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Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by vidarh on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @05:57AM (#25926673)
I think you missed the word "if" there. The commenter above did not suggest it would, but posited that if they could do so without affecting their own wealth, they believe Musk and Bezos quite probably would.

It's a hypothetical suggesting something about Musk and Bezos personalities and/or intent, not about their actual ability to make things better.

Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by chordalkeyboard on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @06:30AM (#25926949)
> It's a hypothetical suggesting something about Musk and Bezos personalities and/or intent, not about their actual ability to make things better.

I was responding to the below. There’ a perspective that the magnitude of their wealth represents their current level of contribution to helping these people, and reappropriating that wealth would decrease their contribution by misallocating their property.

>> The problem is starting out on that path towards equal distribution is going to mean they lose a lot of money.

Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by vidarh on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @06:35AM (#25926996)
I don't see how your assumption follows from that statement at all. I see it as a statement suggesting that their current fortunes are simply not big enough that any kind of redistribution sufficient to make a major difference wouldn't have a measurable effect on them personally.
Re:The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans by chordalkeyboard on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @07:26PM (#25936329)
I’m taking that as granted and going further: redistribution at any scale is unlikely to have the desired effect on the poor, regardless of how it affects the person being expropriated.