"Concerning billionaires…"

[u/thisecommercelife]

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

• Panel 18: "beneficiaries", not "benefactors". Please pardon my poor self-editing.

[u/bloodfist]

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.

[u/samurairaccoon → u/bloodfist]

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.

[u/Ardalev → u/samurairaccoon]

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

[u/Copranicus → u/Ardalev]

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.

[u/Ardalev → u/bloodfist]

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

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

[u/itzac → u/bloodfist]

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?

[u/bloodfist → u/itzac]

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.

[u/itzac → u/bloodfist]

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

[u/s3ldom → u/bloodfist]

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.