hexapus

I can't think of a reason he should be exempt. Every billionaire is a billionaire "on paper".

Here's my solution: Make being a billionaire illegal.

That's it. It's incumbent upon asset-holders to remain under the limit. It's up to them how close to the line they wish to tread.

No one becomes a billionaire ethically...no one produces that level of value, and absolutely no one needs that much money. And we have evidence that it literally breaks your brain when you attain that level of wealth. It's only possible to attain through exploitation. If you are found to hold a billion dollars in assets, you go to prison and forfeit all of your assets, so it's up to them to manage their assets accordingly. Give it away, pay your workers more, distribute it however you want, but a single person cannot be allowed to control that much capital - full-stop.

If you flee the country, any assets you leave behind are forfeit and seized. You will not be allowed to retain the wealth you accumulated on the on the backs of taxpayers and labourers...it will be forcefully redistributed for the public good.

For any country that does this, extreme wealth disparity will be eliminated. If there are countries that allow billionaires exploit the working class and public infrastructure, then they can go build their fortunes there. Equitable, civilised countries will outlaw it. Billionaires only exist because we allow them to.

Someone with less than a billion will be just fine, and can enjoy a reasonable, moderate amount of wealth in peace.

Bullshit...they aren't sharing them with the internet archive, and at least the inventory of the defunct bookstore might have ended up with a collector or something. These slop factories have a less sound business model than any given bookstore, and you think they'll preserve those scans and share them with the world? Corporations regularly delete media for utterly capricious reasons.

Here's a multi-billion dollar artificial intelligence to do your work for you! One caveat, and it’s a real one : The AI is going to spew incomprehensible word-vomit that makes you feel like you're losing your grip on reality.

So a company with an wildly superior compression algorithm stumbling into a society-breaking AI isn't so far-fetched. Jesus...Silicon Valley really was ahead of its time.

I mean, save for the part where the founders recognised the threat it posed to society and acted responsibly rather than unleashing it on the public and sucking down billions in VC money.