they are the fittest on the basis of their “good genes” and anyone who does not succeed like they have must lack those “good genes” are thus deserve nothing.

It must be hard trying to justify feeling superior to everyone else when you are, in fact, Bill Acknan. I imagine eugenics is quite the convenient hand wave.

Evangelicals have prosperity gospel. Billionaires have prosperity eugenics. Assholes will invent belief systems to victim blame instead of going to therapy.

Selfish genes. A much bigger cohort earning at that age are contributing to their families in need.

Post-1965 racism tends to flow from the idea that social disparities emerge from a "culture of poverty" whose moral failings legitimate the denial of welfare state provisions But if they believe genetics create those disparities, that undermines the moral basis for denying people assistance

There's something faintly Calvinist about the whole thing

Zero-sum thinking + the Just World Fallacy is a potent, nightmarish combination.

We really need Jesus to come back and explain it's okay for you to have more than other people. You don't need to justify it. You don't need reasons to think poor people DESERVE to be poor. And, no, you don't need to disseminate your wealth among the poor. Just, you know, be NICE to them.

Why is he so bad at tennis then.

This why they’re trying designer babies… and those poor kids.

The Nazi phrase was “Lebensunwertes Leben”

also, who was paying a 10-year-old to dig ditches?

As a 10 year old I dug ditches as my grandparents were building their house. I thought I had contributed a lot to the project and was informed otherwise when I was an adult talking about it with my family. Clearly this guy has had no one around him to insert reality into his childhood memories.

As someone hiring an arborist for the second time this year, who the heck is hiring then to do tree care?

I suspect that’s a fancy way of saying he got paid to mow and rake leaves

I tried to dig a hole with a buddy when I was about 10. Spent maybe an hour and a half and got a 2 foot diameter, 8" deep divot.

the truly ultrarich insist that only the freshest and most self-starting youths, steely of eye and good of gene, may plumb the fantasy graves they decided would make their backyards a little more fun — in exchange for a little walking-around gold, of course.

It sounds like he got paid for chores, not that he was out hustling for lawns to mow.

This is why I will not pay my kids to take care of their goddamn selves. The profit is not money. The profit is THE ABILITIES. The ability to judge a house unclean and recognize what they can do about it. The ability to decide that a job needs doing and do it. The work and practice is the profit.

Republicans.

He probably dug a hole once in his yard and that’s what he means

Eric Trump: "I was on construction sites when I was 11, 12 years old doing demo, breaking down walls, concrete, sheet rock, plumbing, stuff I literally still do for myself these days." There is a particular bent to rich boys' lies.

Almost anyone, to Eric: "Sure, dude, now let me see your hands."

It's when he was helping to break ground on the Oregon Trail, most likely

His mom made him pull weeds in the backyard

And dig holes for plants. Some of the plants were big!

Nobody who’s ever actually dug a ditch would claim that a 10 year old can do it.

Oops, did he say ditches? He meant graves in the woods.

Well, he is lying so...

10yo Bill Ackman out there yelling these ditches aren’t gonna dig themselves as he grabs the shovel.

Nobody. As usual the ‘by my bootstraps’ stories are fiction.

"hey my ten year old son wants money" "did you give it to him" "yeah last week I gave him $500 to do his own laundry" "oh yeah we were gonna have somebody dig up our garden, he could do that for a similarly exorbitant amount of money that someone without our privilege couldn't conceivably guess"

I imagineered this one but this is absolutely how some of these rich families will act

in hindsight $500 was too low

I mean, it's one ditch, Michael. What could it cost? $500?

Seems to me, had he been completely candid(veracious)& didn't JUST make up shit, he would've mention the W.E.I(White-Entitlement-Inheritance) nws, the long list of embellished resumes' E.g. Senator Kennedy...surely yall are aware that there is a city in Mississippi named"OXFORD", right? ic-yall-mi?

When I was in high school in the 70s I was hired off the books to change lamp ballasts - up on rolling scaffolding, gather and load up sheet metal, and sweep out the floor of a shut down sheet metal fabrication plant. No safety equipment, no breathing apparatus. I coughed up crap for weeks after.

That experience taught me a lot. Like that OSHA is a really good thing.

Also also his dad's got a wiki entry, he's rich because his daddy was rich

I’d like to know who taught him that wealth accumulation was a validation of his humanity?

250 years of America history.

Idk, if he’s Gen X it’s plausible, only because the 80s were a piece of something.

I used to dig gardens for my mom but ditches? Doubtful.

what kid hasn't tried to dig to China and then declared it a ditch and demanded someone pay them for it?

just googled it and if I dug a straight hole from Minneapolis i'd end up in the Indian Ocean, kinda near en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port-au...

