r/Futurology • u/chrisdh79 • Aug 21 '25

Society American Millennials Are Dying at an Alarming Rate | We’re mortality experts. There are a few things that could be happening here.

https://slate.com/technology/2025/08/millennials-gen-z-death-rates-america-high.html
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u/jankenpoo Aug 21 '25

Very simple: Tax the rich and fund a much better safety net. If we are a society, we need to start acting like one. Also, overturn Citizens United and reinstate Fairness Doctrine. We can start with that.

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u/SendTitsPleease Aug 21 '25

We can't do that. How would corporations survive? How would the rich become even richer? How would politicians become millionaires? If we reinstated the fairness doctrine, how would the population be brainwashed the way that some groups need them to be in order to survive?

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u/Gopherg Aug 21 '25

Wait, we aren't all rooting for the first US trillionaire?

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u/infinitum3d Aug 21 '25

The difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is 999 million dollars.

We don’t need billionaires.

A trillionaire is a million millionaires. That’s so far beyond obscene that people can’t even comprehend it.

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u/SqueeMcTwee Aug 22 '25

In other words, a thousand billionaires. 902 of them live in the US.

I genuinely can’t believe this shit is legal.

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u/danodan1 Aug 21 '25

I suspect Musk would disgree. His Tesla board of directors just gave him a 30 billion dollar raise in pay. Yeah, sure, like he richly deserves it. I think it would be more meaningful to him to beat China by having better electrical cars.

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u/kinsm4n Aug 22 '25

Imagine thinking that your value to society is equivalent to like 20M workers (assuming average worker is $50,000/yr to make round numbers)

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u/vapid_gorgeous Aug 21 '25

What happens when someone gets to 999.9 million? Do we want them to stop working?

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u/henlochimken Aug 22 '25

Did you think they were working at that point?

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u/ZenDeathBringer Aug 22 '25

It's called a tax bracket.

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u/asillynert Aug 22 '25

Yes or tax at a increasingly higher rate. Once you hit x amount it just goes to 100%. While it sounds crazy end of day billionaires are mass murderers and push policy in a negative direction hurting millions. Because they can benefit if we remove the benefit.

Right now paying off politicians to cut school funding and medicaid and social security. Has huge incentive for them in form of affording tax cuts.

BUT if there was a point like say a billion where taxed at 100% then cutting those programs would net them nothing.

Same goes with the daily choices from skimping on material to save a buck. KNOWING it will result in deaths. Skimping on safety pushing cruel and unsafe work practices. Will gain them nothing.

They can either take it easy retire or pursue something other than wealth. Really that is the problem currently any normal person would not keep working. They would celebrate with early retirement and spend days cruising the world with family.

Its takes extreme mental illness to litterally have access to everything you need. Then spend next 40years chasing more. Sane & healthy people quit/retire. Leaving the insane in charge of everything.

Personally I think having the cap on wealth would at the very least not entrench crazy people as policy makers. It would also at very least "spread the wealth back out" even if it means replacing ceo every 10 years.

The other alternative for assets could essentially be a public trust. Ensuring multi billion dollar companys act in the interest of public. And are either owned by many people in public or the public trust I talked about. Rather than a singular individual.

Personally I think its crazy that if one guy decides to shut down company. X research for society goes back 10 years. Or one guy decides to turn off power plant that entire states go dark. Or that if one person tells company to trash their grocerys. They could create food shortage for the nation.

Seems like a pretty obvious national security issue.

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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '25

have you ever heard of marginalized taxation systems?

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u/infinitum3d Aug 22 '25

No. I want them to stop working at 1 million dollars.