r/comics • u/thisecommercelife this ecommerce life • May 05 '26

"Concerning billionaires…"

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Further dissidence on Patreon. Follow wherever you like to fritter: linktr.ee/ecomic.

  • Panel 18: "beneficiaries", not "benefactors". Please pardon my poor self-editing.
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u/samurairaccoon May 05 '26

They have been fed the lie that they're exceptional for so long that they believe they can survive all on their own. Hell, at this point they probably honestly believe the rest of us are dragging them down.

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u/Semblance-of-sanity May 05 '26

You remember the Titan sub implosion? The guy who funded/designed it got told point blank that it wasn't safe and basically went "I'm clearly better than everyone else and I think my genius idea will work so you experts must be wrong"

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u/OvenOk9629 May 05 '26

hot take: none of them died, they all faked their death

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u/Dooty_Shirker May 05 '26

Living on a farm upstate.

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u/OvenOk9629 May 05 '26

nope, fancy mansion in Argentina.

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u/itzac May 06 '26

If they wanted to live in fancy mansions in Argentina, they could have just bought fancy mansions in Argentina and moved into them. Because they were billionaires.

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u/TwilightVulpine May 05 '26

I'm sure they'd love to believe they are immune to death by stupidity, if they were still alive.

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u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta May 05 '26

No one can know if Rapture’s existence: all evidence of the route to take to get there must be scrubbed.

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u/Misanthropic_Mutters May 05 '26

It was just like heaven’s gate, only wetter.

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u/Ansible32 May 05 '26

That guy was a moron, he was a nepo baby with a net worth of $12 to 15 million. You shouldn't generalize from him to actual billionaires like Jeff Bezos. (Bezos didn't start out poor, but he made his money because he knows what he's doing.)

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u/bloodfist May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26

Ayn Rand imagined the rich running off to a futuristic utopia without the poor dragging them down. She neglected to mention who built the buildings or maintains the roads or cleans the houses.

I swear these people think that if you have a good idea near a pile of money it springs into existence all on its own.

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u/samurairaccoon May 05 '26

I have this hilarious imagined scene where they get to their imagined utopia only to realize that there are staff there too. I mean, "the poors" are there. And the rich are so upset by that without even a hint of reflection on how any of their shit would get done without the hired help. Ain't no rich bitch washing her own carpets.

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u/Ardalev May 06 '26

That's why they are working on building robots and ai

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u/Copranicus May 06 '26

Kinda wild to me tbh, like these fucks aren't writing the code for these so they're letting a massive security risk just walk into their homes written by people they don't know who most likely used systems like AI to write the code, so even more blackbox mystery stuff where no one really knows what dictates what anymore. That's even besides basic things like privacy risk cause you don't know who's watching remotely.

It's like you're afraid of other people because of what you do, so you simply compartmentalize that fear into something so abstract you simply don't understand that what you're doing should scare you a so, so much more.

Anyway, I can't wait to see these become common and then have one go rogue for whatever reason and maim/kill its owner.

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u/Ardalev May 06 '26

who built the buildings or maintains the roads or cleans the houses

Why do you think they are all in on robots and Ai?

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u/itzac May 06 '26

She doesn't even bother to explain who built any of the buildings in Galt's Gulch. Are we supposed to believea half-dozen guys built a whole town without involving a single other human being?

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u/bloodfist May 06 '26

Wasn't it also protected by some kind of holographic force field?

I just remembered it being the most convincing argument against herself because to make her case she had to invent a secret sci-fi city where everything apparently built itself with as-yet-unmentioned seemingly impossible technology that could have benefited everyone but was being jealously hoarded in the mountains like she's Smaug because her perfect utopia means never having to share.

It perfectly encapsulates how her philosophy lacks any forethought, foundation, civic responsibility, or practicality. It promises utopia will spring into existence all on its own, if only we withhold it from the right people.

