business…”
It is not hard to make a fortune. You just need to be a psychopath in a way that threads all the legal loopholes and only hurt people that are beneath your super secret caste rank we’re never supposed to admit is a thing.
It starts by making your first million in reserve by becoming a slumlord. Then you can afford to use the legal system to bankrupt smaller fish while avoiding larger predators. From then on, you just need to continue to cannibalized as much as possible. Eating big fish is dangerous. Large filter feeders that kill hundreds of thousands of average people are the safest bet. Also, fund the right political party that maintains open loopholes that are easy to exploit and protect their biggest whales, and turn a blind eye to cannibal fish, while selling idiot krill whatever mysticism nonsense they are willing to buy. It is not hard. Just be a terrible human being. I failed when I tried, but my apprentice at the time still has his house to this day.
Ironically, Citizen Kane has a relevant line: “It’s no trick to make a lot of money, if all you want is to make a lot of money.”
This dude talks about passing his values on to his kids who are in the business, I shudder to think what his actual values are.
Well, considering the character is said to have been based on William Randolph Hearst, you’re probably quite right to be concerned.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The fact that it pays to be an awful person shows that there is just something fundamentally wrong with our society. Possibly our species.
SoupBrick@yiffit.net 2 months ago
I would say society, due to having money being displayed as success and intelligence, regardless of the process by which they make that money.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Sure, but also think of all the horrible people throughout history that clawed their way to power and ruled both ruthlessly and successfully.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I would blame that on outliers and survivorship bias. We don’t exactly care about the 100,000’s of years of relatively peaceful human history. There’s a reason “may you live in interesting times,” is a curse. We live in interesting times.
Dnb@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
My Google news feed thing on my phone constantly has these bullshit side hustle articles. I hate everything about them
j4k3@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Terms of service are slavery contracts that presume all persons possess the means to process and competently understand the choices they make. The acceptance of these agreements is the legal forfeiture of citizenship and democracy. This is the simplified core issue of present Western society. Ultimately, people have proven that they will sell democracy and citizenship to anyone willing to create digital novelties. This has normalized and funded exploitation and the US party of open legislative loopholes for criminals.
killabeezio@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I mean the human species is a virus