If it gets to that point they will start bankrolling far right militias. They'll bring them into the mainstream with slick propaganda, decent salaries and support from the middle-of-the-road media (which they own).
Think Proud Boys, but made respectable, the backing of a few senators and armed with top of the line hardware.
They already have. US Billionaires are bankrolling white supremacists (https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2022/05/24/right-wing-families-...), Ukrainian billionaire Igor Kolomoisky started their own PMCs to get their oil (while fighting against Russia, sure, but it's still a PMC at the whim of a single man), Thiel and a whole bunch of SV rich kids are building post-apocalyptic shelters with their own, private security forces.
Anyone downvoting you is a fool. Billionaires are ready for war.
> If it gets to that point they will start bankrolling far right militias
They already are, kind of. The far-righest presidential candidate who was bordering on fascist in France was bankrolled to absurd amounts by one of the richest assholes in France, Vincent Bolloré. Bankrolling a militia isn't a far stretch from bankrolling someone advocating for banning non-French names and expelling everyone of foreign descent.
> The extremely wealthy would do well to remember that they are human, and therefore _extremely_ vulnerable to physical violence. Because this is going to be the only outcome if they keep this up.
I don't think that's likely. The dominant ideology of the world, propped up by education, entertainment and other media is that the rich deserve whatever they have, because they are better people than the poor. Going against this dogma is heresy to most people of the world, they would gladly hurt themselves to help the rich.
Yup, "you're stupid because you're poor, yadda yadda". While an (economical) immigrant to developed EU countries when one starts their life from the scratch from opening bank account and applying for an apartment, it's being deeply engraved into one's consciousness. I bet OP is posting revolutionary comments, then wouldn't bat an eye to crush a coworker into burnout or depression, while the executive board folks are on Balearic, Canaries, or Costa del Sol.
> therefore _extremely_ vulnerable to physical violence. Because this is going to be the only outcome if they keep this up
This is an immature reaction. We’re talking about Europe, not sub-Saharan Africa. Those same planes would have the wealthy safely out of harm’s way, likely with a good portion of their capital, while the idiots who threw away their peace are left to squabble over remains.
Good. Let them bring their wealth to whatever place will tolerate their climate-destroying behavior. Wealth is not created by a handful of rich children, but by the work of millions. Let's see them use their capital when they can't blow it anymore on luxury handbags.
As was seen recently in Sri Lanka when the corrupt ex-president tried to run away by plane, you can't if the people hate you because the plane doesn't fly itself from nowhere - it needs mechanics, air traffic control, passport control, pilots, etc. He managed to escape with a military plane, but that's unlikely to be an option for your random rich person not ex-military chief.
And Europe, especially France, has a rich history of getting rid of upper classes on occasion.
Ultimately it's a game theoretic problem though, isn't it? Your own personal impact on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is negligible, even if you are jetting around in your private jet. Therefore it only matters what all the people 'similar to you' are doing in aggregate, and your decision should be based on that: 'What impact would my decision here have, if the people in similar situations all acted the way I'm acting now.'
Since there is presumably billions of people with wifi routers, but only like 25k private jets in the world, it's actually not immediately clear which has a bigger impact: the rich abstaining from flying to Napoli for an afternoon, or them turning off their router while they are gone.
I have no numbers to back this up, but intuitively I'd put my money on 30m Wifi-Routers in France running a third of the year while nobody is home not having a larger impact than the 270 private jets being used.
And you have just lost a bunch of money! Assuming your router uses about 10 watts, that's 86kWh per router, per year. 30m routers makes this 2 580 000 000 kWh. At a current, extremely awful 116g CO2/kWh in France, that's 299 280 tonnes of CO2 per year. A single private jet is 2 tons of CO2 per hour, so your 270 private jets only need to fly 554 hours per year to be just as bad. The current average is 448 hours per year. So, yeah, private jets currently emit 80% as much CO2 per year as 30m routers running 24/7. Unless you recommend we only use wifi for 3 hours a day, getting rid of these private jets will be more productive.
Additionally, those routers actually serve a use, unlike private jets. Between universal access to the Internet to millions, and a few thousands doing lines of cocaine at 30000 feet to go to their villa in Corsica, I think I know which one is more useful.
And finally, it's a matter of perceived justice. And believe me, being told to turn off your wifi while a rich dickwad can fly to Acapulco for three hours tends to make people slightly angry, not willing to make sacrifices and with a tendency to commit extremely unlawful acts against such jets.
Private jets only average 448 hours a year? I'm surprised, I had imagined many of them to be either used a lot or rented out and not be grounded 95% of the year. Does that include "empty flights" to get the jet to the location of the passenger?