If they admit their money & power is based on white men putting both thumbs on the scale, they're not superior They had to create special laws & cultural structures to win, but also think DEI is unfair meaning they can't compete on their merits. Logical consistency clearly not a conehead core skill

He means the holes he dug in the sand at Mommy and Daddy’s beach house, where Daddy gave him $100 for a small bucket full of sand.

Cynics would suggest that he got an “allowance” for doing “chores” but I’m certain he was advertising his ditch-digging services to local homeowners and businesses, and they hired him because of his reputation for outstanding work

Wikipedia says his dad was the former chairman of a real estate financing firm. I imagine there was substantial inherited wealth as well as college money.

Yes but who gives their rich pampered child the famously dangerous chore of ditch digging, that’s famously reserved for Irishmen

And that was when young Bill learned the lesson about sub contracting. And not paying those workers a living wage.

When you 'hire' your friends' kids it is not for the job they do.

He also admits to getting $100k in seed money from his parents, which...

EVERY frakking time with these "self made" guys, Here's Bezos story: "In 1994, Jeff held 60 meetings with family members, friends and prospective investors to get them to each invest around $50,000 apiece in Amazon and help him raise $1 million. Only 20 said yes, a group which included his parents."

I wish I’d gotten that kind of “no allowance”

Agreed! Just investing it in the S&P 500 and doing nothing would provide a super-healthy return!

What he inherited was “good money” 💰 not good genes 🧬.

I didn’t receive an allowance, I was just generously compensated for make work jobs only available to ackmans

Ha ha, “no allowance,” but $100k in seed money. What a tool.

Good (money in) jeans.

Ah, genetics!

It was a really big ditch

He means his parents paid him an allowance while he was at the beach making sand castles

A parent who wants some peace and quiet.

That’s funny. In my over 70yrs on this planet every ditch I’ve seen dug was by a backhoe or small bobcat trencher. Maybe guys with shovels watching for random dirt spills but didn’t the days of men digging ditches by hand end a very very long time ago? But it sure sounds tough!

John Gotti

Not ditches, but my grandparents paid me to mow their lawn and stack firewood. They're weren't wealthy, just middle class people.

I dug hard dirt in Phoenix for my parents BBQ pit with a pickaxe for weeks at 11YO and slept in the hole and never got paid Then again I am also not a billionaire Must have been because my first documented job at 14 was drafting a chipset for III-V semiconductor devices in the ASU EE department

Man I wish I had been paid for doing chores! My most detested one was weeding the garden. No gloves, just bare hands pulling out crab grass from hard-as-cement dirt in the full sun of a Southern California summer. No allowance either. I guess that’s why I am not a billionaire today. 🫤

i mean, it was that or burn through the witches, and 10 years old is still a little young w.r.t. fire safety.

Was it Kristi Noem's parents?

dr roel konijnendijk

They lie their asses off.

I never received an allowance and got up at 4:30 am every day to do a paper route starting when I was about 13. Either those 3 years made all the difference, or I have inferior genes I guess

No one. This is like Trump boys talking about working construction when they were 12. They drank cokes while men had jobs to do and they 'helped'. Summer before I turned 12, my dad he doing yard work three days a week, at offices and rental houses. It wasn't a real job and Ackman's a fucking liar.

This every time. When the CEO of a meat packing plant gets arrested for hiring undocumented refugees, I will know they are serious about the problem. Not simply cruel bigots picking on people who cannot fight back.

Was this man born in a Decemberists’ song?

Was he 10 in the 1930s? Lol

He created his own industry of snitching on other 10-year-olds when he saw them eating too much candy.

Having done not just chores, but very particular forms of manual labor, is always a big part of these guys' self-mythology. You notice it's never "I had to clean my parents' cars and scrub out the bathroom."

Live GIF of the conversation:

He says he did odd jobs BEGINNING when he was ten years old. The ditch digging probably began when he was a bit older.

His dad once paid him $10 to clean out the leaves from the swale in front of their house.

It clearly shows he has never touched a pick-axe in his life.

It’s so laughable and insane

An 11-year-old with twice as much money

I came here to say he wasn’t doing any of those things except mowing lawns and taking leaves (which somehow turned into “lawn and tree care” LMAO)

Climbing trees with chainsaws, a rite of passage for the youth of [checks notes] Chappaqua, NY

You don't appreciate the struggles of growing up with a silver spoon in every orifice!

Bill Ackman kind of left out the multi-generational wealth he came from. His father owned a real estate investment firm that built NYC A firm started by his grandfather and uncle. Just a little leg up there…

Parents who don't want their kids to think they're getting an allowance.

