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functionmouselast Monday at 11:10 AM5 repliesview on HN

Not "we", it's the billionaires.


Replies

nicboulast Monday at 11:44 AM

They produce the goods that we consume. We are the ones working in their marketing department, building their online stores, streamlining consumption. Then we go home and buy stuff we don't need.

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6LLvveMx2koXfwnlast Monday at 11:19 AM

My gas fired central heating is set to 20 degrees C. So if not 'you', then definitely 'me'!

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Arntlast Monday at 12:30 PM

It's odd, in a way — when you have a well-paying job, you have nothing from an accounting viewpoint and the owners of the organisation have a valuable asset. The skill that you contribute to the organisation is accounted for as a financial asset belonging to someone else. There are good reasons for that, the accounting viewpoint makes sense for accounting purposes.

In everyday parlance we say that you have a job and you have the skill, and in reality you actually are free to take your skill elsewhere. Your skill plays a part in the market value of your employer, but you stay or leave at your whim, the "owner" of the "asset" doesn't decide.

Those billions are IMO mostly an accounting fiction — it's better to think of it in the way that our ordinary language suggests, where your actions are yours, your skills are yours, etc. If you drive to work, that's your emissions based on your choice, it's not a choice made by someone whose great wealth is mostly an assessment of your skill and earning power.

If you build a house and need some concrete for that, CO₂ is emitted in a concrete factory, but I think it's better to regard the emitted CO₂ as a choice made by you than as emissions by the billionaire who owns the factory. Even if the accountants assess the value of the factory as a large number.

latentsealast Monday at 1:02 PM

Who gave them billions of dollars?

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maelitolast Monday at 12:50 PM

No, the average US citizen destroys the planet. They would too if the economy was owned by large corporations owned by the state. Which is almost the same now that the country is run by oligarchs.