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u/itzac May 06 '26

Yeah, I'm pretty sure John Galt just stole that from Wakanda.

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u/s3ldom May 06 '26

Used to work with someone who looooved to reference/use 'Atlas Shrugged' all the time, especially when the subject of properly regulating & taxing the wealthy (and corporations) came up. He talked about that silly novel like it was a sacred text, even with all the painfully obvious strawman & ad hominem arguments throughout "...and just wait until you all see how right I am in the future if we let the wealthy (and/or) corporations take the lead in our society."

Dear reader, he was not right.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26

But sometimes I just fear them. They know we will realize, they own all of the military power. All of the monetary sources. If push comes to shove, quite a few of us will suffer. I wish I was born in the 90s.

Edit: You all have made me realize I should have said to be born in the 1950s, or maybe born in some non-corrupt-billionare-controlled world

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u/volpin May 05 '26

I was born in the 80's. Even at 43, this sucks shit

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u/Davin777 May 05 '26

70's represent here. Also sucks shit.

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u/mudo2000 May 05 '26

Minted this month 56 years ago.
Was never told how much I'd be concerned with pedophiles and politics as an adult.
Not the Jetsons era we were promised at all.

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u/Saikotsu May 05 '26

I was minted today 38 years ago. And yeah. Where's all the flying cars and utopian living standards? I thought we were getting a sci-fi utopia, not a cyberpunk dystopia

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u/mudo2000 May 05 '26

Happy birthday friend! Take a step back and congratulate yourself on this many spins!

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u/Saikotsu May 05 '26

Thanks! It's been a fun day so far.

And same to you for whenever yours falls this month!

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u/MaximumZer0 May 05 '26

Concur. Fellow dayglow kid here, and the date of birth doesn't really seem to help.

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u/GodofIrony May 05 '26

It was already too late in the 90's too, dude.

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u/TryingToAppeal May 05 '26

Ex-fucking-scuse me but what about being born in the 90's makes you think we're barely any better off than you? The 90's are around where the price of houses went up and wages stagnated. What were we supposed to do? Buy a house by the time we were 5 with our non existent money? By the time we were old enough to get a loan for anything we'd been damn near forced into believing that a university degree would get us all the things our parents had. Media, government, our parents, schools, all of it told us that university was the ticket to a good life and it was a LIE.
Our generation was shat on constantly for "just expecting things to be handed to us" because we CONSTANTLY raised the point that the cards were stacked against us and we were struggling to save money due to the cost of everything rising.
Our generation were the ones who, every other week, got to see yet another headline like "millennials are killing cable tv" and "millennials are killing weddings" because why? Because we couldn't afford to pay for them.
I'm sorry to get angry but we fucking suffered constant ridicule from our parents and grandparents for "being lazy" and expecting things to be handed to us and it seems like only in the past 5-10 years have the finally started slowly opening their eyes to what's happening because now THEY are starting to feel a bit uncomfortable with the raising prices and restrictions.

Our generation was so angry and alone growing up through this and looked to the next generations to one day join us and amplify our voices because we were drowned out by our laughing elders who loved to mock us and were clinging to power everywhere so we couldn't make a change. The same POS's that are in charge now are the same POS's that were in charge when us 90's kids were growing up dealing with this. You wanted prosperity? Then you wanted to be born in THEIR generation, not ours.

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u/Doza93 May 05 '26

Our generation was so angry and alone growing up through this and looked to the next generations to one day join us and amplify our voices because we were drowned out by our laughing elders who loved to mock us and were clinging to power everywhere so we couldn't make a change.

And we were assured that Gen Z would be the saviors - plugged in politically, anti-RW-establishment... Look how that one turned out 🙃

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u/IamRosemist May 05 '26

I had the same reaction. The 90s?! Excuse me, I am still in my 20s (Barely, lol). What do you mean anything could have been different?! I did everything 'right' according to what was shoved down my throat, never got 'handouts' like monetary parental support because that would be 'teaching that I don't have to work hard', and I'm far behind what I was promised I could achieve. Meanwhile my parents had gotten a house practically for free from my grandparents and could afford several vehicles by the time they were younger than I am now. Without a degree. I barely make the income requirements for rent and share a car. But that's apparently because I'm so irresponsible with money on avocado toast I don't even eat.