In Westchester County! He’s just pretending he had the childhood from Rich Dad, Poor Dad(which was itself also a lie)

In Chappaqua! Like it’s all white, 0% poverty. It’s the most Westchester you can be.

He was burying bodies at age ten is my guess!

Who is they?

Gilded Age social Darwinism in its purest form

This is basically the entire pro-natalist (white supremacist with plausible deniability) movement

Being in the lucky sperm club doesn’t equal good genes.

The organization of our society with extreme wealth disparity can only be justified by an ordering of fitness and eugenics is the most robust* model to justify that ordering *:still not very robust

I guess what I’m saying is, maybe some of these dickheads are arriving at eugenics by observing the world and interpreting the data to come to that conclusion. But my guess is that they’re assuming the conclusion and working backwards

"Ackman was raised in Chappaqua, New York, the son of Ronnie I. (née Posner) and Lawrence David Ackman, the former chairman of a New York real estate financing firm, Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group.[10][11][12] He is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent." Raised himself up from poverty, did he?

"Mankind can be neatly organized into specialist castes based on immutable genetic factors which it is imperative we restructure all of society to conform to and optimize for. I, of course, am in the ruling Priest-King-Administrator caste, but that's incidental to the facts of reality."

This seems psychologically and sociologically related to divine right of kings: “I’m king because God said so, and you’re a peasant for the same reason.”

If he’s so sure it’s his “good genes”, and not dumb fucking luck, prove it. Start over from nothing - no name, no money, no credit, no connections etc… and do it again. Become a billionaire again, asshole. If it’s your genetically determined destiny it should just happen, right? Right???

what i find weird about this is it means they are not responsible for their success. they deserve no credit; they were just born that way. is that supposed to be a flex? but that requires adding 2+2 and listening to the words coming out of their own mouths

For someone so "intelligent," he really underestimates the random component involved in determining these outcomes.

It’s a big problem, though I think it’s pretty disturbing how many principles of eugenics the average American holds implicitly and even unwittingly

It makes it really difficult to investigate the actual generational effects of genetics on life outcomes because these fascists will abuse it and weaponsize it for their insane worldview.

They have to live with themselves somehow. Who wants to say "My family collaborated with Nazis" or "We made a fortune based on lies, racism, and dirty real estate deals"? It's easier to think they are just superior by luck.

Good genes, business school tuition, a job in the family business and a 100k nest egg... How did he overcome the adversity?

Then why do they all look like that

Confused why his “great parents” didn’t teach him that abilities based on genetics are an obligation to do good for others, not a justification to hoard resources for oneself

His father was a real estate magnate. The „good genes“ he inheritated were millions and millions of dollars.

every person who was gifted enough wealth for a comfortable youth and is unwilling to accept that luck had anything to do with it necessarily comes to this conclusion.

And also, their good genes need to be propagated, to make the world smarter (see: Elon, Pavel Durov of Telegram)

Calvinism for atheists

They can't seem to accept that luck and or sucking up are factors in they wealth. That would mean that they are just luckier than 'those' people.

Calvinism as a justification for eugenics

And good luck DEFINITELY had nothing to do with it!

The good luck of being well connected since birth. "It's your fault you didn't choose rich parents like I did."

Isn’t this just Calvisism reheated?

in their subconscious, they know the math doesn’t square. they don’t work 100,000x harder than other people. they know they didn’t earn their wealth. the only way they can justify keeping it without admitting to being greedy bastards is if there’s another way they can “deserve” it. hence, eugenics.

This is Kennedys approach to health as well.

These origin stories almost always include, “and he had access to capital most of us don’t”

How could a sick old miser with the ethics of Al Capone claim to have "good values"?

It’s the fusion of eugenics and Calvinism

Where were those "good genes" when he played tennis the other day? 🤔

MAGA Republicans are clearly the party of eugenics and killing off the weaker people

Yeah, inherited wealth that only existed due to systemic inequity had nothing to do with it, I'm sure ... 😑

Just saying, where’s a yeongno when you need it?

They're also assholes as well... wonder if that was passed down.

Our "elite" universities where the rich send their kids were filled with eugenicists. This idea was amazingly normalized in the American ruling class and its institutions. Around late 20th century we decided to stop talking about it in the open, but the philosophy never really went away.

Man, when I was ten I shoveled snow for an entire winter to save up for my first Nintendo. Why am I not a billionaire? I must have screwed it up by being adopted.

No, he cheated lol. They all cheat, lie and steal lol

😂 What a lazy mediocre white guy with an IQ of 50 says.

Those words of his proves that he lives in a bubble.

Yikes!

It’s always “genes and values” instead of “means, opportunity and a hand out from daddy”

Genes aren't all he inherited.

