“We are very proud of this! We are nobodies, we have no money, nothing!” Tommaso Cacciari, from a group calling itself No Space for Bezos, told the BBC.
“We’re just citizens who started organising and we managed to move one of the most powerful people in the world - all the billionaires - out of the city.”
The wedding kicks off later this week, and has a star-studded guest list of the rich and famous that is rumoured to include Kim Kardashian, Mick Jagger and Leonardo diCaprio, as well as several of the Trumps.
This is the actual answer. Remember Greenpeace, who would set sail to interrupt oil tankers?
Sailors in the Vaca Navy, what’s the point in having wealth if you can’t enjoy it?
If we were to rank people on the basis of how far they are on the path towards enlightenment, without a doubt Jeff Bezos would have all the world in front of him.
That picture. He’s one monocle away from being a bond villain and she looks like she’s halfway through the transformation into a vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He’s even got one eyebrow raised like the monocle is already there. I wonder if he’s just used to wearing one in his evil lair.
They can have their wedding in one of their beloved tax havens, not in some crumbling city that should be preserved as well as possible.
Doesn’t Venice take a tax for each visitor? They should up this as much as possible. If you really want to go there you can pay a 100+ euros.
Don’t get me started on cruise ships and the clientele on there.
Tax based on yearly income of the individual. Even with the creative accounting these shits do, it will still dwarf what normal people make.
100+ euros? Lets say its 200€ each. And lets say Jeffy B has 2000 guests. So he has to pay 400.000€ in taxes. You know how long he has to do nothing to earn 400k? 100 Seconds. That’s not even 2 minutes where he earns as much as we pay for a home.
Indeed, they do have a tax. But it’s essentially a tourist trap / tourist heaven now, a giant partying hub with few notable events that appeal to the ‘haute culture’ that, somehow, feels consumeristic in nature.
It looks like Lauren Sanchez has had one too many plastic surgeries.
yeah about 9 surgeries ago
Yep, looks more like Temu than like Amazon.
don’t know about Amazon but certainly not her Prime
“This event involves just 200 carefully selected guests and will bring major economic benefits to the city,” the local politician said
Tell me you don’t understand what is being protested without telling me you don’t understand what is being protested.
You cannot fathom the damages brought about by 20 years of Berlusconism
He knows but part of the major economic benefits for the city are already in his pockets
Well yeah, most likely that. I want to believe that there are some politicians and city officials and such who are just too stupid to realize the problems with capitalism. I just don’t wanna think bad of all my fellow humans, you know. That style of useless universal misanthropy is so 2008-2011 thinking for me personally.
It’s not stupidity. It’s willful blindness.
tomato potato. and how do you know, hmm? do you divine the exact information on a case-by-case basis from animal bones and cryptic symbolism in your dreams for every non-socialist on whether they are stupid or willfully blind? i often find myself making such grand generalizations, while being myself willfully blind to the stupidity of such endevours.
Because they wouldn’t get to that position if they were just plain stupid. But it’s amazing what someone can fail to understand when their livelihood depends on it.
Because they wouldn’t get to that position if they were just plain stupid.
Counterpoint: Trump
The influence of money outweighs intelligence every time, which is precisely why your second statement holds true.
You both seem to be right. Needless levels of empathy should also be avoided in some sense. i want to believe in aliens though
The activists have been heavily criticised by city officials, who argue that such high-rolling visitors are an important source of income.
I hope the voters remember to kick these politicians and officials to the curb. They clearly don’t work for the people they represent
All they see is income and screw everything and everyone else. Way too much of that right now from governments and corporations.
Meanwhile, Venice is sinking. But money is more important. :|
Don’t you need money to stop Venice sinking?
For temporary solutions, yes. They have three major, perpetual issues that are not solved by tourism money.
- Rising sea levels.
- Too many boats making waves rocking the foundations more.
- Too much groundwater extraction (seawater pressure will push inland with less groundwater pressure).
Remember when dolphins actually returned to the city for a little while? That’s how it’s supposed to be for citizens. Bezos should just tour somehwere that needs more tourism. I think the deep sea is open.
I think the Titanic could use a few more wealthy visitors.