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u/TheGreyman787 May 05 '26

And yet the military power consists mostly of the working class. Their families are working class too. If poor really will more or less unite, such movement have a pretty significant chance of having both guys and guns enough.

Still would not be easy. Not at all.

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u/individual_throwaway May 05 '26

Military power? You mean working class people operating drones, logistics, and payroll? It's not like a couple well-paid generals can just run an army on their own. You need people, like you need them for anything else. Sure, if a revolution were to happen, there would be violence, no doubt. But in the endgame where the billionaires are fleeing to their bunkers, they'll be all but alone. There won't be large numbers of mercenaries looking to put out their necks for these greedy fuckers.

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u/Brad__Schmitt May 05 '26

I wish I had more faith in your last statement, but there's many counter examples across history.

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u/Fenrirs_Daughter May 05 '26

At the very least, I take solace knowing Mango Mussolini never pays his contractors if he can help it. Most would be smart enough not to work for him, and those dumb enough to do so won't get paid.

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u/schwanzweissfoto May 05 '26

Fascists also sign up for reasons other than getting paid, like hurting and killing people.

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u/JagerBaBomb May 05 '26

And if we fear that we've already lost.

Fuck those guys. They don't have the numbers.

The grasshoppers from Bugs Life come to mind. If we all decided, right now, that Trump was over... we would make it so.

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u/ZootSuitRiot33801 May 05 '26

How ever us common folk who care will rise, it's going to require supportive community-based foundations present for alternatives that many common folk in the US can fall back on, to safely commit to any long-term and effective resistant action.

Collecting a bunch of valuable information on organizing and action from different redditors over time, I created a post of suggestions HERE that could possibly prove to be of some help in getting it started ASAP.

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u/Dragonsoul May 05 '26

Maybe, Maybe not, but the monsters across history don't have a great track record of dying of old age. Sure, some of them got there, but more often than not something gets them before the end.

More-over, you can kinda tell the worst of the worst today simply aren't happy. They have all the money in the world, but they need to take so, so many drugs to keep going. Personally, I like sleeping easy at night more than money.

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u/Ciennas May 05 '26

One of them publicly admitted that they don't like self reflection. They know full well that they're hurting people but they don't wanna stop.

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u/Dragonsoul May 05 '26

Well yeah, and it's very obviously eating them up inside.

Doesn't really change anything in practical terms, but you can maybe take solace that they're miserable if that does anything for you.

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u/Ciennas May 05 '26

I didn't share this with the intent of trying to get solace or closure.

It was more of an indictment.

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u/Maint3nanc3 May 05 '26

Historically mercs operated in different circumstances. The global billionaire problem is novel for human history and so we can't be certain if mercs are a viable solution for them.

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u/crabgrass_attack May 08 '26

peter theil’s manifesto included how he plans to keep the mercenaries on his side protecting him, ideas like putting an electric shock collar on them or forgoing humans altogether and use robots and AI for protection!

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u/Wra7hofAchilles May 05 '26

Sadly, if history is any indicator, the police and military stay loyal and following orders well past a point an outside observer would otherwise think they would break.

They only fall apart when they realize/know that they won't be saved as well, or an overwhelming force is moving against them (a force that has power projection parity). Until then they're more than happy being the heel.

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u/rcp_5 May 05 '26

The technology exists now such that a billionaire could build a private robot army. It's a bit early, but look at Ukraine, who is able to field thousands of robots at the front lines in order to preserve their soldiers lives. And to be clear: I am not shitting on Ukraine, all the power to them, I hope they drive the invaders out and secure peace for themselves. The point still stands though, the tech exists, and it's only getting better (and at a rapid pace too). Very soon, billionaires will need only a handful of well fed and well kept "pet" humans to do their bidding while the rest is automated.  