Those stories are bullshit. Especially digging ditches.

There's a theory floating around that the scions of wealth inherited psychopath genes from their wealthy parents because they got wealthy precisely because they were anti-social psychopaths.

Now THIS one I could believe - I often say that our society greatly rewards psychopathic & sociopathic behavior, and that I’d love to see what a society would look like that rewarded empathic behavior instead 💔

Yeah, I think there's meat on this bone.

He's so full of shit on top of the eugenics tip of the hat. "What do poor people do? 🤔 Oh yes - dig ditches!"

Nuts

Having grown up among the debutante set, absolutely yes. Throwing your about-to-go-to-college children together for a long summer of parties, not only helps keep the money in the same families, but is very much a eugenicist project.

Also, don’t forget that Calvinist ideas about election and double predestination factor into this as well. WASPs thinking that it’s God’s will that they prosper because they are his elect children and that others deserve to suffer because they are not.

I can't speak for the quality of his genes but I can say with 99% confidence that the ONLY WAY you become a BILLIONAIRE is through thorough and continual moral failing, a complete lack of empathy, and greed.

Rule of thumb: if at least one of your parents has a Wikipedia page, it probably wasn’t just hard work and values that got you where you are

Ah yes, the billionaire gene. Because DNA is destiny. 🙄

It's a direct line from kings claiming to be descended from the gods

God and good genes don't make you a billionaire. Creativity, greed and narcissism can make you a billionaire. You can be a Bezos and have a $50 million dollar wedding or be a Bill Gates and give away $51 billion in a week because you don't want to die an asshole.

Did he say earlier that people become their names? I guess he meant genes.

He is very very confused.

Heard a great explanation recently about millionaires and billionaires. It boiled down to, you can become a millionaire by having a great idea that sells well. But others will copy the idea before you become a billionaire. For that, you have to cheat somehow: corner the market, block competitors...

I also didn't get an allowance and did odd jobs, but my dad wasn't a real estate financier who inherited his business from my grandfather and great uncle. Only one if us is a billionaire for some reason.

You clearly don't have good genes.🤣

We nominate for oblivion.

He never received an allowance, so it must be the good genes. White else could it be?

This is why I despise Idiocracy That and it's association of intelligence with ecomonic class

Weird way to say 'I was really lucky and got a lot of help'

If they're being honest most, maybe all, billionaires would say something similar. Musk, Thiel, Andressen, Zuckerberg, Ellison Koch, Bloomberg, even the "good ones" Pritzker or Cuban believe they are objectively superior to other people. See the rigged Monopoly experiment. youtu.be/Qri10wUxyos?...

Source: Your butt

I think the families who've had money for generations must teach their children belief in eugenics the way other families teach belief in God.

This is something I have known for awhile. The belief is that thier wealth is the indication they are inherently superior to the poor.

His parents were wealthy which helped him get into Harvard and greased his way to personal wealth. I’m so tired of this bootstrap bullshit.

Inherited good genes??? How does that make a person a billionaire?

Not one of these billionaires is handsome, naturally or physically athletic (probably not even coordinated) or attractive by way of grace and character but they want us all to pretend their wealth suddenly makes them one big beautiful bill..

I didn’t get an allowance either. I started babysitting at 10, (times were different back then) then waitressing at 14. I actually paid room & board. I was allowed to keep $5.00. I’m no where near millionaire status, never mind billionaire.

and I walked 5 miles each way to and from school in 5 feet of snow, then worked 8 hours at the textile factory up the street 7 days a week. Well, except for church on Sunday.

That’s a lot of fucking cars!

I will say this again and again: It has been proven that poverty affects the way the human brain works, but I have never seen anything warp the human mind like excessive wealth

They have gotten into their heads that because they are so rich, the are now super-human, and we are beneath them, like animals.

How is money for chores not an allowance? What do they think an allowance is?

They also very clearly believe that maximum wealth = worthwhile person

The very worst people with the very worst parent love to brag about their "good genes" Like Trump with his two literal monster parents both physically and morally (with his Daddy being arrested at a KKK meeting "berobed")

"He commenced his career in the real-estate business, working for his father at a commercial real-estate mortgage brokerage in New York, ‘Ackman Brothers & Singer Inc.,’ where he served as the chairman."

"I never received an allowance, my dad just bought my way into Harvard and then gifted me a chairmanship as my first job for being such a special boy."

I'd go with Occam's Razor on this - his dad got him into Harvard

One place where you see this, to an honestly shocking degree, is sports announcing

lemme guess: white announcers, black athletes

No actually! It's just totally commonplace to say that someone whose parents were also championship athletes that they have "good genes" or it's in their blood or whatever

(I mean sports announcing is also frequently extremely racist lol)

I assume athletic parents can give a leg up growing up, and commentators love an excuse to Remember Athletes, but whew those comments can get into weird territory quick.