I hear there’s a well-known company that started taking tourists down to it a few years back! They were all over the press! Sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
also jellyfish when tourists stopped coming.
I nominate the Bermuda Triangle to play host to Bezos and friends…
bezo is an alien, so he knows it wont affect his species.
I was thinking the middle of Tunisia.
remember when jellyfish took over venice during the pandemic.
It sure get’s better when 200 people, mostly from the US, get in their private jets and travel half the world. That’s how that works, right? Right?
They’re all just a bunch of showoffs.
Bezos can be taxed more for sure, good for them.
Having all those billionaires there gathered at once would be a massive opportunity to create a huge transferable amount of wealth under the right circumstances.
Yeah,but can we please leave Venice intact doing that? Without the tourists it’s a nice little city to be honest, and its inhabitants have suffered enough.
Maybe Marghera?
After reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, I’ve just been crossing my fingers for homemade drones to start taking down private planes.
Even the Romans used to be like “yeah you got too much money, time to kill you and add your wealth to the common fund”
You’re only bringing that up because it’s a highly relevant and logical solution to the problem of isolated and ego driven wealth objectively and negatively affecting society on a global scale, way to strawman, libtard.
You forgot to defend the conservative ideal of the Roman empire as the supreme fascist state! You need to talk about how the romans allowed the free market (with the guiding hand of daddy imperator) to determine where the money should go! Tell them that the money was used to build roads, not for trade, but to march their very manly soldiers on against the commies and the libs!
:wink:
Why the fuck would any of those people want to go to the wedding of a glorified shopkeeper anyway? Mick Jagger? WTAF?
He’s probably getting paid a literal boat load to be there. Kardashian already paid trump off to release someone from prison, so she’ll go where the wind takes her. Leonardo diCaprio probably wants to see some fresh college age Italian girls. The trumps want to be seen as one of the elites, even though they know everyone secretly hates them by now and see them as white trash. Bezos inviting them is another matter.
Rich people are weird.
Edit: and by that I mean that I find it hard to believe that at any of these people are still motivated by money, and if they are, they need to seek psychiatric help. I reckon it’s more out of boredom. Jagger and DiCaprio are probably there in support of his cradle robbing.
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. ”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
That’s a great Fitzgerald quote. I had to look it up. Written after The Great Gatsby but published shortly before, The Rich Boy is a novelette. From 1926.
- I fucking hate knowing history. I fucking hate feeling like Cassandra.
Sometimes a DIY icepick lobotomy doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
Same as it ever was.
Bezos made (makes?) his people piss in bottles, he’s one of the richest in the world. They think they’re smart by being frugal. Yes, rich people are absolutely weird.
For the same reason they are rich. It is a network that is looking out after each other and protecting their class interests. You go there you shake some hands, exchange some numbers and strike a deal or two.
They forced him to the suburbs, now they’re like the little people.
I hope the people in those suburbs kick up a stink as well.
Venice “suburbs” are basically the industrial zone or the farm lands. It’s different than NA or Australian burbs.
Still gonna be people there.
Love to see it
I’m with the locals on this one. Bezos should go attempt something anatomically impossible on himself.
I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. It just made my back sore…
I’m sure the Venetians would gladly help lex luthor with any difficulties in bending
Ironic. Venice was built by people like Bezos.
Lmao if you say so, Ayn Rand
Nothing was ever actually built by people like Bezos.
Nothing was ever built by a person on a computer.
Don’t diminish his work. If you want billionaires to have less influence you have to replace what they do. If you think they do nothing then you have nothing to understand.
Of all places, Venice is in the top 5 of places that cannot complain about being commercialized and rented out. Simping for Venice just shows how big the hate for Bezos is which isn’t justified when looking at the criticism:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
Where does the hate come from? He shows the limits of worker organized structures in comparison. All the unemployed could have built Amazon by themselves. The focus should be placed on finding new forms of cooperation, not on hating Bezos.
Ok, Jeff
You simping this hard for Bezos for free is the really sad part.
To me, the sad part is that I am not simping, but nobody recognizes that. Like a bull in a bullfight, people attack billionaires without seeing the dagger.
Especially Amazon, people could have recognized the idea and created a cooperative competitor. Bezos is a billionaire because they haven’t.