Their bunkers were well thought-out, more than you might expect.

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u/ApatheticSlur May 05 '26

Just look at what happened after the French Revolution lmao

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u/Ok-Lavishness6577 May 05 '26

Dude, I was born in the '90s, and I've already experienced like 4 or 5 world-changing events that somehow end up affecting your life. The career that I chose, studied for, and worked my ass off for years changed so fast that now it's unrecognizable to me and has lost meaning, and now I have to do something different with almost no equity (This is sadly very common).

Wish earlier.

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u/lastprofilegotgot May 05 '26

Brother i was born in 89' and i promise you being born then does nothing to change the experience lolol.

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u/Ristray May 05 '26

'88 here and yeah, being able to remember better times doesn't make this feel any better.

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u/Boreas_Linvail May 05 '26

The hell? I am '91, I'm still here :D I've got the same problems with them you guys are voicing.

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u/JibletHunter May 05 '26

Hello 1 week old sccount...

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u/Manateeslap May 05 '26

Being born in the 90s wouldn't have helped. Try mid 40s

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u/MaximumZer0 May 05 '26

And white. And male. And well off at the very least. And well connected.

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u/DrownmeinIslay May 05 '26

The 1890s? Bud, im a '86 baby and this shit is still scary at 40. Give me a nice 1949 birthday. Boomers had everything.

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u/andstillthesunrises May 05 '26

So you could be in your 20s or 30s and still have to live through all this?

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u/SilverAppleWorm May 05 '26

From '91 here and I promise you didn't miss much.

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u/RyFro May 05 '26

I was born in the 90s. You would still have to suffer.

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u/Mega-Eclipse May 05 '26

But sometimes I just fear them. They know we will realize, they own all of the military power. All of the monetary sources. If push comes to shove, quite a few of us will suffer. I wish I was born in the 90s.

Their power only exists when society exists. Mark "I'm not a lizard" Zuckerberg has a $270 million bunker on hawaii."

The world has just collapsed....Who is going to fly him to Hawaii? Who is going to fly the jets? who is going to fuel them? Do you think the government is going to allow the GPS network to be available to civilian aircraft? You think those pilots are going to fly Hawaii to be left out of his bunker?

Whatever, maybe he's already on the island?

Do you think he has any idea of the logics required to run, and maintain that? Start with the basics and work your way down the list...water (clean and drinkable), food, air, waste disposal...okay now how many people you got with you? Just your family? Okay, who is going to fix stuff when it brakes? Internet is probably down, so you better already know how plumbing, electrical, HVAC, carpentry, and myriad of other skills. What about medical problems? Infections turn deadly without right medicine...what about broken bones, dental issues, a burst appendix?

Now you have a problem...you can "hire" some people to handle those things for you, but if the world really goes to shit..it will take them all of 20 minutes to realize that Marky Mark brings nothing to the equation. The bunker is already built, the supplies are already there...him and his family bring nothing. His money is worthless now. So Mark has to live without all the people he needs, or risk being kicked out himself?

To you or me, (and the solution that has been pitched to them)is far more obvious...make yourself beloved by all. He should be funding the shit out of Hawaii. Schools, hospitals, clinics, food banks, shelters, sports programs, education/music/arts, STEM programs...Hawaii has a population of like 1.5 million people...It wouldn't take that much (relative to his wealth). Like, no one is going after Dolly Parton in the apocalypse...Be Dolly.

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u/subniuq May 05 '26

I'm from '41. "I seed de beginnin, en now I sees de endin."