Mmhmm

I grew up in a very wealthy area (we were definitely comfortable but not wealthy) and people would come to little league games and when a kid got a hit say things like "good breeding there!"

Well hang on. I think there has been pretty ample evidence that parental traits DO pass in to children. Champion athletes are more likely to have athletic children. Smart parents are more likely to have smart children. Artistic etc.

I think it’s more just a bit of confirmation bias leading people to believe parentage is more important than it is. For example, commentators will often note Patrick Mahome’s Quad-A dad but never talk about Tom Brady’s insurance salesman father

The problem starts earlier than that. The idea that more likely = only few exceptions is just not grounded in reality but people use confirmation bias to convince themselves that reality is different than it is.

I think it's important to understand that "more likely" does mean other people can't also be those things without their parents. However two 6' 5" people are significantly more likely to have a child that is tall than two 5'5" people.

The problem begins when you start assuming certain races have deficiencies. Like "white people aren't athletic" or "black people aren't smart". Or assuming that children can't be something because their parents weren't that thing.

Also, "success" has too many factors, including luck to be a genetic thing. There is no "success" gene.

Fact...you're spot on.

Many other people worked tough odd jobs, and still work them, without becoming billionaires. How much money does it take to acquire good genes?

All these guys are mad that their genetic good fortune can’t compete w that of women or men w more melanin. I will never feel like they have something on me OTHER than maybe the privilege they carved out for their good fortune.

… and are also complete pieces of shit.

All of them are very confident about their ‘good genes’, but none of them know anything about genetics. Dunning-Kruger strikes again!

They always have—it’s an entitlement issue.

So a guy who never had to worry about where a meal or his education was coming from, who never had to think on whether his parents could keep a roof over his head, who was allowed to the freedom to work IF HE WANTED TO, and gets seed money is genetically superior. It's the genes. Bootstraps, baby!

Doubled the "to". Doh

Professor Michael Kraus has done research on class and psychology. He calls it essentialist views. Where people of a "higher class rank" are more likely to believe the kind of person someone is, is due to genetic inheritance. Class structure is due to inherent traits, from the individual out.

Not a good look for Nazis.

I’m waging he’s got several more lifetimes before he figures it out.

weirdly, I too came from a "good family" with "good genetics" and had odd jobs as a kid, worked through college and through graduate school. And yet I am somehow not a billionaire. Hmm.

Ackman was born rounding 3rd base with a silver spoon up his ass and thought he hit a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the 9th down by 3. A true white privileged asshole if there ever was one.

Plainly and proudly. Disgusting.

I call bullshit. You didn't need an allowance, because they probably indulged your every whim. #SilverSpoonBullshit

As a person that grew up around this kind of wealth, comments like this suggests that instead of love and attention, Ackerman got money. Not all old money is like this, and from my experience its mostly new money that does this, but it creates little psychopaths that do not care about others.

Think Blane from Pretty in Pink. Born to a CEO w psychopathic tendencies, never given love and affection, acts out and is deeply, DEEPLY damaged as an adult. A horrible mixture of nature and nurture, with money and a sheen of manners to hide the monster underneath.

Hilariously, he peppers the next few paragraphs with admissions that his parents essentially gave him a fortune that set him up for life. Forget 3rd base, Ackman was born 10 ft from home plate, then chalks to up to genetics – like any feudal lord.

Isn't Ackman the guy who shorted Chipotle? Proves he's a real genius! 😆

Yeah and trading on inside information given to you by your wealthy friends can also make you a billionaire. These hedge fund guys need to be taxed out of existence for leeching off the work of others!

Not trying to carry water for racists, but interpreted (very) charitably, this ought to be support for Rawls' veil of ignorance. We are all the result of genes and upbringings we had no say in. These facts ought to lead us to compassion.

Of course they believe in eugenics. Have you seen the ridiculous dogs they own?

And random, but I do not believe that guy ever dug a ditch.

People will believe anything that will elevate them above other people. “If everyone is super then no one is”…The Incredibles.

Wonder what happened to these same mindset people in 18th century France.

I guess he needs to ask if his daughter's genes contributed to her being a socialist

Does Ackman’s definition of “good genes” include being born into a wealthy family?

Quite obviously, the genes he inherited aren't as good as he thinks.

