I am from a family in the 3rd quartile, nobody ever said I could grow up to be a Doctor. Most told me to 'go to state school and get a shitty office job and be happy with it'. In my college all the kids studying to be med students were driving used BMWs/Mercedes and paying several grand extra a year for parking, new dorms, and the like.
Many think the poor to be parasites, but they are actually the opposite.
After all, what is the mark of a parasite? It makes the host think that it is benign, of no harm whatsoever, and in some cases it even convinces its host that it provides a benefit. All the while it visits the most harmful deprivations upon the host, right up to sucking the lifeblood from it until it dies a horrible death.
No other tranche of human society matches those attributes more effectively than the wealthy.
I agree, but I'd take it a step further and say the ultra rich are even worse than parasites. Parasites serve a purpose to the stability of their ecosystems. Billionaires just consume.
Even then, viruses are a crucial part of pretty much any ecosystem on the planet. If viruses all disappeared it would be the end of pretty much all complex life on the planet for a while. Maybe forever depending on exactly how crucial they are to evolution as a whole.
Well if I learned one thing about biology it is that it eludes simplistic notions as the one presented in the meme, so I get where you are coming from here. However I very much doubt the sudden disappearance of viruses would end complex life or evolution, since there are other avenues of intra-species mutation and inter-species gene transfer. It would doubtlessly upset the balance of pretty much every existing ecosystem of course.
That said, don't overthink it, it's just a meme about the (slightly modified) Agent Smith reference so neatly lying around in the parent comment.
Although, just a little asterisk and footnote moment, it is technically possible to gain some level of wealth, like really really upper middle class, through means that are not directly predatory. Incredibly unlikely, but possible.
You used to be correct. Now, the IT have been traded for dice of errors. There is no correct result for anyone, though a few of the result will appear to be correct long enough to sucker the viral tricking the trade of humans for AI.
I'd argue that even very wealthy people who actually do something, like pro athletes, are getting paid correctly. If you're one of the best in the world at what you do, then you should get paid a lot. It's just that the exploiter class is still taking the lions share of the value they create... And "entertainment value" is dubious at best imo. But the exploiter class pays well for people to keep us distracted... I guess: don't hate the players, hate the game-owners
I like this one because when I was really into MMOs it was interesting to see the birth of exploiter philosophy within the game. Then the positions that the exploiters would always take when it was suggested we crack down on cheating was that they were being unfairly persecuted and their mere presence benefits everyone.
Even after the exploit was patched they usually got to keep their ill-gotten gains because they would turn what ever it was into intangibles or launder everything.
It was just a complete microcosm of capitalism. Which can all be summed up by their creedo, "exploit early and exploit often."
Even funnier, Steve Bannon had ties with WoW gold farmers.