It's all about the kids, unless, idk, you're rich enough?
It takes only a brief glimpse of the real world and its most wealthy to recognize that an abundance of virtue is not what's reflected in reality. In fact, the benevolence Carnegie describes, serves as a smoke screen for cruelty, degenerate acts, and the slaughterhouse of the soul. We've sold out every moral for a bait and switch and it's well past time to reneg on the social contract.
1. https://www.carnegie.org/about/our-history/gospelofwealth/
In today's era those expectations do not exist. The public-facing, gilded age palaces, which by their public nature tend to enforce good behavior by forcing them to physically interact with the society they profited from, have been replaced by private, gated bunkers behind tall hedges blurred out on Google Maps. The wealthy wear jeans and hoodies to "blend in" or appear common, when they are very much not. A rail tycoon in a 10X beaver tophat might offer a beggar something on the street. A tech mogul in a hoody might not even get solicited.
Income tax - and broadly speaking many other changes to the social contract between upper and lower classes, like the bureaucratization of welfare - has not just allowed but incentivized the wealthy to shirk the responsibilities of old, and outsource their morality to a (corrupt, as many have pointed out) government. And it's not good. There is no honor in giving anymore.
Is that something you believe?
You're shooting the messenger.
> Unequally or unjustly, perhaps, as these laws sometimes operate, and imperfect as they appear to the Idealist, they are, nevertheless, like the highest type of man, the best and most valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished.
Or (to shorten it a bit): "These laws (of capitalism) [...] are nevertheless [..] the best and most valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished". So this is only an unlimited belief in the virtues of capitalism, not in the virtues of rich people.
From the introduction:
> Carnegie believed in giving wealth away during one’s lifetime, and this essay includes one of his most famous quotes, “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” Carnegie’s message continues to resonate with and inspire leaders and philanthropists around the world.
I really wonder what Carnegie would think about his successors dismantling USAID?
It's about control and monitoring of civilians. And creating a dragnet to ensnare any new politicians and business leaders.
Freedom of speech is insufficient. We need freedom of privacy and from monitoring and tracking.
Also, nitpick: it was neither a majority of the public, or a majority of the eligible voting population, or even a majority of the people who voted.
I think a really good first step, at least in the US, towards making our candidate selection better would be to mandate open primaries.
Dems need to figure out how to run more interesting candidates. In 2024 they thought everyone wanted status quo, and it turns out that as housing prices go up and up, along with wages staying flat, people want to blow things up. And Trump seems to be that guy for them.
> Continuing to call him a pedo just looks like more partisan politics, which uninterested people (who still bother to vote) tune out.
Exactly the contrary is true. The Epstein stuff has caused an unprecedented dip in Trump's popularity. The more it's talked about the angrier the people get at him and his friends.
> Dems need to figure out how to run more interesting candidates.
Indeed, here's hoping for a true Democratic Tea Party, let progressives run the show. They've proved more than capable of motivating the masses, in New York and other places...
The decision was quite literally between a known criminal and already even at the time known to be likely pedophile (and now it's basically a fact) and someone who is none of that.
The dems consistently push everyone even a little bit impure from their coalition, which is why they have had difficulties winning slam-dunk elections. And instead of calling everyone who voted from Trump evil or stupid, they refuse to look in the mirror and see if there is anything they could change about their own pitch that would make it more appealing.
It wasn't like Trump just had some petty past crime on his hands and had turned a new leaf.
Ah yes, the famous conservative talking point of "well yeah, my side is bad, but your side is just as bad".
From a pure performance standard across economy and quality of life, its pretty clear that Democratic policies always end up as net positive, while conservative policies may seem good in the short term but allways end up bad long term. But to see this you have to understand politics, and understand the effects aren't always immediate. However, the situation this time around is way simpler.
Basically in 2016, you could be excused for voting for Trump. Things were going well enough that mattered, Hilary was not the best candidate, and maybe a little mix up needed to happen. In 2020, if you voted for Trump, you are absolutely clueless about politics and have no idea what is actually good for the country, but at least its all political reasons.