More people need to understand the huge role luck plays in success, even for people who work very hard and are very smart: youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I The world is full of failed Ackmans (simply due to the roll of the die) but they don't have a billionaire-amplified megaphone. See also: survivor bias

They lean on eugenics because the real reason, survivorship bias, carries little aura

Bill Ackman who with Chris Rufo campaigned to have the Black Harvard Pres resign on grounds of plagerism (not true) all while Ackmans wife and Rufo had their own plagerism scandals. Rufo said he graduated from Harvard. he did not. When Bill says 'good values' he means white people 🙄

I didnt know there was a gene for insider trading…

when I say this people often roll their eyes at me and say "come on they suck but they don't LITERALLY believe in eugenics". Despite their extremely straightforward statements of belief in it. It's so odd to me how some information just bounces off some people

It betrays a hard truth, they themselves KNOW they are worthless and not very bright, so they have to find quasi mystical reasons for their wealth. Because they don't even understand how MONEY works.

Bill’s father was made the President of a large NY real estate firm when Bill was just 2 years old. Talk about being born on 3rd base and thinking you hit a triple.

I believe it is inheritence but nothing to do with DNA.

Yet another example of why we need to #MakeBillionairesExtinct

It's funny that they complain about 'meritocracy' then, isn't it? He's saying he won the birth lottery, not that his 'hard work' actually resulted in billions - because he stopped describing hard work after puberty, I'm guessing.

💯 it is part & parcel to their Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), which conveniently says both nature & nature support them hoarding while everyone else starves. “It is what it is.”

bc gods for-fucking-bid that they not admit that they achieved their success bc they were willing to & able to exploit others and not bc they ~just deserve~ it 😮‍💨

And just as plainly have no clue how it actually works in spite of many examples from royalty to many extinct animals any biologist could tell you about.

I had and did all those things growing up. I did not turn into a heartless, ruthless, racist billionaire bastard.

"Good genes........" hmmmmmmm

How do I get the ick off of me after seeing this?

He should know better.

Some people get lucky with the sperm and they think they earned it. Smdh.

*sperm lottery

Not exactly Horatio Alger, and far more reductionist and derivative. And narcissistic to the max. He's up there with Trump.

These guys recognize on some level that it is statistically unlikely that almost all the billionaires are straight white men, and rather than concede there may be some racism and patriarchy built into society, they just conclude they must be the master race.

Liar. He’s a liar. They all lie. Who the fuck digs ditches? Who? What kid ever dug a ditch for money? Get real. We have a fucking billionaire problem. Take care of the billionaires, you simultaneously take care of a huge myriad of other billionaire generated problems. A burning planet, for one.

Yeah no kidding.

This motherfucker goes from worse to abominable, doesn’t he?

It's crazy how easy it is for them to ignore all the injustice in the world by saying "Ooh, I got good genes and my parents were wealthy so now I'm doing so well!" Idiots and sociopaths, all of them.

I don’t find oligarchs, like you & every other Trump buddy, have good values. You are all greedy.

He’s sitting on $9 billion and doing nothing to help humanity or the planet. He and his parents are shit.

And that people should be bred and categorized like horses. And that Social Darwinism is the "natural" order of humanity, and needs to be helped along by those in power getting rid of those who are going to be washed out anyway, so we might as well get it over with as soon as possible.

🚩

But when one of their supposedly “unworthy” achieves comparably it is “DEI.” Got it.

A Molly Ivins quote is appropriate here (she probably borrowed it from elsewhere?) ‘He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple’

Yup.

Ah yes, the "I'm just inherently better than everyone else" rationale. 😬

The Gate to Women’s Country a fiction novel by Sheri S. Tepper, is about the only type of eugenics I’d be willing to explore. 🤣 IYKYK

well, and are totally delusional. Must run in the genes.

Bill Ackman has the same “good genes” as his Jewish forebears who were killed for theirs. What a racist moron.

Ironic in the darkest possible way.

And way way too narcissistically chatty

He inherited his wealth as well.

A lot of folks have the same work ethic and didn’t become billionaires.

Strangely he doesn't mention anything about "my father was a real estate titan with his own Wikipedia page."

Luck plays so much role in your station in life, good and bad, and those who have worked hard but been blessed with enormous good fortune love to believe that it was predestined because of genes. If not just genes, it opens up questions about responsibility they don't want to answer.

Billionaires are made by the ppl, not dropped into a uterus utterly perfect… he and his future can be undone and they should be… just saying.

Unfortunately, they didn't teach him to be a human.

Also a low key push to bring back child labor...

Maybe some should learn about the part of US History of those who embraced eugenics. CA had a law allowing sterilization of folks who they determined shouldn't have children.

Disgusting

He didn’t get an allowance because his parents were well enough off to buy him everything he wanted. I’d be shocked if he ever dug a ditch.

That's not eugenics. It's a form of determinism.

It’s just the modern way to say “good breeding,” and of course it’s just as repulsive

Ironically (or not), the shift in language is due to progress in science.

