• Vespair@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    I agree fully, but I do want to know what the original image said before “birth lottery” was edited in

      • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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        2 years ago

        Luck is the most generically accurate, but ultimately it does come down to birth lottery, as someone can just be born poor and disabled and no amount of post-birth luck is going to fix that.

        • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          I’ve seen this discrepancy explained by being or putting yourself in the right situations to get lucky in the first place. You can’t get lucky in the way a lot of successful people do if you never put yourself out there. I guess the very first example of this is getting conceived lol. You could have gotten lucky and been conceived to wealthy parents, or unlucky and conceived to poor parents, or really unlucky and not conceived at all, but you would certainly have perished if you chose not to even participate in the race.

    • Troy@lemmy.ca
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      2 years ago

      I’m not rich. But I was born poor and am no longer poor. The Birth Lottery blessed me with a brain, and with that as my only asset, I learned esoteric skills which I can parley into a niche career.

      But more importantly, the social safety net in my country allowed me to get an education without becoming a wage slave for the rest of my life. Without that, I couldn’t have pulled this escape from poverty off.

      I now run my own business. We have no employees – only owners who have self-invested. Our business is growing and I anticipate a comfortable retirement. Haven’t got rich off the working class either.

      So, thank you Canada for the opportunities. I’ve tried to make the most of them.

      • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        So can you answer his question or did you just see an opportunity to brag about yourself.

      • FritzGman@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        How do you run a business without employees? What kind of business is that? Just because you call someone a self-invested owner doesn’t mean they aren’t an employee. The only types of businesses I’ve heard of like this are Mary Kay and AmWay (there may be others I don’t know). Basically a sales ponzi scheme where you are the wholesaler for a distributor and the “self-invested owner” bought their products from you instead of directly from the wholesaler.

        I do agree with your stance on the state of education today but not in the same way. Some people party all through school and live off loans while others work during school to avoid loans. For every 1 person that takes the opportunity seriously and busts their ass to make something of themselves, there are 9 people who don’t deserve the free pass. Making it free for everyone costs too much for those who have to pay for those 9.

        • Troy@lemmy.ca
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          2 years ago

          It’s a specialized scientific equipment business. I build some equipment, do some customization and repairs on their party equipment, loan other equipment, train users… A high capital business where I wagered everything on my own success. It was six months between my first two customers, and now I average about six hours.

          No Mary Kay ponzi shit.

          E: should add, I started it because my previous employer owned the intellectual property on my prior device. I wanted to own my future work. Seizing the means of production (by quitting and going solo).

  • blazera@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Capitalism just has a feedback loop bug. In capitalism, resources are distributed based on capital. But capital is a resource. So you get more capital for having more capital. In any business, who gets the most money that business generates? Whoever had the most money to buy into it. No work, no expertise is involved in the equation.

  • Zozano@lemy.lol
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    2 years ago

    You can literally just make the entire second pie chart “exploiting the working class”, because “birth lottery” is dependant on that.

  • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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    2 years ago

    I hate to be that guy, but not always exactly this. I have relatives that were born dirt poor but are now rich. You can definitely say they exploited people to get that way but the birth lottery gave them nothing financially

    • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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      2 years ago

      For every example like this there are a million examples of poor people staying poor.

      Social mobility is much less than we like to pretend it is.

    • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Not sure your point. Yes you can get rich ONLY exploiting the poor and don’t need to be born rich.

      I guess the op should have made it more of a venn diagram.

      There are no innocent billionaires. They all trade human lives for profit every day.

    • young_broccoli@fedia.io
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      2 years ago

      The chart says that 50% get rich by exploitation and the other 50% by inheritance.

      Edit: NVM, Im dumb and misread the meme. Still I doubt they were litterally “dirt poor” so birth lottery still applies.

      • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        For sure, never ever trust a wealthy person’s origin story. Even trump and Musk claim to be self made.

        Much better to go with the evidence of our eyes and ears.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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            2 years ago

            Except I wasn’t glorifying them. I actually think they aren’t great people but go ahead and jerk yourself some more

        • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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          2 years ago

          You know nothing. I’m describing my great uncle, so I would have no reason to lie. No one else in the family is what you would call rich. I’m simply providing a factual counterexample because generalizing is the surest way to not understand nuance

          • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            Speaking of lacking nuance, claiming people “know nothing” isn’t exactly the smartest thing you’ve ever said.

            We have two things here:

            A: I’m describing my great uncle

            And

            B: so I have no reason to lie.

            How does one relate to the other? Is it unusual for people to lie about great uncles where you’re from? Does this rule apply to, say, regular uncles? How about a great aunt? Does it apply to them too?

            More seriously, the factual real world examples that can be proven and aren’t just “trust me bro” all point to never being able to trust a wealthy persons origin story, even if it is someone’s great uncle. However, that doesn’t mean its literally untrue in every instance or yours.

            The point is, even if 100% true in every capacity, it’s so ultra rare and against such a rigged game that it might as well not be true. That is, if we plan on appreciating the true nuance of the situation.

            • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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              2 years ago

              Idiot, the person I referenced claimed you can’t trust a rich person’s origin story. It’s not my story

              You’re just mad the simple narrative was threatened. I couldn’t give a shit less what you believe

              • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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                2 years ago

                What a childish and hilariously ironic reply. I’m the person who said you can’t trust a wealthy persons origin story. I said it because its true.

                You challenged nothing. All you didn’t was tell a baseless story that anyone could have made up. You give yourself too much credit if you think you either challenged anything anyone said or made me mad by it. It’s pretty pathetic to have to pretend you’ve upset people.

                Even if it was true, its like me saying “don’t jump out of a 10 storey building, you’ll probably die.” and you replying “yeah, well, my great uncle jumped out of a 10 storey building and he didn’t die.” Like, cool story bro but you still shouldn’t jump out of one and, also, no one cares about your tales.

                How about second cousins, would you lie about them?

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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        2 years ago

        You are dumb I agree. Because that’s what it takes to make up stories about other people’s lives to make yourself feel better.

        These were people that literally grew up without indoor plumbing or electricity for years, in a community where owning a car meant you were rich. They were sharecroppers so they owned nothing and slaved away to make rich people money.

        But sure they weren’t dirt poor because some dickhead on the Internet wanted it to not be true so they could keep generalizing people different than them as all the same.

        • young_broccoli@fedia.io
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          2 years ago

          From your other comments I gather that these people were born about 2 generations ago. In a time of economic growth and prosperity, I count that as luck. Also, I said “I doubted it” mr. nuance.

    • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 years ago

      I can almost guarantee you do not know a “rich” person per db0’s viewpoint

      One does not reach the top by “treating employees fairly.”

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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        2 years ago

        I mean, I consider having 13 cars and 3 houses rich. But yeah it’s a relative term

  • realbadat@programming.dev
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    2 years ago

    Slightly more accurate may be combining both birth lottery and merciless exploitation.

    Since winning that lottery let’s them be the people who can mercilessly exploit people, who then have children who won that lottery, etc.

      • realbadat@programming.dev
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        2 years ago

        Oh, I read it as half the people won the birth lottery, the other half exploited people.

        As a 50/50 split for the person yeah that’s what it would be

        Just how I read the images sorry :)

  • Cosmos7349@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Tbf I feel like a lot of them work pretty hard at mercilessly exploiting the working class. Like, Space Karen has sent over 20,000 tweets? That’s a lot of work tweets!

  • shiveyarbles@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    I agree for the most part. I do know people who got rich by working hard, treating employees fairly and with empathy, and providing a useful service.