How can the poor get ahead if all of the resources on the planet are claimed and fenced off?

4% of the population owns 98% of the world’s wealth.
They can’t.

@loser Then new players have no hope? What about new discoveries…someone’s buying up pieces of the moon as we speak…and the internet and knowledge based careers are they still available? We need more resources

@loser
Not that I don’t think that there is a disproportionate distribution of wealth but I think it’s more like 20% of the population control 80% of the wealth.

and all the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name . . .
oh wah oh wah oh wah

Money attracts money.. that’s why poor people (and middle class) are stuck at the bottom. We don’t have the mean$$$ to get to the top.

@talljasperman when I play a unfair game I try another one or I start over… do we need to start over or play another game?

@talljasperman If only life were as simple as a game of Monopoly…when the going gets tough, accuse the opponent of cheating, then start again…

@HTDC or cheat oneself? I don’t like games I can’t win

@talljasperman Ah yes, good point. When the other player takes a toilet break, seize the opportunity to steal their money and then accuse them of cheating.

@HTDC lol

You don’t get rich today by mining tin, staking land, or cutting down trees, at least not in the developed world.

Today’s successes come from executing ideas and providing services. And no one has those locked up in a vault. Find a niche that you love and understand, then make your own success.

Stop worrying about what’s already taken.

@loser
Please post data.

@talljasperman: Poor people are poor because they are losers and they suck. Think of all the poor African nations rich with natural resources. Think of Japan with very few natural resources. Eventually most resources migrate to productive people (as they should).

@malevolentbutticklish are you rich then?

@malevolentbutticklish
Don’t be a dick wad.

@SeventhSense @talljasperman: I’m the dick wad? talljasperman here wants to rob the ant and give all his hard-earned resources to the grasshopper.

@malevolentbutticklish no all I want is Lurve

“Malevolent” is right. Wow. Ever hear of win/win? It’s been known to happen.

lurve… lurve for the poor

@malevolentbutticklish doesn’t the ant want the grasshoppers food too

I like to think that a large wealth disparity is unstable.

what if there was no public or private ownership of wealth and we had higher goals as priorities?

@talljasperman

then we’d be living in a fantasy world. I call it the “Isle of Elmonath”. It’s a wonderfully socio-anarchist place in which everyone takes care of each other and no one is greedy.

Unfortunately, I’ll never get to see it in real life.

@Seek_Kolinahr isn’t Fluther sorta-like this?

@talljasperman: “isn’t Fluther sorta-like this” <== Fluther is the result of venture-capital investment and entrepreneurship. You are allowed to be here because one day your page-hits may be monetized—likely by corporate advertisements. Go Fluther!

@malevolentbutticklish
The basis of the acquirement of wealth was the plundering of Third world nations not as equipped by violent methods, propaganda and deception. If that is the world that you want to live in then you will ultimately have a Fascist world in which violence is the sole basis for those with power. I do not want to live in that world. I would only defend the subjugated with greater aggression against Fascism.

Or you’re assuming that you have the capacity to understand every socio economic, medical, psychological, racial, historical, and educational disparity and have come to the conclusion erroneously that everyone is starting on the same playing field and has equal access to the same rights. Which is truly a fantasy.

Or you don’t care one way or another and would stick you’re head in the sand and pretend none of this is happening but benefit from the effects like you mentioned.

P.S- Japan also think it’s their right to consume 20% of the world’s seafood and slaughter whales. Should that be allowed?

@SeventhSense: Japan has acquired their right to consume 20% of the world’s seafood because they were there first at a time when the sea was open to anyone. Whoever starts acquiring land on the moon first will own that land too. Is it fair the China or India may own the moon one day and that Niger and the USA will not? I believe it is 100% fair. At this point if we want Japan to stop fishing we need to either purchase those rights from them or to fight a war. Japan might just give up the right to be friendly but it is doubtful.

@malevolentbutticklish
Our outlook for the future is on very different trajectories. Only one holds the promise of a future at all.

Education.

@SeventhSense: In fact the environmental problems = no future argument is ridiculous. Consider that such an argument implies there could never be a thriving Moon/Mars colony.

@malevolentbutticklish
Environment is only one part of it. A new paradigm of cooperation among nations is foremost. Star Wars is a fantasy. If we get to the place where extend war to space we’re already doomed.

@SeventhSense: “A new paradigm of cooperation among nations is foremost.” <== Wrong. You just end up with a big monopoly that doesn’t care about its customers. There must be numerous nations for competition. This competition must create winners and losers for it to be meaningful.

Again your focus is only a perpetuation of the military state which endlessly manufactures enemies, competition, war and death.
How you can imagine that peacefully coexisting is wrong illustrates how different our beliefs are about humanity.

@SeventhSense: Monopolies don’t work for the people. This is not only true of business but also of world-government. Without government there is no external force of competition driving improvement (or stopping regression). It sounds nice that countries don’t need competition but clearly they do.

You’re presupposing a business construct as is at present. The only problem is that this system will eventually collapse. It is unsustainable. The next time the economy collapses, and it will, it’s not getting up again without a radical restructuring of the very paradigm with which we view the world and our relationship to each other.