image transcription:

big collage of people captioned, “the only people I wouldn’t have minded being billionaires”
names(and a bit of info, which is not included in the collage) of people in collage(from top left, row-wise):

  • Alexandra Elbakyan, creator of Sci-Hub. perhaps the single-most important person in the scientific community regarding access to research papers.
  • Linus Torvalds, creator of linux kernel and git, courtesy of which we have GNU/Linux.
  • David Revoy, french artist famous for his pepper&carrot, a libre webcomic. inspiration for artists who are into free software movement
  • Richard Stallman, arch-hacker who started it all. founded the GNU project, free software movement, Emacs, GCC, GPL, concept of copyleft, among many other things. champions for free software to this day(is undergoing treatment for cancer at the moment).
  • Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president of VLC media player for 2 decades now
  • Ian Murdock, founder of Debian GNU/Linux and Debian manifesto. died too soon.
  • Alexis Kauffmann, creator of framasoft, a French nonprofit organisation that champions free software. known for providing alternatives to centralised services, notable one being framapad and peertube.
  • Aaron Swartz, a brilliant programmer who created RSS, markdown, creative commons, and is known for his involvement in creation of reddit. he also died too soon.
  • Bram Moolenaar, creator of vim, a charityware.

on the bottom right is the text reading, “plus the thousands of free software enthusiasts working tirelessly.”

  • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
    191·
    11 months ago

    I have a standing theory that once a person is no longer concerned about their welfare or the welfare of their descendants, they go crazy.

    Like, once you reach a point where survival is no longer a problem, that part of your brain goes nuts. It’s not a flawless theory, since philanthropy is a thing and people like Dean Kamen exist, but it’s a thing that seems to happen an awful lot.

    • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website
      13·
      11 months ago

      I think it’s more that billionaires have very few people to surround themselves with except for sycophants and other billionaires.

      Nobody says no to them, everything they’ve ever done was the right thing according to everyone around them, so why should the next thing they do or say be wrong?

      Covid really really accelerated the craziness among them.

    • Outcide@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      11 months ago

      I’ve worked for several very, very rich men. The pattern I notice is that they always get surrounded by people who make sure that they never, ever hear “no”.

      Imagine living in a world where every inane thing that comes out of your mouth, somebody immediately makes it their mission to try and make it happen. You no longer get any kind of useful feedback from the world and your opportunities to learn from feedback are greatly reduced.

      I agree, I think in the end, it does make them crazy.

    • Sagifurius@lemm.ee
      29·
      11 months ago

      Survival no longer is a problem to literally everyone in north america. yeah people die, but, when was the last time you have heard of anyone who is not anorexic starving to death? People still talk like survival is an issue, but that’s because they actually mean not being comfortable.

      • planetaryprotection@midwest.socialEnglish
        112·
        11 months ago

        This is simply not true. Starvation isn’t the only thing that kills people - they die of easily treatable medical issues all the time because of lack of health insurance. Unhoused people die of exposure every summer and winter.

        • Sagifurius@lemm.ee
          113·
          11 months ago

          I mean i tried to make it painfully obvious I wasn’t talking about medical conditions, car accidents, or crackheads being stupid, but i guess i had to come back and spell it out.

          • SpongyAneurism@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
            51·
            11 months ago

            You’re missing the point. The risk might not be very high on average, but if you don’t want to end up on the streets, regular people still have to kind of function inside the system somehow and continuously work for regular income. The will to survive is part of what drives them to do so.

            Billionaires on the other hand, wouldn’t even have to lift a finger to be able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. On the contrary, they’d have to try really hard to get rid of all that wealth. Major fuck-ps and intentional money burning excluded, the chance that they end up having trouble getting their basic needs fulfilled is miniscule. THAT is the difference.