There are four options for the billionaire situation. Do nothing, organize a new party, civil war or starting competing businesses.
Hating Bezos without understanding his skills looks like the first option to me. In a world of flooding zones, that makes me wary.
People like Bezos actively prevents competitors from emerging. You equating someone who received $245,000 from his parents with any random guy who could have done the same is culpably dense. His skills are being the business equivalent of a cancer that kills its host in order to grow.
And yet, what other options exist right now?
But starting another regular company would end up with yet another billionaire, if successful. To avoid billionaires, businesses have to be structured and financed differently anyway.
Where does the hate come from?
He hordes more wealth than almost anyone else in the entire world. The man could fucking cure cancer and I would still hate him and consider him a horrible person. Nobody needs or deserves that much money when so much of the word is struggling to get by. And nobody makes that much money without exploiting others.
He owns shares of Amazon, not money. If he sells those he loses his influence.
People are struggling because markets are distorted, including preventing free global movement of people. Figure out who does that before hating Bezos.
And that shows you don’t understand the power of “just owning shares”. It’s a whole fucking shit load better than having income or money. He can take whatever loan he wants with his stocks as collateral. He skips out completely on doing anything helpful to society whatsoever. People are struggling because of this system, yes, and people like Bezos are happily living grand off of it
Of course. But Bezos taking loans is only slightly connected to keeping people poor. As far as I know Bezos also hasn’t financed a regime change for some mining operations.
Other corporations depend much more on keeping people poor. They don’t get the attention because they are not household names. It’s not good that richness has become the measure for evil, and not evil itself.
Look up “criticism of Amazon” or anything like that and you’ll see he isn’t just a good guy who happened to make a big benevolent corporation. From antitrust practices, to design theft, especially from POC, counterfeit products, special tax deals designed to contribute as little as possible, a significantly negative effect on the environment and more. Add to that Bezos’ personal relationships with business and government leaders that are actively trying to keep people poor, including Trump. It’s not the good-guy corporation you think it is.
And yes, when you’re worth 220 billion dollars and you do nothing positive with it whatsoever, you’re problematic, bordering on evil. It’s greed. If Bezos gave a flying shit about humanity, imagine what kind of change he could actually do.
His work, his sole accomplishment, is maximizing value extraction. That’s not nothing, it’s less than nothing because it’s a monumental net negative for the rest of society.
Maximizing value extraction is not bad as long as there is a free market. That’s what drives competition and brings prices down. Of course, employees and customers need other options for this to be fair.
Unless you organize a cooperating economy, maximizing value extraction is inevitable.
Besides, you shouldn’t ignore the work he does.
Maximizing value extraction is not bad as long as there is a free market.
Yes it is. It is inherently exploitative.
Lemmy, the software you’re using right now, was built by a person on a computer. As was the operating system your computer uses to function.
As was the management structure, leadership culture and selection of markets by Bezos.
People on computers work, but so do CEOs.
Don’t diminish his work? The world could easily do with Amazon, or with an alternative/competitors/etc.
So Bezos himself is irrelevant in the discussion about important leaders. He wishes he was in that group.
No matter how one looks at that assertion, it’s just plain fucking wrong.
Did slave owners build Venice? No. Rich Romans? Also no. Someone who isn’t a slave owner but worked all his subjects to the bone? Nope as well.
You have it backwards. Do I miss the /s?
Did slave owners build Venice? No.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_slave_trade
Rich Romans? Also no.
This is further supported by documentation on the so-called “apostolic families”, the twelve founding families of Venice who elected the first doge, who in most cases traced their lineage back to Roman families
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republic_of_Venice
Bezos doesn’t come from a rich family
Ted was a Danish American unicyclist born in Chicago to a family of Baptists.
Ted struggled with alcohol and with his finances. Jacklyn left her husband to live with her parents, filing for divorce in June 1965 when Jeff was 17 months old.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
Bezos is a rich trader, like the Venetians. Compared to them he doesn’t look that bad.
Downvoters, these are facts and OP is wrong. You should’t build your convictions on lies. Find valid reasons for the things you want to do.
Venice as a city predates the independent republic by roughly 2 centuries
By your logic, Bezos built Washington, which is where Amazon started
By your logic, people visit Venice for the fisher village huts.