I guess we should also consider private turbo props (not really jets? but "private jets" is probably just short for "private plane" for all intents and purposes").
I guess it depends on what you consider "private jets". One that's exclusively used by some CEO or their family, 448 hours feels like a lot, but I don't know their typical travel schedule.
But for "private rentals" that you rent for a trip or something, I'd assume they get a lot more action than only being used 5% of the year.
Where's flueber, the app to book private jets? It sounds incredibly wasteful to only rent something out 5% of the year. Is maintenance a large issue?
Francois Pinault flied it 26 hours in a single month, or 318 hours per year. And that's the jets from a billionaire who couldn't give a damn whether or not they're making money on this plane. It's just their personal taxi. Now, consider that private jet operators _have_ to rent to make money, and the average goes way up.
Good thing your opinions don't really matter when it comes to fighting climate change then! Jets that are registered to companies fly regularly (yes, Bernard Arnault doesn't have a Bernard Arnault jet, he has 3 LVMH jets). It's currently doing at the very least 2 hours of flying per day. A regular, commercial airplane flies over 3 000 hours per year.
My 448 hours comes from the Top 20 of private charter operators, with a relatively old source. The average went up as the amount of private jetting went way up (more than doubled) (https://privatejetcardcomparisons.com/2017/07/11/how-many-ho...). Sure, take the 21 000 private jets in the world and say the average is only 60 if you'd like. The average isn't what matters. And hell, even with 60 average, that's 120 tons of CO2 per jet, per year. 25 people worth of yearly emissions, for a single plane. I promise you, there is nothing these planes do that it worth that.
I think there is a huge difference between 60 and 448. We are not discussing it is worth or not. We are discussing "30m Wifi-Routers in France running a third of the year while nobody is home not having a larger impact than the 270 private jets being used." or not.
No. A single day from one of LVMH's private jets is equivalent to the yearly CO2 emissions of 1500 people. Nothing, absolutely nothing justifies this. There is no reasonable world where this should be acceptable, much less one where we are in a climate crisis.
Game theoretic thinking brings "stable" but disastarous results.
Perhaps now that humanity knows about game theory we should try and find ways to encompass humanism and other values into the pure rationalist model.
Unfortunately "stable" means that they cannot be destroyed by a single actor. So unless you're prepared to use violence against anyone in the world, and "someone" might be Putin or Xi, meaning you'd have to be prepared to fight WW3 ... you'll need a stable solution.
It's only free of charge if you ignore the high cost of the private jets, fancy hotels, table and bottle service at fancy clubs which alone is 2k Euros.
Suddenly 200gbp/hour is a real steal. But it's not about the money, it's about the feeling of power when people throw themselves at you.
In the article it says Napoli, Amsterdam, and Berlin have shown the greatest increase in popularity. Paris and Ibeza are 12th and 18th, respectively. Not sure why these destinations were chosen for the title of the article.
Should I have all the money in the world I would most likely spend a good part of the year in Ibiza. I've been to a lot of places in the Mediterranean (and other shores) and Ibiza is one of the most beautiful places in terms of nature, people and generally good vibes.
Equating Ibiza to sex and parties is like saying Amsterdam is nothing but rain or London is always foggy. There's some truth to it, but you'll be missing a whole lot if judging just by that
While I haven’t been myself. I believe Ibiza very much has two literal sides to the island. The well known party side and a far more family friendly, beautiful, beach resort that is very popular with the affluent middle classes. I can completely see why people who can afford a short haul privet flight would choose Ibiza.
They had an extremely hard time two years in a row buying at 0.5% interest and speculating on the boom of the housing market, they need to relax and enjoy now!
Or rich people use their wealth and political power to enrich themselves, not just for cheaper jet fuel, but to spread the false rumor that climate change and global warming is a scam.
I can't see what's wrong with it. It's essentially the only sensible way in which the rich are clearly different from the middle class these days. If we remove this, what will be left of being rich?
Not sure if this is mean ironically, but I honestly don't see what's wrong with it either. Highlighting the consumption choices of the very wealthy mostly come off as lazy outrage bait to me. If society decided their wealth was gained in some illicit way, that surely is the issue to be addressed, not wether they spend it on flights, yachts or mansions.
> It's essentially the only sensible way in which the rich are clearly different from the middle class these days
So it's private jet or you're middle class? That's a ludicrous statement, really.
You conveniently forget the universe of luxury amenities that wealth grants you, and more importantly the power you get as a consequence. Being able to move fast on private jets is just a small fraction of the benefits.
