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Comment by alphonsegaston | Hacker News Reader

Disney was never really interested in democracy. His admiration for fascism is pretty well-documented. He even escorted the Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl around Hollywood:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/walt-the-quas...

Epcot was to be organized around more or less the same principles as European fascism.

Holding up his plans (or those of Gates) without questioning the fundamental morality of the vast inequality of wealth and power they represent is how America went so far off the rails in the first place.

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It's not fair to hold up Gates as an example of how things are unequal. He's using his foundation more effectively than most people to research real solutions to hard societal problems. He's one of the rare instances of rich people who I'd trust to give my money to make the world a factually and legitimately better place, including the concept of a more equal place. In fact, Warren Buffett has promised to give all his money to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So have other rich people. Gates also is a driving cheerleader of The Giving Pledge where rich people commit to giving their fortunes to charity.

> America went so far off the rails

Huh? It was always an owners republic, like Rome before.

For the 2.0 version they upped the advertising budget.

Not a 2.0 version. The was "New Rome" or Constantinople, it was 2.0. What is Rome 3.0 is undecided[1], but I believe that in any case Rome 3.0 now is deep in the history. Deeper that Columbus and discovering of America. Though Mussolini renewed idea with fascist Italy as a Third Rome. So, I believe, that Rome 4.0 is the least version number applicable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Rome

One thing I will give the Roman's, they went out and fought their own wars. No bones spurs there.

Actually, towards the end the Romans were hiring mercenaries, many of them foreign.

Income inequality can be seen as a sign of a healthy capitalist society.

http://paulgraham.com/gap.html

http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

A sign of a healthy capitalist society for some maybe, but not a healthy society in general.

Paul Graham is a wealthy libertarian anyway, so of course he would think that income inequality is not inherently a bad thing, I don't see how pointing to some of his essays proves anything in that regard.

Do you also ignore the arguments for more redistribution from any non-rich person, since they're bound to benefit from it?

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