Is this just blind zeal for dogma, or do you have any scrap of justification to mob justice this guy? To be blunt, I can point to evils that Gabe is responsible for, and if you can cite one, I’ll support ya - but if you’re oversimplifying “rich = evil” because it’s a convenient and fun, than you’re as evil as those you’d behead.
In the wake of the French revolution many good people died for the crime of being distantly related to a noble. After we murder a few billionaires, can we take their money and make a gift of it - we could then gift billions of dollars to anyone we don’t like and murder them for being a billionaire! It’s a perfect system! </s>
Yes. Gabe is rich - but honestly their behavior is by and large the practical example by which other billionaires are condemned. If all billionaires were as responsible as Gabe, society would be much less inclined to grab their pitchforks in the first place - we’d still have a broken system that needs fixing, but without gaudily selfish billionaires I’d be optimistic that it could be fixed without bloodshed.
Im not sure its smart to reply to this st all ley alone right as i wake up but ill bite.
First off. It is fundamentally immoral to have such wealth. Last i looked the conservative estimate to end homelessness in the us was like $10b. Gabe newell alone could do that and then he and his lineage could still live in excessive insane luxury with no issues for generations.
Secondly, you can NOT obtain such wealth without abusing others. At best, youre just not paying a fair share. No single person can do so much work or is so uniquely gifted or whatever else capitalism would have you believe. Not even remotely close.
Third. Fuck his predatory gambling that feeds off the addicts and kids
Thank you for your reply. I like it more than @[email protected]’s. Sorry for the delay - turns out living in a MAGA hellscape sometimes hurts your friends and family, who coulda guessed? 🤔😅 Got busy helping friends and decided that’s more important than arguing with strangers.
It is fundamentally immoral to have such wealth.
I’m unconvinced by this argument. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but this is more of an armchair philosophy discussion than a justification to kill someone. Capitalism, by its nature, concentrates wealth. It “picks winners” as a function of its structure. Murdering rich people, while cathartic, is treating the symptom and not the cause.
I believe, in today’s environment, once we start murdering people, it’ll be hard to stop. All the evil people in ICE will quietly switch hats because murdering rich people is more viscerally satisfying than murdering immigrants (but they’ll take what they can get, amiright? 🙄). From there - the concept of “billionaires” becomes fuzzy - a billion is an arbitrary number. Especially fuzzy if the dollar continues to weaken as the international fiat currency.
Secondly, you can NOT obtain such wealth without abusing others.
I can get behind this as a principal, but it’s still incredibly weak. Can you prove that it’s not possible to fairly gain that much wealth without abuse? That sounds like a statement of faith to me, and it relies on luck having some mystical upper bound that in practice has never been shown to exist.
On a more practical level - is GabeN really the poster child you want for this principle? How he made his money is pretty simple: he makes a 30% cut of every Steam sale and he made a bunch selling hats in TF2. Sure, we can quibble on if 30% is too high or not - but it’s not really backroom wheeling and dealing. There’s nothing particularly shady here. Or rather, if this is the hill you want to murder on, you’ll have to bring more evidence.
Similarly, how he uses his money matters - Tim Apple and Microslop are marching us into a tech powered surveillance state. Mr Newell has used his influence to encourage people to use Linux and every product he releases is the most open available. Pop quiz: Name some Nintendo exclusive titles. Playstation? Xbox? Cool. Name some Steam exclusives. Much shorter list. But it is a markedly better track record than many others. As a businessman, he seems to embody the philosophy of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’. Does this make him a saint? I don’t know. But it also doesn’t make me eager to throw the guy to the wolves.
Third. Fuck his predatory gambling that feeds off the addicts and kids
Ya know what? Fuck this guy. I believe I said, “and if you can cite one, I’ll support ya”. This is absolutely one of his largest evils. I would not mind organizing around removing gambling’s influence in the economy and Gabe’s hands are absolutely bloody in this. Not for his TF2 hats (I mean, they don’t help his case) - but for all the other lootbox crap Steam definitely makes it’s cut on. If such a mob shows up at his door and Gabe can’t appease them, I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it. I might privately suspect that if such a murderous coalition were to start to coalesce, GabeN would likely be a smart cookie and would course correct their business - but if such remedy failed to materialize in time to save his life, I wouldn’t lose much sleep.
