Parasite, not predator.
Or the exploiter class
I like this one because when I was really into MMOs it was interesting to see the birth of exploiter philosophy within the game. Then the positions that the exploiters would always take when it was suggested we crack down on cheating was that they were being unfairly persecuted and their mere presence benefits everyone.
Even after the exploit was patched they usually got to keep their ill-gotten gains because they would turn what ever it was into intangibles or launder everything.
It was just a complete microcosm of capitalism. Which can all be summed up by their creedo, "exploit early and exploit often."
Even funnier, Steve Bannon had ties with WoW gold farmers.
Yeah, predators earn their food, typically.
Wealthy people are almost always born with it... Just like many parasites.
I prefer the term “Parasite Class”.
Many think the poor to be parasites, but they are actually the opposite.
After all, what is the mark of a parasite? It makes the host think that it is benign, of no harm whatsoever, and in some cases it even convinces its host that it provides a benefit. All the while it visits the most harmful deprivations upon the host, right up to sucking the lifeblood from it until it dies a horrible death.
No other tranche of human society matches those attributes more effectively than the wealthy.
It's not the "predator" class - it's the parasite class.
Calling them "predators" will - apart from the fact that it's inaccurate - simply flatter their egos
The hoarding class
They do hoard wealth, but in another sense they're constantly making money moves: shifting their capital here and there, to extract more value from various local economies.
Hoarding would actually be an improvement. Like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold. But they're more like rampaging dragon that is never satisfied with its booty
They extract value from things until there is no more wealth, like mining an ore vein dry or bottling all the water from an aquafer. They hoard that value for themselves and leave nothing of value for others.
The one description in this entire post that is pretty accurate.
Leeches, because that's what they are.
For me they are parasites, as they live off of the work of everyone else without contributing.
Those who subsist off the philanthropy of the workers who build their houses, produce and prepare their food, and subscribe to their pointless rents.
And these good Samaritan workers do this for a fraction of the value produced, all so that these poor wealthy elites don't have to engage in real, productive labour.
Have a heart. It's a certainty that they would starve without our charity!
Who calls them elite? Only they themselves.
And the media conglomerates they own.
Exactly. They use those to build this lie that they are this grand untouchable class of super beings, but if the OceanGate 2 scandal showed us anything, they are not invincible. They are mortal just like us.
I was just going to say that!
The only time I hear it is in tv shows.
Anime and manga. Classroom of the Elite 🤢
Predator sounds too cool, also. Makes me think of those hunter aliens from the scifi franchise of the same name.
Why not dickbags?
Freeloader class
The handouts class.
I was thinking the parasite class.
Permanently Deleted
I was thinking the same thing, predator sounds about as cool as elite
I always thought the elite were the highly educated, not the rich.
You misspelled narcissist.
Very few highly educated folks are poor, in fact, majority come from money.
"More than three-quarters of medical students came from families in the top two quintiles of family income"
https://www.aamc.org/media/9596/download
I am from a family in the 3rd quartile, nobody ever said I could grow up to be a Doctor. Most told me to 'go to state school and get a shitty office job and be happy with it'. In my college all the kids studying to be med students were driving used BMWs/Mercedes and paying several grand extra a year for parking, new dorms, and the like.
I don't call them the elite... I will continue to not call them elite if that helps.
Parasite is much more applicable.
The parasites manipulate the predators to handle the suckers they trap with news nooses.
Although, just a little asterisk and footnote moment, it is technically possible to gain some level of wealth, like really really upper middle class, through means that are not directly predatory. Incredibly unlikely, but possible.
Incredibly unlikely, but possible.
I don't think it's incredibly unlikely working in IT in the USA.
There are some professions that are very well compensated because they're still so hard to hire and retain for, but I'd argue they're still undervalued on the whole for what they return for investors.
Also all of us in the global North are supported by a chain of exploitation of labour and nature that wraps around the entire globe, which isn't our individual fault, but is part of the reason for our relative prosperity.
You used to be correct. Now, the IT have been traded for dice of errors. There is no correct result for anyone, though a few of the result will appear to be correct long enough to sucker the viral tricking the trade of humans for AI.
I'd argue that even very wealthy people who actually do something, like pro athletes, are getting paid correctly. If you're one of the best in the world at what you do, then you should get paid a lot. It's just that the exploiter class is still taking the lions share of the value they create... And "entertainment value" is dubious at best imo. But the exploiter class pays well for people to keep us distracted... I guess: don't hate the players, hate the game-owners
Nobody calls them that except journalists who are on their payroll.
Or "journalists" trying to smear people they don't like. FOX likes to call anyone that's rich and left of "fascist" the "liberal elite."
I don't think I've ever seen anyone making less than six figures actually call them that
Real-life vampires.
Wait, elite are wealthy? I thought I was a “Coastal Elite Libtard” because I live in a coastal state, am educated, sit at a desk, and earn more than median wage even after adjusting for high cost of living. I worked hard for that college education (many years ago before inflation took it out of reach), now i have to be wealthy too?
Dammit, MAGAts have much simpler criteria and cheaper land, maybe I need to swerve hard right and land in a flyover state
The lucky. The fortunate.
It ain’t me..
I just call them leeches.
target practice
Call them the eloi
Psychoclass
I call them 'cannibals', like in The Internationale.
The issue is most of us would behave the same way if we were the ones with all the money. Not everyone of course, but a fair number of us.
Too many carnists with a boner for predators
Skull emoji
Rich nutjobs are eccentric
That feeling when you were randomly born wealthy and get the daily slander dose on Lemmy.
They must be absolutely devastated for all the critizism coming from social media platform nobody has ever heard of.
...and once upon a time, they didn't care much what people said about them on twitter, too.
Well it’s a fun platform but it’s a little annoying the mindless witch-hunt you know. It’s not like some of us had a choice in how much money and properties we are born with.
Less replace the rich with pro-capitalists and never assume automatically.
After all there are a lot of poor people that are very aggressively pro capitalist and a lot of wealthy and well off people that advocate daily for socialism in politics and equality concepts.