I wonder how many of these people using private jets attend Davos, make commitments to net zero, invest using ESG as a reference point, sea front housing etc.
They bought sea-front property because they're convinced that they have enough power to turn the rest of the world into car-less vegans, packed into tiny apartments in crime-ridden mega-cities, living mostly in the metaverse - all while they preserve their own luxurious lifestyles.
The buy sea front properties because they can, they have so much money that doesn’t matter what happens with sea level in ten years, they just want to enjoy those houses today.
The rich will flee to Hawaii and NZ, etc. meanwhile we suffer the consequences of their decisions with electricity and natural gas shortages, hyper-inflation and rising interest rates.
The government should bring in capital controls and seize their accounts and capital. Let them try to survive when they can't leech off the working class.
I mean if they want to stay there as the collapse happens that's their choice, I'd flee inland instead if I was them. The islands and coastal areas are risky with flooding and tropical storms.
Looks like you're left having to trust the super rich to solve it then. They called from their super yacht after flying on a private jet from their 4th 10,000 ft^2 fully air conditioned summer home and said they got this and not to worry.
I'm generally not in favor of violence but it's probably worthwhile for the very rich to remember that it's an option when they get more "win more" mechanics and successfully block the "catch up" mechanics in society. These apparent 'victories' for the rich prevent the gradual release of "pressure" and sets up the system to explosively pop.
The "I deserve this" ideology is a great danger to the super-wealthy because it blinds them to the more profound truth: unbalanced games are not fun and ultimately fail. Arguing against game balance because you've used (maybe even discovered) degenerate strats to acquire a huge resource lead is immature and short-sighted because if the game itself fails none of those resources will have any value.
You'd have to square this against the significant wealth of those who are best able to revolt, ie., all of us. The historical standard of "wealth" for revolution was basically "none". Once you hit mass starvation, you're there.
Violent revolutions are conducted either by the court (of the king) who use the desperation of the very poor; or by envious almost-wealthies likewise able to rabble-rouse the very poor.
The problem you have with your theory is: we are all very rich against the "revolt wealth" standard. Greece, post-crisis, lost 25% of its GDP. If that had occurred in almost any decade in human history there would be a violent revolt. Today a loss of 25% GDP goes from very rich, to quite rich.
Almost everyone who could revolt is far too wealthy to risk it. The european poor arent going to risk their benefits to revolt against taxpayers. These benefits constitute an insurmountable wealth-floor on revolution.
The rich can do whatever they like, envy isn't enough here.
I'm not a historian, let alone of revolutions. I've heard it said too that starvation is the only thing that really causes a revolt - and yet I know of at least one counter-example, the American Revolution. That revolution happened because the King would neither address the needs of the colonists nor allow them to address their own needs, and felt his position was so dominant that the colonists had no choice but to accept his rebuke. Perhaps if the King had been more considerate of the colonists' needs there would have been no revolution, and England could have traded away a small fraction of control to retain an enormous chunk of empire. I think the parallels to the modern situation are clear.
>That revolution happened because the King would neither address the needs of the colonists nor allow them to address their own needs, and felt his position was so dominant that the colonists had no choice but to accept his rebuke.
The elite landowning gentry unhappy with British taxation, not the colonists per se, most of whom were quite happy to remain British or were undecided on the matter. Popular support came later by means of effective propaganda, such as Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," not grassroots sentiment.
This reminds me of a friend's observation: that here in Finland (a "welfare state") you do not see a lot of police out. My friend's theory was that social services forestall social desperation, keeping the crime rate lower. An insurmountable income-floor on criminality.
I have a friend who is a pilot for a privet jet charter company, he has not only had a very busy summer, they have been super busy since covid hit. They were restricted from taking any (none required) time off for the last few months.
On the other hand another friend who flys long haul for a large national branded airline has had a fairly slow few years.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 152 ms ] threadThink Proud Boys, but made respectable, the backing of a few senators and armed with top of the line hardware.
This is essentially what happened in Ukraine.
They already have. US Billionaires are bankrolling white supremacists (https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2022/05/24/right-wing-families-...), Ukrainian billionaire Igor Kolomoisky started their own PMCs to get their oil (while fighting against Russia, sure, but it's still a PMC at the whim of a single man), Thiel and a whole bunch of SV rich kids are building post-apocalyptic shelters with their own, private security forces.
Anyone downvoting you is a fool. Billionaires are ready for war.
They already are, kind of. The far-righest presidential candidate who was bordering on fascist in France was bankrolled to absurd amounts by one of the richest assholes in France, Vincent Bolloré. Bankrolling a militia isn't a far stretch from bankrolling someone advocating for banning non-French names and expelling everyone of foreign descent.
