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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

That suggests people hand out equal hate to all billionaires. JK Rawling seems like an obvious exception to that narrative.

From what I have seen billionaires tend to get more hate because they simply have more negative impact on peoples lives. Elon kicking out Tesla’s founders is hard to judge objectively because they might have done a worse job, but it’s easy to identify lots of dumb shit he did that harmed the company. Presumably he did plenty of positive things, but the negatives are just easier to identify.

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JK Rowling isn’t exactly well-loved these days

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/daniel-radcliffe-defends-speaki...

The point is you can see people responding to her statements not her status as a billionaire.

Just like people clearly dislike Bill Cosby because of rape not his status as a former entertainer.

> not her status as a billionaire

There's a fair share of that as well[0]. But yes, Elon, the worlds richest man (as of earlier this year), draws more ire for his wealth. It's expected since he's about 160x richer than Rowling (she's no longer a billionaire), and uses his money to rig the economy in his favor. He's a more apt symbol of the billionaire class than Rowling.

0 - https://twitter.com/lewisjwr/status/1513219862373584902

I don’t know the specifics about her finances but:

“As of 2022, J.K. Rowling’s net worth is an estimated £820 million, or around $1.1 billion, per The Sunday Times. According to the site, this makes Rowling the 196th richest person in the U.K. overall.” https://stylecaster.com/jk-rowling-net-worth/

Nobody gives a shit about Bernard Arnault who is now the richest man so maybe people don't like Elon's actions more than they don't like his money.

If you look at the top 10 list of richest people Elon is the only one who draws this level of negative attention because he's the only one who is having a huge public meltdown and constantly being in the news for being a garbage human being

About 20% of America thinks Bill Gates put microchips in the COVID vaccine.

That seems unlikely, that’s about the rate people give silly answers to pollsters.

The study by YouGov in conjunction with The Economist has found that 30-44-year-olds are most likely to believe this widely debunked conspiracy, with 7% of people from this age group saying that it is "definitely true" and 20% of them saying it is "probably true.

This yougov poll[0] seems to suggest around 20% of democrats and independents vs. 40% of Republicans believe the gates conspiracy. You also just quoted something that backs up what I said?

Look, in no way am I saying polls are perfect but almost every metric imaginable says Elon is not the most unpopular billionaire by a long shot. There’s not a huge conspiracy against Musk specifically, people just don’t like power-hungry billionaires.

Nobody cares about Bernard Arnault because he doesn’t really pose an existential threat. High fashion will continue to do the same thing they’ve always done

0 - https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...

The quote was pointing only 7% of respondents in that age range say they think it’s true rather than think it’s either likely, possible, or false.

I really don’t think this refutes my point or even differs from what I said. Likely means they think it’s true, they’re just not confident.

> That suggests people hand out equal hate to all billionaires

I don't think it suggests that, or at least I certainly didn't mean to communicate as such. I was responding narrowly to the parent's remarks (explicitly rationalizing targeting billionaires as a group) and not trying to imply anything broader.

> billionaires tend to get more hate because they simply have more negative impact

Not just billionaires, the specific type of billionaire that seeks out fame.

There are plenty of billionaires with names you'd not recognize.

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