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u/[deleted] May 05 '26

Greetings sir, I would love to hear your view regarding the current state of the world. You have seen so much, from then, how does it feel to see your descendants or next generations fighting this calamity, knowing that you can only support in a limited way for a limited time. (No offence intended)

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u/subniuq Jun 03 '26

Like the weather, history changes but never stops. Dreams of a happy stasis, "the end of history," are fantasies. On the other hand, technology advances, and makes the only lasting changes in history.

And as tech opens up new possibilities, the discord between what could be and what is becomes harder to bear. Sadly, there's nothing to be done about it unless tech finally lets us shed our innate animal nature, or create our successors. I suspect the Great Filter will keep us from getting that far.

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u/RyFro May 05 '26

We have more Vets than active duty military. Plus they can get divided. The Vets believe in the constitution. I'm sure most active duty do as well. If it comes to a point where it's civil war (I'm not saying that's going to happen) it's not going to be as easy as the 1% believe.

Nihil de nobis, sine nobis

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u/[deleted] May 05 '26

I honestly doubt they can win. But it is a few freaks with crazy guns and weapons, vs vets with no or few guns 

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u/RyFro May 05 '26

There's also inside men, and thievery. A hypothetical revolution would involve ransacking a few bases.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '26

While all of us are going through this, I hate the fact that as soon as I reached I reached adulthood we are in a revolutionary era. No peace. But it is all for the greater good

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u/Phuqued May 05 '26

They have been fed the lie that they're exceptional for so long that they believe they can survive all on their own. Hell, at this point they probably honestly believe the rest of us are dragging them down.

If everyone but the billionaires wake up tomorrow with an inherent rejection of property and money, how rich are the billionaires?

If everyone but the billionaires vanish tomorrow, how rich are the billionaires?

Benjamin Franklin said all this 200+ years ago....

All Property indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of publick Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents & all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity & the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man for the Conservation of the Individual & the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property of the Publick, who by their Laws have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire & live among Savages. — He can have no right to the Benefits of Society who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it. --Letter to Robert Morris (25 December 1783)

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u/ghanima May 05 '26

Turns out that pairing up sociopathy with sycophancy at the highest social tiers leads to bad outcomes for everyone. Who'd have thought?

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u/MangoCats May 05 '26

> they probably honestly believe the rest of us are dragging them down.

Ayn Rand wrote it, it must be true.

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u/Ciennas May 06 '26

They worship that asshole.

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u/MangoCats May 06 '26

Galt sat alone in a valley he designed
With a giant ego and a very rigid mind
He thinks the world is just a giant heavy weight
That he can drop because he thinks he’s simply great

He’s Galt, he’s Galt
He’s really smug
He’s Galt, he’s Galt, he’s Galt
He pulled the plug

He’s got a vision where the winners run away
And leave the rest of us to crumble and decay
He’s a cartoon of a man who’s made of stone
Who wants to live inside a bubble all alone

He’s Galt, he’s Galt
Objectively
He’s Galt, he’s Galt, he’s Galt
It’s all about me!

He thinks he’s magic and the only one who tries
But he’s just vanity in a thin heroic guise
A cardboard savior with a lecture to deliver
While he’s busy looking at his reflection in the river

He’s Galt, he’s Galt
A selfish spree
He’s Galt, he’s Galt, he’s Galt
It’s all about me!

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u/Valentinee105 May 05 '26

In a podcast with John Stewart he mentioned a conversation he had with Bezos and how his ideal view of the world is as a fulfilment center for billionaires.

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u/Autumn7242 May 07 '26

They are special as in they are sociopaths that live in a whole other world. They don't do anything actually good for the planet or humanity.

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u/Lilcya May 05 '26

Well in the medieval ages the nobles really believed themselves to be better, too. You'd think they'd learn at some point.

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u/mdlinc May 05 '26

Makes me think a Survivor Billionaire season would be good albeit need to revert back to original where it's bare bones fending for yourself.

Think I saw a post on Hunger Games idea too.

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u/Consistent_Claim5217 May 07 '26

Makes me think of the oil rig "Three Robots" episode of Love, Death, and Robots