I don't think that's likely. The dominant ideology of the world, propped up by education, entertainment and other media is that the rich deserve whatever they have, because they are better people than the poor. Going against this dogma is heresy to most people of the world, they would gladly hurt themselves to help the rich.
This is an immature reaction. We’re talking about Europe, not sub-Saharan Africa. Those same planes would have the wealthy safely out of harm’s way, likely with a good portion of their capital, while the idiots who threw away their peace are left to squabble over remains.
Well, it's not like Europe is homogenous in this regard.
France specifically has a history of taking care of such matters.
I'd say the rich getting away with what they're doing is more likely in sub-Saharan Africa.
And Europe, especially France, has a rich history of getting rid of upper classes on occasion.
Since there is presumably billions of people with wifi routers, but only like 25k private jets in the world, it's actually not immediately clear which has a bigger impact: the rich abstaining from flying to Napoli for an afternoon, or them turning off their router while they are gone.
Additionally, those routers actually serve a use, unlike private jets. Between universal access to the Internet to millions, and a few thousands doing lines of cocaine at 30000 feet to go to their villa in Corsica, I think I know which one is more useful.
And finally, it's a matter of perceived justice. And believe me, being told to turn off your wifi while a rich dickwad can fly to Acapulco for three hours tends to make people slightly angry, not willing to make sacrifices and with a tendency to commit extremely unlawful acts against such jets.
I guess we should also consider private turbo props (not really jets? but "private jets" is probably just short for "private plane" for all intents and purposes").
But for "private rentals" that you rent for a trip or something, I'd assume they get a lot more action than only being used 5% of the year.
Where's flueber, the app to book private jets? It sounds incredibly wasteful to only rent something out 5% of the year. Is maintenance a large issue?
https://twitter.com/i_fly_Bernard/status/1565102112731693061
Francois Pinault flied it 26 hours in a single month, or 318 hours per year. And that's the jets from a billionaire who couldn't give a damn whether or not they're making money on this plane. It's just their personal taxi. Now, consider that private jet operators _have_ to rent to make money, and the average goes way up.
My 448 hours comes from the Top 20 of private charter operators, with a relatively old source. The average went up as the amount of private jetting went way up (more than doubled) (https://privatejetcardcomparisons.com/2017/07/11/how-many-ho...). Sure, take the 21 000 private jets in the world and say the average is only 60 if you'd like. The average isn't what matters. And hell, even with 60 average, that's 120 tons of CO2 per jet, per year. 25 people worth of yearly emissions, for a single plane. I promise you, there is nothing these planes do that it worth that.
Suddenly 200gbp/hour is a real steal. But it's not about the money, it's about the feeling of power when people throw themselves at you.
Equating Ibiza to sex and parties is like saying Amsterdam is nothing but rain or London is always foggy. There's some truth to it, but you'll be missing a whole lot if judging just by that
Edit: typo
They had an extremely hard time two years in a row buying at 0.5% interest and speculating on the boom of the housing market, they need to relax and enjoy now!
So it's private jet or you're middle class? That's a ludicrous statement, really.
You conveniently forget the universe of luxury amenities that wealth grants you, and more importantly the power you get as a consequence. Being able to move fast on private jets is just a small fraction of the benefits.
I'll take it seriously when they do.
The government should bring in capital controls and seize their accounts and capital. Let them try to survive when they can't leech off the working class.
The "I deserve this" ideology is a great danger to the super-wealthy because it blinds them to the more profound truth: unbalanced games are not fun and ultimately fail. Arguing against game balance because you've used (maybe even discovered) degenerate strats to acquire a huge resource lead is immature and short-sighted because if the game itself fails none of those resources will have any value.
Violent revolutions are conducted either by the court (of the king) who use the desperation of the very poor; or by envious almost-wealthies likewise able to rabble-rouse the very poor.
The problem you have with your theory is: we are all very rich against the "revolt wealth" standard. Greece, post-crisis, lost 25% of its GDP. If that had occurred in almost any decade in human history there would be a violent revolt. Today a loss of 25% GDP goes from very rich, to quite rich.
Almost everyone who could revolt is far too wealthy to risk it. The european poor arent going to risk their benefits to revolt against taxpayers. These benefits constitute an insurmountable wealth-floor on revolution.
The rich can do whatever they like, envy isn't enough here.
The elite landowning gentry unhappy with British taxation, not the colonists per se, most of whom were quite happy to remain British or were undecided on the matter. Popular support came later by means of effective propaganda, such as Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," not grassroots sentiment.
On the other hand another friend who flys long haul for a large national branded airline has had a fairly slow few years.