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Old Mon, Mar-15-21, 17:19
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wbahn wbahn is offline
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Posts: 8,651
 
Plan: Atkins-ish, post-WLS
Stats: 408.0/288.0/168.0 Male 72 inches
BF:
Progress: 50%
Location: Southern Colorado, USA
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I don't begrudge him and others their millions or billions one bit. They can have whatever size house they want or however many planes they want. It's their money. If I don't want people telling me what I can and can't do with the money I earn, then I don't have the right to do that to them. If nothing else, I consider how many people are employed building and maintaining the things they buy. Most of us make a living only because other people spend the money they've earned (and vice versa).

Where I draw the line (and I don't think Gates *quite* crossed it with this one -- the video wants to make it appear that way but it clearly has a bias it is pushing hard) is when they proceed to dictate to everyone else how they should live and in a way that is hypocritical to the way they live. If they just want to tell everyone how they should live -- fine, everyone has the right to do that. The hypocrisy drives me up the wall -- and, again, Gates isn't quite there; the video implies that the he still eats MEAT hamburgers but we don't know that -- we don't know how long ago he said that and for all we know the hamburgers he eats now are made using synthetic beef. Have no idea. Yes, he's being very tone deaf telling people that they should eat things that most people can't reasonably afford, even in this country, when obviously that is no hurdle for him. But he may truly believe that the cost is sufficiently low that most Americans and other first world countries CAN reasonably afford them. He may be right or he may be wrong. Be that as it may, he's still only saying what people should do, and (to the best of my knowledge) isn't trying get legislation passed to force people to do it, or to get subsidies passed to force us to pay for making it come to pass "voluntarily".

But when people testify before congress about how the carbon emissions of every else should be reduced by force of law and then insist that those same restrictions shouldn't apply to their homes, or planes, or yachts because it's just one small piece and we shouldn't focus on individuals, that's what gets my blood boiling.
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