Incentives drive outcomes, do they not? It's too easy to become a billionaire as a charlatan and too hard as somebody able to make a difference. Rather than granting Zuck nearly unlimited power and politely asking him to use it wisely if he doesn't overly mind the inconvenience, why not create a world where monsters can't have that much power in the first place?
Yeah, but who is going to lobby for it? Certainly nobody with actual money to pay for the lobbying.
And which politician would want to vote that in? Certainly no one with any rich friends who donate to their campaigns. Which means no politician that supports this is ever going to have the budget to get elected in the first place.
And then you have the problem that you cannot just fix this in one country. Because then all these rich people will find tax loopholes to claim they’re not nationals and thus exempt from this tax. So you have to convince every rich person and every politician in every country to change.
And now that you’ve created a wealth vacuum, you need to ensure that nobody rises up to flip the system again, using their wealth to manipulate everyone into repealing these new laws.
And now we are at the stage of having to change the nature of humanity…
The problem we have is that economics is driven by scarcity and consumption; and humans are largely driven by greed (or at the very least, a desire to make life comfortable). And we can’t have a future where rich people aren’t greedy, without changing the entire way economics works. Which also requires changing human nature too.
The basic concept of an impenetrable global taxation scheme came to mind about a decade ago, but at the time I was hopeful such a thing would be possible. (Ain’t no communist, but realize nice to have public roads etc. to get your employees to work - everyone chips in -> we all make more money.)
Is it human nature to rise up once a breaking point is reached? Since I concede it is not in our nature to finish our shift at our third job and go knock on neighbors’ doors, rock the vote. (agitating to elect the least greedy capable people)
