“We are very proud of this! We are nobodies, we have no money, nothing!” Tommaso Cacciari, from a group calling itself No Space for Bezos, told the BBC.

“We’re just citizens who started organising and we managed to move one of the most powerful people in the world - all the billionaires - out of the city.”

The wedding kicks off later this week, and has a star-studded guest list of the rich and famous that is rumoured to include Kim Kardashian, Mick Jagger and Leonardo diCaprio, as well as several of the Trumps.

  • OrteilGenou@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    This is the actual answer. Remember Greenpeace, who would set sail to interrupt oil tankers?

    Sailors in the Vaca Navy, what’s the point in having wealth if you can’t enjoy it?

  • e$tGyr#J2pqM8v@feddit.nl
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    18 hours ago

    If we were to rank people on the basis of how far they are on the path towards enlightenment, without a doubt Jeff Bezos would have all the world in front of him.

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    That picture. He’s one monocle away from being a bond villain and she looks like she’s halfway through the transformation into a vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He’s even got one eyebrow raised like the monocle is already there. I wonder if he’s just used to wearing one in his evil lair.

  • LittleBorat3@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    They can have their wedding in one of their beloved tax havens, not in some crumbling city that should be preserved as well as possible.

    Doesn’t Venice take a tax for each visitor? They should up this as much as possible. If you really want to go there you can pay a 100+ euros.

    Don’t get me started on cruise ships and the clientele on there.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Tax based on yearly income of the individual. Even with the creative accounting these shits do, it will still dwarf what normal people make.

    • SonOfAntenora@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      Indeed, they do have a tax. But it’s essentially a tourist trap / tourist heaven now, a giant partying hub with few notable events that appeal to the ‘haute culture’ that, somehow, feels consumeristic in nature.

  • Narri N.@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    “This event involves just 200 carefully selected guests and will bring major economic benefits to the city,” the local politician said

    Tell me you don’t understand what is being protested without telling me you don’t understand what is being protested.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      2 days ago

      He knows but part of the major economic benefits for the city are already in his pockets

      • Narri N.@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        Well yeah, most likely that. I want to believe that there are some politicians and city officials and such who are just too stupid to realize the problems with capitalism. I just don’t wanna think bad of all my fellow humans, you know. That style of useless universal misanthropy is so 2008-2011 thinking for me personally.

          • Narri N.@lemmy.ml
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            24 hours ago

            tomato potato. and how do you know, hmm? do you divine the exact information on a case-by-case basis from animal bones and cryptic symbolism in your dreams for every non-socialist on whether they are stupid or willfully blind? i often find myself making such grand generalizations, while being myself willfully blind to the stupidity of such endevours.

            • dermanus@lemmy.ca
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              24 hours ago

              Because they wouldn’t get to that position if they were just plain stupid. But it’s amazing what someone can fail to understand when their livelihood depends on it.

              • UniversalBasicJustice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                22 hours ago

                Because they wouldn’t get to that position if they were just plain stupid.

                Counterpoint: Trump

                The influence of money outweighs intelligence every time, which is precisely why your second statement holds true.

                • Narri N.@lemmy.ml
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                  18 hours ago

                  You both seem to be right. Needless levels of empathy should also be avoided in some sense. i want to believe in aliens though

  • But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The activists have been heavily criticised by city officials, who argue that such high-rolling visitors are an important source of income.

    I hope the voters remember to kick these politicians and officials to the curb. They clearly don’t work for the people they represent

    • dan1101@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      All they see is income and screw everything and everyone else. Way too much of that right now from governments and corporations.

      • Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Remember when dolphins actually returned to the city for a little while? That’s how it’s supposed to be for citizens. Bezos should just tour somehwere that needs more tourism. I think the deep sea is open.

        • Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works
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          8 hours ago

          For temporary solutions, yes. They have three major, perpetual issues that are not solved by tourism money.

          1. Rising sea levels.
          2. Too many boats making waves rocking the foundations more.
          3. Too much groundwater extraction (seawater pressure will push inland with less groundwater pressure).
      • thisNotMyName@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        It sure get’s better when 200 people, mostly from the US, get in their private jets and travel half the world. That’s how that works, right? Right?

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    2 days ago

    Having all those billionaires there gathered at once would be a massive opportunity to create a huge transferable amount of wealth under the right circumstances.

    • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      After reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, I’ve just been crossing my fingers for homemade drones to start taking down private planes.

      • NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world
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        You’re only bringing that up because it’s a highly relevant and logical solution to the problem of isolated and ego driven wealth objectively and negatively affecting society on a global scale, way to strawman, libtard.

        • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works
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          21 hours ago

          You forgot to defend the conservative ideal of the Roman empire as the supreme fascist state! You need to talk about how the romans allowed the free market (with the guiding hand of daddy imperator) to determine where the money should go! Tell them that the money was used to build roads, not for trade, but to march their very manly soldiers on against the commies and the libs!

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    2 days ago

    Why the fuck would any of those people want to go to the wedding of a glorified shopkeeper anyway? Mick Jagger? WTAF?

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      2 days ago

      He’s probably getting paid a literal boat load to be there. Kardashian already paid trump off to release someone from prison, so she’ll go where the wind takes her. Leonardo diCaprio probably wants to see some fresh college age Italian girls. The trumps want to be seen as one of the elites, even though they know everyone secretly hates them by now and see them as white trash. Bezos inviting them is another matter.

      • Almacca@aussie.zone
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        2 days ago

        Rich people are weird.

        Edit: and by that I mean that I find it hard to believe that at any of these people are still motivated by money, and if they are, they need to seek psychiatric help. I reckon it’s more out of boredom. Jagger and DiCaprio are probably there in support of his cradle robbing.

        • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. ”

          - F. Scott Fitzgerald

          • Machinist@lemmy.world
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            23 hours ago

            That’s a great Fitzgerald quote. I had to look it up. Written after The Great Gatsby but published shortly before, The Rich Boy is a novelette. From 1926.

            1. I fucking hate knowing history. I fucking hate feeling like Cassandra.

            Sometimes a DIY icepick lobotomy doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

        • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          2 days ago

          Bezos made (makes?) his people piss in bottles, he’s one of the richest in the world. They think they’re smart by being frugal. Yes, rich people are absolutely weird.

  • harmsy@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I’m with the locals on this one. Bezos should go attempt something anatomically impossible on himself.