I agree with what you're trying to say partially, but I think you've incorrectly considered the the relationship between the salaries and the price of a beer. She didn't buy a 45,000 beer. She presumably bought a TON of beers and whatever else that added up to 45k. A 6 dollar beer costs the same for a person making 35k as it does for a person making 1 million -- 6 dollars. So I think it's incorrect to say that because she spent 45k on alcohol as some percentage of her wages, that it's the same as a person who makes 35k buying ONE single beer. ONE single beer is not excessive spending.

I'm not saying I have a problem with what this woman did, I'm just saying that I don't agree with the way you related the salaries and the price of a beer.

It is. For the price of your beer most of the world lives entire day. You need to realize, that if you have internet, computer, money for your food and a little extra for your hobbies / luxuries, you are in the 5% of the richest people on the planet. And btw. if you spend 50 bucks on a game, you spend more than my week's money to live. You wasteful bastard!

So please don't cry if someone has more money than you.

It's less about how it is spent than about the system that allows for such a differential, such a range of inequalities in a context of indigence for so many people.

From there, you can play on scales. This becomes mostly an explanation of our respective cognitive horizons, and how we define the normality of our expenditures. Our norms adjust to the scales at which we live, to our expectations and possibilities. The frontiers of obscenity too.

Being aware of this doesn't mean that all moral concerns can be dissolved in relativism. This would negate absolutely any moral qualm in some sort of perpetual regression ("give a coin to that beggar? what else, give my house, lol?"). Pointing at the fact that we, western internet-using gamers, are a privileged caste is a pretty healthy awareness. However, our "costly" hobbies don't put us extremely far from poverty : these priviledges of ours, these margins of entertainment expenditures, are paperthin on the continuum of wealth differentials. Questionning them is one thing, but whatever way we come to terms -or not, or not entirely- with our own privileges, doesn't absolve the huge quantitative leap to the amount of money that is handled in the realm of super-rich high luxuries. While, at any scale, anyone can point at worse and go "at least I don't", this doesn't flatten all the levels to the same amount of excuses. If anything, it points out at a universal hypocrisy, which magnitude increases along with the increased privileges of the self-apologist. Or his level of cynicism (which isn't much better) if he doesn't even care.

Claiming the opposite is analogous to disqualifying accusations of immoral acts on the grounds of lack of purity : "yeah, I kicked that granny and stole her purse, but you didn't share your chocolate with your little brother so shut up you're no better". The questions of levels of wealth decency is a complicated and serious one (as defining poverty threshold in a society is what structures social policies and related laws), and raises serious questions in a global world. But sweeping all of this under the carpet with all-or-nothing rhetorics of "anyway we're all someone's pauper and we're all someone's rich" is a cheap cop-out. There are standards of decency (in an institutional sense of the word : a consensual human right, not an individual opinion), and there are some unquestionable levels of overkill that go insanely far beyond this. And this is what is at stake in these discussions.

I disagree as it all matters on how the spending affects that person. So if you had only 50k but you spent 45k then you can be called stupid. If you have 100 million then45k is not going to affect you at all.
Sans my comparison to six dollar beer.
Excessive spending is only excessive when it affects one available income.

No. Neither of them are bad. You missed the point by a hundred miles.

Well, considering that Facebook claims to have one billion active users (confirmed by the company's financial reports) it seems that far more than 5% of the world population have a computer and internet access. But I agree with your post, it's stupid to complain about the behaviour of "rich people". Most people are just behaving adequately to their social class.

Ah, I misunderstood what you were trying to say I guess. You were talking about excessive spending in relation to ones salary, and i thought you were talking about excessive spending in terms of just... being excessive overall. Like a person buying one beer if they make a lower salary might be a lot of money for them, but having one beer is like the exact opposite of living an excessive lifestyle. But a person who makes tons of money and can afford to spend 45k on a bar tab - sure, they can afford it, but I would still consider that to be an excessive lifestyle, regardless of their income level.

So now it's not just about "wasting money" but being rich in general? :P

Nice, that is roughly two thirds of what I have earned in 9 years office work xD Welcome to my country, Baltic tiger economy and shiet.

Having a facebook account doen't necessarily mean you have a computer. Also, multiple accounts, companies' accounts, fan pages, etc etc.

I can't find that article about poverty though... There were some nice calculations about how average worker from EU or USA is among the richest people in the world. It's not that hard to imagine if you think of Africa, India and China for starters...

How do you define excessive. 45k on booze is excessive. Is a purchase of 680 gpu excessive too? That kind of money would feed a family for half a year. How do you draw a line, who draws the line?


It is her money. She can do whatever she wants as long as she is not hurting anyone or making society worse place to live.
Ugh. As in total of 9 years? That bad?

Let me say again that I don't have a problem with people being rich necessary, though I disagree with how they choose to spend their excessive wealth. Having said that, I'd like to put my point of view another way:

Let's say that a person makes 25k a year in America. 25k is a low salary in American terms. The average salary in the US is around 43k, so 25k if about half of that. You can easily get by on 25k, but you'll have to watch your spending on things like food and games and what not. This is assuming you live on your own. You may argue that a person in Africa can live on a dollar a day, so our 25k seems excessive in that sense. Okay, perhaps you're right - but in America, 25k is really only paying the bills every month and not leaving much for an excessive lifestyle.

Now let's consider a person who makes 100,000,000 USD, and lives in America. Recall that the average wage in the US is 43k. That rich person could afford to give up 90,000,000 and still have 10,000,000!!!!!! Ten fucking million! You can live an incredibly rich lifestyle on even a fraction of 10 million. So my point is, it's not really fair to use the argument that a person making a small salary in America is the same as a rich person in terms of comparing excessive lifestyles with other cultures. They aren't even remotely related in that sense. Depending on where you live, a low salary can be a lot or a little, but no matter where you live, being rich is still being rich. Having a vacation home that you can afford is a nice treat for yourself. Having 17 vacation homes is excessive.

Keep in mind I'm discussing people with excessive wealth here, not just anyone who lives an above average lifestyle.
Huh?

Sorry, I somehow managed to mentally skip a part of your post which I even included in the very quote I was responding to. I have a fever so be nice.

I guess you didn't read the whole thread. I made that exact statement earlier.

No big deal, I just didn't know what you were referring to ;P

Also, as far as the % of internet users in the world goes: I'm sure it's low, but it's got to be more than 5%. America alone accounts for about 3.23% percent of the worlds internet usage (going by data claims 70% of American households have internet), so by the time you factor in the rest of the developed world I'm sure it exceeds 5%.