Yeah, science has a long history of being used as a rationale for bigotry. Race “science,” phrenology, eugenics, lots of the way evolutionary biology has been used, and these days, “but your chromosomes” being deployed against trans people

Everything has a long history of being used to justify and advance bigotry. We gotta peel it back field by field. We have so much work to do. ✊🏽

Yes!

Inheritance gives little lord Fauntleroy not a centimeter of height but a shitload of unbearable pomposity. Lol

Oh, I've "worked" with plenty of these types. They didn't work the hard jobs, they just fucked around while everyone else busted their ass.

I say it is his poor genetics that make him a weak minded person, that wasn’t able to do it himself, and relied on his parents money.

- Assuming good nutrition and education - No College/Business School loans - Given first job by dad with good pay Given $100k that he’s never used Um, yeah, because of all the other stuff! Before we even start talking about connections.

The fun thing with wealthy and powerful people is that usually whatever they believe, that belief supports them being wealthy and powerful. Eugenics, Yarvin, capitalism, divine right of kings, it is always some bs.

They will do anything to avoid confronting the fact that no human being can ever possibly do enough to deserve to be that rich.

So he was a teenager? With good genes? And did summer tasks?

The more you know about them the creepier they are.

Many privileged rich kids also sell a personal myth that sounds like they bootstrapped themselves.

Eugenics goes hand-in-hand with white supremacy and patriarchy. It all starts with the idea that white men are inherently superior and just whittles it down even further from there to further define the hierarchy of privilege.

It’s not just the wealthy & powerful that believe this. Many here equate wealth with intelligence & business acumen. If tRump was born in poverty, he’d be the big mouth moron at the end of the bar, with an awful spray tan & huge gut that no one listens to…but daddy had money, so here we are.

Because many of them, despite their protestations, inherited wealth. So they have to make their lineage better to make them feel special rather than just born lucky. Once you start seeing your genes as better than others it's a small step to looking down on the genetically inferior.

I know William Shockley was an advocate of eugenics, which I assume is the Silicon Valley vector. What about non-Silicon Valley people?

It’s rife in tech outside SV. In particular, Austin, Florida (lots of defense/aerospace).

Ackman also believes that your name determines your role in life bsky.app/profile/kevi...

www.thedailybeast.com/billionaire-...

Unfortunately, you're right. 🤬

Does this idiot believe he was god’s chosen one? Does he know how many kids mow lawns, do landscaping, work for minimum wage TO HELP SUPPORT THEIR FAMILIES, NOT for a weekly discretionary spending allowance? He’s the perfect example of why we should NEVER allow anyone to hoard that much wealth.

And that much wealth ALWAYS pivots on a crime. Someone should investigate him to find out which crime is in lurking in the background. That might shut him the hell up. And tell him that we, the people, are responsible for allowing him to generate & accumulated wealth.The a’hole didn’t do it alone!

Also, he didn't get an allowance, but the full posts makes clear his parents paid in full for college and business school, then gave him 300 thousand dollars in his early career. And his first job was working for his dads company for 80 thousand a year.

Burn it all down. No billionaires. And take everything

Oh it's so much more than racehorse theory. It's also a complete ignorance of privilege, and a false narrative about 'bootstrapping'. Polishing cars at 10.. uh huh. This stuff is such horseshit.

*sigh* Picks up shovel, resumes ditch sigging

I don't wish to defend whatever Ackman means here, but it does not seem like "eugenics" to believe that there exist some wholly or partly heritable attributes (intelligence, good looks, charisma, etc.) that can contribute to success, nor does doing so imply that those without them deserve nothing.

Yeah glad his parents could help him start laundering his privilege as industry early on, it seems to have done the trick

The extent to which I believe I inherited "good" genes is that my dad and I share the ability to eat almost anything without any of the discomfort that my fellow fortysomethings complain about if they so much as look at a slice of pizza.

My kids did lots of rockwork, mowing, ditch digging, pruning, and planting with our family landscaping business, starting when they were toddlers. They never got paid, because we were all working to keep our family afloat. They literally never complained about it.

Also, he inherited good genes? Well we've a clear difference of opinion there, bud

it’s on the backs of everyone who worked for them. try making billions without workers and then you can tell us you did it yourself. such elitist bullshit we need a month long general strike to show them who actually earns the money

Eugenics might support Leon's vendetta against USAID. The idea probably reinforces some other conspiracy that he has, but it's there.

Omg

No one likes to believe they got where they are because of luck or privilege. The more it’s true the less they want to believe it. It’s just more obviously bullshit when it’s a billionaire.

