#wealth addiction

[heroofthreefaces]

Since I had to abandon my Facebook account and start a new one I’ve been friends (what they call “mutuals” there) with more of the conservative branch of my family than I was before. Initially I noticed a lot of infographics in opposition to welfare and minimum wage which I’ve been combatting with infographics on the theme of “the greatest trick capitalism ever pulled was getting the oppressed to blame other oppressed instead of the oppressors” and of the billionaire season infographic I made and posted over here. Lately though they’ve seemed to move on from that, and their infographics more commonly have to do with government spending on foreign aid when it could be spent “at home”. I wonder whether social media activism is as useless as the bootlickers like to assert it is.

[heroofthreefaces]

retweeted tweet from Josh Gondelman‏ @joshgondelman Feb 6 

I don’t think I’m as afraid of anything as every billionaire is apparently afraid of becoming a hundred-millionaire.

[not-caused-by-those-who-love]

Never think that you cross the demographic lines into no group whose rights the fake president and his handlers want to take away. Are you a billionaire? No? Then as far as they're concerned either you’re prey or you’re cannon fodder.

[heroofthreefaces]

Did you build the road you drive on, or the car(s) you drive in? Did you personally build your house(s), and do you generate your own power and pump in your own water and hunt or grow your own food? Civilization is a collaborative enterprise and wealth signifies someone who's abusing it, someone from whom civilization is entitled to require much better cooperation.

[heroofthreefaces]

i heard on the radio today that the average millionaire’s gpa was 2.9

the 1% are not better or smarter

[heroofthreefaces]

The purpose of having society is to insure everyone is taken care of, as demonstrated in nature and in anthropology, in every modern human society that isn't too large for everyone to know each other, and in the stated intent if not in the eventual result of many modern sociopolitical systems (leaving out, obviously, fascism and anything else whose basis is persecution of anyone). Conservatism and capitalism at their roots are in opposition to this. The foundation of conservatism is "I am not my brother's keeper" and the foundation of capitalism is "What's in it for me?"

[heroofthreefaces]

Science shows money does buy happiness

to a limit.

Money buys quality of life which is an essential factor in happiness. In studies at Berkeley they determined that increasing annual income makes you happier. But only up to about $75,000. After that increasing your income has no further effect on your quality of life. You've aleady got at least one of everything you can buy.

Rich people think money doesn't buy happiness because they've passed the limit. But that limit is about seven times the poverty level, about ten times the cap on disability benefits, about five times minimum wage, almost four times what I make, and only twice or less a living wage depending on your state.

And the studies at Berkeley cover the rich people thing. They found rich people tend to think that when increasing your income doesn't make you happier, it means you need to increase your income even more. And that's exactly wrong.

The primary finding of the happiness studies is that what makes people happy is making other people happy. To get happier rich people don't need to increase their wealth, they need to put a cap on it and give the rest away, like the Obamas have done. Has there ever been a happier couple in the White House? That's a rhetorical question. No, there hasn't.

Rich conservatives despise redistribution of wealth but, even outside of genuine economic reasons, it is good for them personally too.

[heroofthreefaces]

Jesus wasn't saying that rich people don't go to Paradise after they die

Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is in you." To Jesus the kingdom of heaven is something we accomplish in this life, spiritually and internally. Jesus was saying rich people can't do that, which has been confirmed by recent findings at Berkeley.

At Berkeley there's ongoing studies into what makes people happy, and what they've found is that it's making other people happy. As a corollary they've discovered that the possession of wealth inhibits the compassion that drives us to do this. Most people when they're rich and unhappy and wondering why don't say, "I have so much. Giving some of it away will make me feel better;" they say, "I have so much. Apparently it's not enough; it must be I need more." And that's exactly the wrong way to go about it.

(While money doesn't buy happiness, it does buy quality of life which is undeniably a factor in happiness. Excess is evil but so is poverty. See how God set that up?)

When Jesus said that about the camel and the needle, he wasn't warning rich people that they'll go to hell. Jesus was warning rich people that they can't be happy in this life. He told the rich young man to give all his wealth away to be happy because the wealth was what was making him unhappy.