(July 14, 2026 at 10:16 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: The problem with getting rich is this:
 
There is something inside all of us that seeks to expand, to do more, to be more. In spirituality we call this God-Realization. Only when we get there can we be truly satisfied. Until then, body-identification causes us to always be on the lookout for the next best thing, the next promotion, the next incredible man or woman, marriage, children, the next new house, the next new car etc…
 

False.

@Leonardo17

Quote:There is something inside all of us that seeks to expand, to do more, to be more. In spirituality we call this God-Realization. Only when we get there can we be truly satisfied. Until then, body-identification causes us to always be on the lookout for the next best thing, the next promotion, the next incredible man or woman, marriage, children, the next new house, the next new car etc…

This is demonstrably untrue.

Boru

Edit: Ninja’d.

Bill Gates' daughter faces up to 20 years in prison after her shopping app 'Phia' is accused of secretly taking credit for sales it didn't generate to inflate its commissions

She blamed it on a software bug, but Bloomberg reports she knew about it for at least seven months.

https://futurism.com/future-society/bill...al-trouble


Do you think she'll do any prison time?

(August 14, 2026 at 12:45 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: Bill Gates' daughter faces up to 20 years in prison after her shopping app 'Phia' is accused of secretly taking credit for sales it didn't generate to inflate its commissions

She blamed it on a software bug, but Bloomberg reports she knew about it for at least seven months.

https://futurism.com/future-society/bill...al-trouble


Do you think she'll do any prison time?

Unlikely in the extreme. The most she’ll get is the equivalent of a pinky swear to never, ever do it again and to be a good girl from now on.

Boru

Phoebe Gates Took Secret Stanford Course on Controlling Society, Used It to Recruit for Her Startup That’s Now Facing Accusations

As the student-run newspaper the Stanford Daily reported in May, Gates attended a secretive off-the-books course, which was never publicized and required a referral from another student, called "So You Think You Can Rule the World?" — or "Rule" in the shorthand of the Stanford set.

The content of the course, which saw 12 students meet once a week during the winter quarter, sounds about as ominous as its name suggests. The course's instructor, Silicon Valley investor and Stanford graduate Justin Lewis-Weber, took it upon himself to bring together "like-minded folks who dared to dream bigger together," as a former student put it in an interview with the Daily.

Another student added that the goal was to teach students "how to essentially hack any kind of power structure or bureaucratic structure and get what they want in a system of people."

"It's more about identifying the vulnerabilities or loopholes," the same student added. "I think [the instructor is] less concerned with the ethics of it all and the problem-solving elements."

Another student said the course focused on the "cynical parts of Silicon Valley," describing the instructor behind it as "power hungry, intellectual, but really focused on profit and power instead of doing good."

The course wasn't incidental to Gates' professional career, either. Another student told the Stanford Daily that Gates used the class to recruit for her company Phia.

Considering how long Gates knew about her startup's dicey and potentially fraudulent practice — which accounted for over 50 percent of Phia's revenue in June, per Bloomberg's estimates — she must've been taking plenty of detailed notes during the class.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/phoebe...55639.html


Of course, these lectures were not for everyone, but rather for children whose parents are so well-connected that they can bail them out of legal trouble when they put their newly learned lessons into practice.

Jeff Bezos on why he wants a trillion humans in the solar system:

"I would love to see a trillion humans living in the solar system. If we had a trillion humans, we would have at any given time a 1,000 Mozarts and a 1,000 Einsteins"

https://www.vice.com/en/article/rated-an...is-week-2/

What moron. Setting aside the fact that space colonization is a biophysical impossibility, if he wants lots of smart and educated people, then he should pay his share of taxes so that schools can have so much resources and teachers that they can really educate people.

Space colonization is a biophysical impossibility? Where did you get that idea? Spinning cylinders generating centrifugal gravity could indeed house a trillion humans. It's been studied extensively since the 1970s, most notably by Dr. Gerrard K O'Neil.

Jeff Bezos (nor any other billionaire) gets to assess his own tax burden. Tax burden is figured out in accordance with tax law. You want him to pay more taxes than he legally owes? I don't think anyone who would do that would ever get to be a billionaire in the first place.

(August 20, 2026 at 6:07 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: Space colonization is a biophysical impossibility? Where did you get that idea? Spinning cylinders generating centrifugal gravity could indeed house a trillion humans. It's been studied extensively since the 1970s, most notably by Dr. Gerrard K O'Neil.

Jeff Bezos (nor any other billionaire) gets to assess his own tax burden. Tax burden is figured out in accordance with tax law. You want him to pay more taxes than he legally owes? I don't think anyone who would do that would ever get to be a billionaire in the first place.

Billionaires never pay anything close to what amounts to a ‘fair share’. When you’ve got that kind of money, it’s easy to game the system.

Boru

(August 20, 2026 at 6:40 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(August 20, 2026 at 6:07 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: Space colonization is a biophysical impossibility? Where did you get that idea? Spinning cylinders generating centrifugal gravity could indeed house a trillion humans. It's been studied extensively since the 1970s, most notably by Dr. Gerrard K O'Neil.

Jeff Bezos (nor any other billionaire) gets to assess his own tax burden. Tax burden is figured out in accordance with tax law. You want him to pay more taxes than he legally owes? I don't think anyone who would do that would ever get to be a billionaire in the first place.

Billionaires never pay anything close to what amounts to a ‘fair share’. When you’ve got that kind of money, it’s easy to game the system.

Boru

It's a question of structuring incentives. Because big business drives GDP, government allocates the lion's share of tax incentives to them. I'm not sure that's wrong.

(August 20, 2026 at 6:40 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(August 20, 2026 at 6:07 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: Space colonization is a biophysical impossibility? Where did you get that idea? Spinning cylinders generating centrifugal gravity could indeed house a trillion humans. It's been studied extensively since the 1970s, most notably by Dr. Gerrard K O'Neil.

Jeff Bezos (nor any other billionaire) gets to assess his own tax burden. Tax burden is figured out in accordance with tax law. You want him to pay more taxes than he legally owes? I don't think anyone who would do that would ever get to be a billionaire in the first place.

Billionaires never pay anything close to what amounts to a ‘fair share’. When you’ve got that kind of money, it’s easy to game the system.

Boru

To the degree that it allows you to game it.

The point I was making is that it is silly to admonish a billionaire to 'pay your share fair' when that amounts to them paying more than what they legally owe. Nobody is going to do that. The only way billionaires are ever going to pay a fair amount of tax is if they are assessed a fair tax. We can quibble over how much is fair but in the end, the onus is on the system setting the taxes.