Thread by @enn_nafnlaus

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW Well, surely the best way to start a conversation about income inequality is to make fun of anyone who puts their own money on the line to try to make mass transit cheaper, faster, and more convenient, rather than buying a megayacht or island or whatnot.

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW Contrary to popular belief, wealth != liquidity. Most of Musk's "money" is inaccessible.His investments in Boring Company represent a large portion of his money that otherwise could have been spent on himself. If TBC fails to make mass transit more affordable, its down the drain.

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW What is inexplicable to me is to root against more affordable, more convenient mass transit. Why *shouldn't* you be rooting for their success? If they fail, you lose nothing. If they succeed, the world is a better place. Why root for failure?

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW It feels like you're rooting for him to fail because he's a billionaire. That you'd rather see no improvements in mass transit cost/speed/convenience than to see a billionaire succeed.

If Musk had been less successful previously, would it make a difference?

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW How does his past success have any impact on whether or not TBC succeeding would be a good thing?

Should more effort be used to fix income inequality? Absolutely. Steeper tax bracketing paying for universal basic income and the like. You know who else wants those policies?

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW Elon Musk.

He didn't make the current system that lets so much wealth accrue at the top. He doesn't want such a system. Yet you want to pin the blame for a system he's opposed to on him, and are willing to root against improving mass transit to achieve it. Why?

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW Most billionaires spend most of their money on themselves. Sergei Brin, for example, is building a floating sky palace. Even Bill Gates, widely thought of as a "philanthropic billionare", owns vast amounts of property, where just his most expensive home is worth more than all...

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW ... of Musk's real estate combined. Yet there's this perverse thing where, seemingly *because* Musk invests his money in things trying to improve the world, it actually directs *more* hate against him, for a problem he didn't create.

And I know that the very act of me...

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW ... writing this is just going to get dismissive replies of, "Billionaires don't need your defense!" As if that means we should root against the success of projects to try make the world better. Almost as if, *if anyone has any success, that means that they deserves hate*.

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW Did Elon "deserve hate" when he was repeatedly nearly murdered as a child, including one near drowning and one time when his face was beaten into the point that his parents couldn't recognize him? How about when he was fleeing from his abusive father, a guy once tried for...

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW murder and who's fathered a child with a girl he raised from childhood? How about when he arrived in Canada with $2k and a bag of books to his name and scraped by doing manual farm labour and cleaning out boilers? What about when he earned a scholarship to UPenn and worked...

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW ... his way through college? Should the hate have started when he founded Zip2 out of an apartment? Or when he sold it and founded X.com, later Paypal? or SpaceX, or Tesla? At what point are we supposed to switch from "supporting someone poor fleeing from...

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW a bad situation and trying to live the American dream" to "Curse the damned billionaire, and any life-improving project he tries to achieve"?

I could live a thousand years and never once understand this logic. And I say this as someone for whom fighting income inequality...

@PATreasury @ajtourville @jasonschwab1 @PerogiXW ... is one of my top political goals.

Anyway, sorry for the length of this thread. I hope it's taken seriously and not dismissed in some sort of Twitter joke or meme, because political topics like these aren't some sort of joke.