In 2024, it wasn't about politics - it was a choice between either allowing a convicted felon who tried to overthrow US government (with Supreme Courts saying he did nothing wrong mind you) back into a position of power, or not. As it turns out 7/10 people who either voted for trump or didn't vote are ok with the rich and elite getting away with what they want.
So generally when people act surprised about anything that happens in regards to Einstein or any other things that Trump will do, like interfere with elections and possibly go for third term, just remember that those people don't actually care. This is what they want.
All one has to do is point at San Francisco as this us provably false. Dems have been in charge their for decades and it's arguably not working.
“Super Bowl Visitors Find San Francisco Better Than Its Apocalyptic Image. Problems with homelessness and open-air drug use have been widely broadcast, but many visitors this week said they found the city surprisingly pleasant.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/us/san-francisco-super-bo...
Incidentally, reading some books on the history of SF illuminates that homelessness/poverty and drug use have plagued the city for almost a century, across all manner of governments. There is no easy solution here.
There was a slump during Covid, but we're definitely on the upswing.
I dunno why you guys even try to argue against Dems at this point tbh. Even if I am wrong on that point, there are a thousand others that demonstrably show that Republican policies and politicians, especially during this administration, are many times worse.
The problem with your accusation is that I am a long ways from conservative, and what I said is a pop culture reference straight from South Park.
> In 2024, it wasn't about politics
It wasn't? The dems took a candidate so weak in charisma [0] that she lost her first primary to another candidate also historically weak in charisma (Biden) who himself tried multiple times to run for president and only won in 2020 because he barely edged out the most historically unpopular president in memory. The cherry on top was that she didn't have to win a single primary to become the nominee, and her party had just spent months insisting that the guy at the helm, who promised to be a one term president, was losing his already unfortunately weak ability to speak clearly before realizing how badly he was going to lose to Trump and just gifting the nomination to his VP. What a shit show.
As a long time democrat I remain astounded at how horridly incompetent the leadership is and the lengths to which rank-and-file supporters will go to make excuses for them. Followed closely by the insistence of democratic voters to focus on narrow cultural priorities that resonate with a small number of people and don't move the needle at all for like 80% of the population. What on God's green earth happened to being, you know, progressive? What about labor, or healthcare, or affordable groceries, housing, etc?
[0] yes, charisma isn't the ideal requirement for a presidential candidate, but failure to recognize that this is basically how all presidents win election just means you are going to lose more often.
Plus, we still have people insisting that Kamala lost because she was a woman. No, she won because she sucks as a political candidate. Hillary had precisely the same issue. There are strong women who communicate well who would perform much better, but they have thus far decided to avoid the circus.
You are 100% conservative, because only a braindead conservative would be typing some paragraph about charisma, ignoring the fact that TRUMP LITERALLY TRIED TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT. You guys are so bad at hiding this that its embarrassing at this point, so stop trying.
And before you start saying "no he didn't", please go and read the entire supreme court case where he said that yes, he did in fact present a fradulent set of electors, but he should be immune from prosecution because he was acting in official capacity, and Supreme Court agreed.
To be super crystal clear, if instead of Kamala, the option was even "worse" in your eyes, like low level left wing politician from San Francisco that wanted to do something like UBI, and you still voted for Trump, you are a traitor to the country that honestly should be tried on charges of conspiring for treason and given appropriate capital punishment, and the argument of "oh i didn't know he tried to overthrow the government" should not fly.
There are levels of bad, and what Trump did is pretty much one step short of using actual military forces to take over the congress and force people to sign the papers at gunpoint installing himself as a dictator. An example needs to be made of people who support this kind of person.
But hey, like I said, this is what people wanted. Well see if everyone feels the same way when US economy tanks and bullets start flying as unemployed people looking to feed their families will have nothing to lose. Maybe well even have a Red Scare 2 except instead of communists, everyone will be paranoid of Maga people.
If GP had written "22% of the eligible voting population" or "22% of registered voters" hadn't voted for Trump, those would be more meaningful facts.
We have known this to be the case, for quite some time, yet majority of the public still thought that a convicted felon was good enough to be president.