I am more concerned about what types of murderous mobs I unleash on the world. “Kill all Billionaires” makes a protest potest poster, but as a policy is ripe for abuse. The first things that will happen is many clever rich people will cleverly hide their riches better (not all, but enough of them will do well enough to effectively escape justice in this life), moreso, many clever billionaires will use their influence to set up other billionaires, which turns the whole apparatus back into a tool for the rich.
Anyways, thanks for listening. Would love to know your thoughts.
I don’t believe you. I believe you’re earnest, I just also believe you’re wrong. If you grew up in a modern industrialized nation with luxuries like plumbing, sub millimeter precision engineering, electricity, internet - are you suggesting we tear those things down because others don’t have access to them? 'Cause if no, I have news for ya, buddy - by the standards of history, you’re exceedingly rich. You wouldn’t understand though because all rich people are evil, obviously. 🙄
There’s a difference to having plumbing and having useless shit like holiday houses, private swimming pools, luxury cars, gold tat etc. And a multi-millionaire like Gabe Newell can even buy all of that and still have a lot of spare money to pay off anyone for any reason. Why would any single person be entitled to that?
They shouldn’t, but Mr. Newell didn’t invent capitalism. I blame coffee and the enlightenment for that. And for all the flaws it brings, it’s still a step up from feudalism.
Valve found a niche in the gaming industry. Gabe created a good product and stewarded it well. He has an industry gold standard stance on piracy and for as much he has made Valve’s product indispensably useful, their product fosters indie developers and small creators in ways the competition struggles to play catch-up on. By biggest frustration with the guy is largely about worrying about what happens when he steps down and is replaced by someone else.
For all this, the system has showered him with money. A frankly stupid amount of money. And for that, you assert he should die. Do you think if we Thanos snap away all the billionaires that the system which creates them will automatically go with them? If it does are you naïve enough to think that it would easily be replaced by something better in the power vacuum that follows?
The bottom line is: there’s no shortage of billionaires who deserve a good pruning. Plenty of uncontroversial targets whose absence would send a clear message. Choosing Gabe Newell as a target of convenience does far more damage than help. I’m not saying don’t murder monsters, I’m saying don’t let bloodlust lead you to shooting yourself in the foot.
Guillotine ALL billionaires
Is this just blind zeal for dogma, or do you have any scrap of justification to mob justice this guy? To be blunt, I can point to evils that Gabe is responsible for, and if you can cite one, I’ll support ya - but if you’re oversimplifying “rich = evil” because it’s a convenient and fun, than you’re as evil as those you’d behead.
In the wake of the French revolution many good people died for the crime of being distantly related to a noble. After we murder a few billionaires, can we take their money and make a gift of it - we could then gift billions of dollars to anyone we don’t like and murder them for being a billionaire! It’s a perfect system! </s>
Yes. Gabe is rich - but honestly their behavior is by and large the practical example by which other billionaires are condemned. If all billionaires were as responsible as Gabe, society would be much less inclined to grab their pitchforks in the first place - we’d still have a broken system that needs fixing, but without gaudily selfish billionaires I’d be optimistic that it could be fixed without bloodshed.
Im not sure its smart to reply to this st all ley alone right as i wake up but ill bite.
First off. It is fundamentally immoral to have such wealth. Last i looked the conservative estimate to end homelessness in the us was like $10b. Gabe newell alone could do that and then he and his lineage could still live in excessive insane luxury with no issues for generations.
Secondly, you can NOT obtain such wealth without abusing others. At best, youre just not paying a fair share. No single person can do so much work or is so uniquely gifted or whatever else capitalism would have you believe. Not even remotely close.
Third. Fuck his predatory gambling that feeds off the addicts and kids
Thank you for your reply. I like it more than @[email protected]’s. Sorry for the delay - turns out living in a MAGA hellscape sometimes hurts your friends and family, who coulda guessed? 🤔😅 Got busy helping friends and decided that’s more important than arguing with strangers.
I’m unconvinced by this argument. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but this is more of an armchair philosophy discussion than a justification to kill someone. Capitalism, by its nature, concentrates wealth. It “picks winners” as a function of its structure. Murdering rich people, while cathartic, is treating the symptom and not the cause.