If you don’t see what the elite does, how can you live in an equal society? Then nobody does those things and the society crumbles or those who do become the next elite.
or perhaps, built by people enslaved by the likes of bezos.
keep on simpin’ serf.
Keep on serfin’ simp.
You need people to organize and give directions. People on their own are trapped in the routines they have. There will never be built something pretty like Venice without leaders. All you do by making the recognition of leadership toxic is that there won’t be leaders [that you can choose or build up] who organize a better life for you.
To add to this:
Venice is the historic city of global trade that is filled with tourist second homes. To celebrate with the inhabitants is simping on its own. The working people don’t live in Venice anymore. People who object are other rich people who feel diminished because they cannot rent the city themselves.
The elephant in the room is the introduction of the tourist ticket for Venice. How can Bezos rent the city? He must have bought all tickets for the day. Now, was the ticket introduced by his influence to make that possible? That would be something to object, not the renting itself.
Jesus Christ, this is the worst case of billionaire apologia I’ve ever seen. You are just going to town on those boots.
Edit: Great Man Theory is the worst kind of cuckoldry, you fucking simp.
Great Man Theory is the worst kind of cuckoldry
Jesus Christ
Do you see what you did?
You are missing my point entirely.
of great men, or heroes: highly influential and unique individuals who, due to their natural attributes, such as superior intellect, heroic courage, extraordinary leadership abilities, or divine inspiration, have a decisive historical effect.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory
My argument is that there is no need to rely on divine leaders. Any leader could do. But for that, a climate must exist that fosters leaders so that some are available. By being toxic, the left eliminates their leaders and they end up as customers of Amazon, which they despise, but cannot change.
To be fair, his “JC vs Great man” reply was funny. Not enough, but funny.
Hey, we got a case of oligarch bootlickin’ here!
This is the most disgusting comment I’ve seen on Lemmy. People got priced out, but we sure need leaders so lets bring more rich assholes in to fuck everyone.
The point is that if you foster the leaders yourself you are not led by rich assholes but by people that you choose and who respect you.
He is not a leader. A guy who lets empliyees die in tornadoes because he just can’t let them off work is not a leader. A guy who polices employees so aggressively that they have to pee in bottles is not a leader. A guy who funds the celebration of a technoauthoritarian state is not a leader. A guy who violates antitrust laws to stamp out small businesses is not a leader. He’s a scourge and should be shunned. He’s extremely bad for society and probably our whole species.
Yes, if you want to define it like that.
rome conquered and enslaved millions of people. then became so beholden to consuming that they consumed themselves. Then they allied with the nazies. They are definitely very pretty people though.
The mongols surpassed Italy and rome by a wide margin, its strange how no one worships them. could it be? Could be it because they weren’t white?
keep on simpin serf. The time for emperors and kings should be over, but here we have ‘little people’ begging for the ruling class to just spit a little of their bread crumbs into their mouths. its ridiculous
The mongols … Could be it because they weren’t white?
As far as I know, the mongols ended slavery. That’s the big no no.
begging for the ruling class to just spit a little of their bread crumbs into their mouths. its ridiculous
Yes, like simping for the people of Venice who are allowed to live in the pretty city.
But telling me to not simp for Bezos. Instead U should beg in style and protest for more handouts.
However, I am not simping for Bezos but pointing out the double standard for Venice.
time for emperors and kings should be over
Bezos is just one of the richest people. He hasn’t created the system. Others did and do. Focussing on Bezos isn’t helpful to understand what needs to change.
You earlier “If it wasnt for people like bezos venice wouldn’t exist!”
you now; “yeah bezos isn’t to blame its the system!”
hes part of the system, literally you are going to bat for a rich man then backing down to save face. “please spit in my mouth, bezos!” is your thesis and don’t even try to pretend anymore. I would say its you who has double standards here but its clear you have no standards.
keep licking that boot.
Yep. Dude bought the system.
In the same way that it is true that Bezos hasn’t built Venice but the workers. Bezos organizes the trading but he is just new money. His influence must be much smaller than his wealth.
Bezos organizes the trading?
he absolutely does not, he pays people to do that for him. You fool.
