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Comment by mathverse | Hacker News Reader

We need to tackle generational wealth. Not by outright taxing it but force an action on inactive or speculative capital. Democracy is being eroded if an actual power can be obtained through accumulating wealth.

I dont want billionaires to change the world. I want elected people to do that.

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I don’t see any smart, competent and nice person elected by the the greedy, dumb and dishonest average Joe.

Then invest in raising the average. Did you know there are only about 8 million PhDs in the whole world?

To be honest I don't such a very big connection between intelligence and education

Why not by outright taxing it? IMHO that would be the most effective and least overhead way to achieve what you want.

Show me 1 single truly good honest person who managed to get through all the crap of local and state politics to get into party and get elected... if you think you know some, you just don't know them well enough.

There are no nice people in politics anywhere near real power, just broken, messed up, sociopaths and so on. Why do you think these folks would do anyhow better than rich when deciding common good? Also, every successful politician has somebody powerful and rich behind them who groomed them into position they have now, its not like they get elected and decide/vote from that point on based on their own moral values, thats not how real life looks like.

> every successful politician has somebody powerful and rich behind them who groomed them into position they have now, its not like they get elected and decide/vote from that point on based on their own moral values

That sounds like an argument for public financing of political campaigns and the elimination of private contributions.

How are political campaign contributions not bribery? For some reason, we allow and have legalized bribery in this area.

All of the problems you point out are entirely related to money in politics though. The gp said "Democracy is being eroded if an actual power can be obtained through accumulating wealth" - that's the point here. Politicians are bought, elections are bought.

I dunno, I think billionaires are doing a pretty good job changing the world (thinking of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and OpenPhil as the best examples).

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio...

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