I believe, in today’s environment, once we start murdering people, it’ll be hard to stop. All the evil people in ICE will quietly switch hats because murdering rich people is more viscerally satisfying than murdering immigrants (but they’ll take what they can get, amiright? 🙄). From there - the concept of “billionaires” becomes fuzzy - a billion is an arbitrary number. Especially fuzzy if the dollar continues to weaken as the international fiat currency.
I can get behind this as a principal, but it’s still incredibly weak. Can you prove that it’s not possible to fairly gain that much wealth without abuse? That sounds like a statement of faith to me, and it relies on luck having some mystical upper bound that in practice has never been shown to exist.
On a more practical level - is GabeN really the poster child you want for this principle? How he made his money is pretty simple: he makes a 30% cut of every Steam sale and he made a bunch selling hats in TF2. Sure, we can quibble on if 30% is too high or not - but it’s not really backroom wheeling and dealing. There’s nothing particularly shady here. Or rather, if this is the hill you want to murder on, you’ll have to bring more evidence.
Similarly, how he uses his money matters - Tim Apple and Microslop are marching us into a tech powered surveillance state. Mr Newell has used his influence to encourage people to use Linux and every product he releases is the most open available. Pop quiz: Name some Nintendo exclusive titles. Playstation? Xbox? Cool. Name some Steam exclusives. Much shorter list. But it is a markedly better track record than many others. As a businessman, he seems to embody the philosophy of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’. Does this make him a saint? I don’t know. But it also doesn’t make me eager to throw the guy to the wolves.
Ya know what? Fuck this guy. I believe I said, “and if you can cite one, I’ll support ya”. This is absolutely one of his largest evils. I would not mind organizing around removing gambling’s influence in the economy and Gabe’s hands are absolutely bloody in this. Not for his TF2 hats (I mean, they don’t help his case) - but for all the other lootbox crap Steam definitely makes it’s cut on. If such a mob shows up at his door and Gabe can’t appease them, I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it. I might privately suspect that if such a murderous coalition were to start to coalesce, GabeN would likely be a smart cookie and would course correct their business - but if such remedy failed to materialize in time to save his life, I wouldn’t lose much sleep.
I am more concerned about what types of murderous mobs I unleash on the world. “Kill all Billionaires” makes a protest potest poster, but as a policy is ripe for abuse. The first things that will happen is many clever rich people will cleverly hide their riches better (not all, but enough of them will do well enough to effectively escape justice in this life), moreso, many clever billionaires will use their influence to set up other billionaires, which turns the whole apparatus back into a tool for the rich.
Anyways, thanks for listening. Would love to know your thoughts.
All rich people are evil, it’s obvious. If you end up with a lot of money and you’re somehow not evil, you’ll give it away instead of becoming rich.
I don’t believe you. I believe you’re earnest, I just also believe you’re wrong. If you grew up in a modern industrialized nation with luxuries like plumbing, sub millimeter precision engineering, electricity, internet - are you suggesting we tear those things down because others don’t have access to them? 'Cause if no, I have news for ya, buddy - by the standards of history, you’re exceedingly rich. You wouldn’t understand though because all rich people are evil, obviously. 🙄
There’s a difference to having plumbing and having useless shit like holiday houses, private swimming pools, luxury cars, gold tat etc. And a multi-millionaire like Gabe Newell can even buy all of that and still have a lot of spare money to pay off anyone for any reason. Why would any single person be entitled to that?
They shouldn’t, but Mr. Newell didn’t invent capitalism. I blame coffee and the enlightenment for that. And for all the flaws it brings, it’s still a step up from feudalism.
Valve found a niche in the gaming industry. Gabe created a good product and stewarded it well. He has an industry gold standard stance on piracy and for as much he has made Valve’s product indispensably useful, their product fosters indie developers and small creators in ways the competition struggles to play catch-up on. By biggest frustration with the guy is largely about worrying about what happens when he steps down and is replaced by someone else.
For all this, the system has showered him with money. A frankly stupid amount of money. And for that, you assert he should die. Do you think if we Thanos snap away all the billionaires that the system which creates them will automatically go with them? If it does are you naïve enough to think that it would easily be replaced by something better in the power vacuum that follows?
The bottom line is: there’s no shortage of billionaires who deserve a good pruning. Plenty of uncontroversial targets whose absence would send a clear message. Choosing Gabe Newell as a target of convenience does far more damage than help. I’m not saying don’t murder monsters, I’m saying don’t let bloodlust lead you to shooting yourself in the foot.