Puke worthy

They never say anything like: I was lucky enough to be born a white man in a country where that is a natural advantage and where I did not have to worry about my safety or basic needs as a child. Most of them never mention luck at all.

If you think "good values" is represented by a competitive work ethics, storming over the top of your fellow Americans to grab as much as you can for yourself, while showing no moral compass & little empathy for those you clamber over to get there.

I think we call those "White, late-stage capitalist" genes

They're desperate to portray "ruthless" as "special".

#GOP Use Rebrand hashes #GroupOfPedphiles. #GuardiansOlPedophiles or simply #GrandOlPedos. Pass it on.

Ha! If this loudmouth MAGA thinks he possesses “good values,” he’s even more deluded than he appears, and that’s plenty delusional.

son of a NY real estate guy/ mortgage broker who's dad founded the company he inherited, but sure we're all nice and equal

Good genes and wonderful parents. So, he attributes his wealth to blind luck?

He's clueless and tone deaf.

Them "good genes" are pretty shit at tennis tho

Buffet rightly says it's luck. You are born at the right time at the right place with the right opportunities.

So all the people who didn't become Uber rich have bad genes? I looked up his family and Dad was a mega real estate broker in NY. Maybe everyone is not fixated on building astronomical wealth to legitimize their sense of worth or value.

I'm sure all he got were the "good genes." But don't worry, he didn't get an allowance, his dad just gave him a job at Ackman-Ziff and invested in real estate wit him.

So only 1% of the earths' populatiin has "good" genes under that theory. Clearly he failed high school biology.

While you are probably right at some level, I told my kids they inherited good genes. But only in the context that they are starting ahead of the rest of the pack by pure luck so don’t get cocky. It is what they do with their gifts that define who they are. Is recognizing gifts eugenics?

It’s just straight up white supremacy. Eugenics is very much intertwined with that bullshit. They want to breed out the “bad stuff” it’s disgusting.

& are happy to #profiteer from creating #systems designed to #extort the #NecessitiesOfLife #EugenicsByProxy

Claims to have good genes.... Has this egg head looked in the mirror?

Look at the billionaires themselves. I am very happy not to share their genes. Ick.

Is there a eugenics/phrenology/Marc-Andreessen’s-head-shape Venn diagram somewhere in all of this?

Damn, my parents gave me an allowance. Most of it went to pay for the subway to school. If I had known, I would've turned it down.

Genes make for money huh

I also inherited good genes from my parents, two near-genius intellects who worked for non-profits their entire lives, and therefore never had more than a middle class financial status. Obviously, they were failures in the "good values" part of his equation.

When he says "born with good genes" he means a mouth full of silver spoons

Apart from 50% of the genes, Trump inherited his father’s wealth and racist beliefs.

Funny how we never hear about what he "inherited" from the MacLeod side.

“I never received an allowance so I worked odd jobs washing & waxing cars, digging ditches, lawn & tree care, etc. for pocket money beginning when I was about 10.” - said by many people in this country who still work these jobs at ages 20-70 - now let’s count the immigrants doing the same thing.

I'm firmly convinced that The Bell Curve is the most influential social science book of the last 50 years, but no one will admit it.

💯 Social Darwanism a la The (first) Gilded Age.

Eugenics figures in every decision, every policy they enact. Even the radical christian right has managed to incorporate it into their beliefs. 'God protects His Faithful' on steroids. Eugenicists & Evangelicals both think some are weak (physically, mentally, faith) & expendable & should go away.

Why is it never, "I worked hard, my parents taught me good values, and I got lucky"? No, it's always that they're predestined to it because they're obviously superior.

Yeah, they didn't get tax breaks or step on anybody on their rise. What he doesn't mention are all those they victimized to fuel their ascent, all the shortcuts they took. They all talk like this. They are the gifted, superior beings who deserve their positions of status. Nothing ruthless here folks

I suppose there must be photos of Ackman digging ditches. lol.

Yes they do. Most have become powerful Billionaires from Politics and Tech... Sometimes both. All are influential lobbyists in 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 and across 🇪🇺. We can't underestimate their thirst to enforce their beliefs as laws across the World. Ai will likely assist them in their endeavours 🤦🏻‍♀️

I read it was blackmail.

I'm guessing his parents had a shitload of money too

Lemme guess and at 21 he got a small loan of 1 million dollars?

TRUTH. About 80,000,000 out of 360,000,000 total population decreasing by the day! And this is just in USA. Every nation in the World has its racism. And they are all either religious or billionaires.

How utterly delusional. Grasping at any straw to protect their narcissistic ego

Pay no attention to the mediocre white man behind the curtain working the $100k and connections he got from daddy to ‘make it on his own’.

I wonder whatever happened to Ackman's good values.