one of those things I see going around that people often attach the word "capitalism" too and I get pedantic and don't repost but do in principle agree with is that one of the major flaws of wealth concentration is it allows people to fail up to a dangerous level
The latest WSJ reporting on Musk's sexual pursuit of women at SpaceX doesn't just show (again) how weird and gross he is, it also highlights how hard people work to protect him and keep things under wraps. Sworn statements denying reported facts, NDAs, payoffs, etc
www.wsj.com/business/elo...
I used to be worried about hypocrisy bc of my perception of myself as a bit of whatever you call a middle-class trust fund kid - my family&I have major issues,but they've lent me money, including not that long ago, so I always figure "don't cast stones"
but billionaire nepo stuff is another level
the reason I bring this up is just because... there's no way Elon gets to this point without having, like, the expectation that people will protect him from himself
and that's a terrifying worldview to imagine somebody with power having.
I don't think it's *just* a matter of "too much money," I think that there had to be some kind of permission structure (some of which I think we can publicly see) to allow someone to become this much of an outright, obvious failperson while also a Major Business Leader
so many people have to have jobs of "keeping Elon from embarassing himself in a way that actually fucks him over" that it has to be an active effort for him to keep out of his constant awareness that he has to pay people more than many small companies to minimize how much he fucks himself
Yeah - this is something that is generated within capitalism, but it's just a manifestation of power, it's not something that is inherent in the nature of free markets and private property.
I actively think it's bad because... like this sounds like the most lib winemom sentiment and it absolutely is, but he desperately needs therapy and without having some kind of normal accountability structure he won't ever get it
like if you have ever read an interview with the guy, you know he has Brain Stuff going on.I'm jumpy about diagnosing things at a distance,but obviously he's... got a brain of the kind that in other timelines would make him post here. You can be functional with what I think he has, but not w/o help!
He's also just - really clearly unhappy and dysfunctional in his personal life and his professional life, and that comes with ten billion bad coping mechanisms
that's one of the things that gets me. he's got all this money, and he is just incapable of using it to make himself happier, so what's the fucking *point*? he has a hundred billion dollars, and his primary hobby is "Twitter poster".
honestly though even the non-Musk billionaires feel like they're falling down on the job a bit. where are the monuments to man's hubris you can make with ten figures of disposable income? why are Zuck's hobbies "MMA" and "feeding cows weird shit"?
Zuck seems to be largely enjoying himself, even if his hobbies are kind of silly. What better use of money is there than indulging silly hobbies! He's also pretty big on philanthropy, at least for some stuff.
I think this is what Bezos is doing too. My conspiracy theory is that he made Prime Studios pick up The Expanse because he's a fan of the series, which I am compelled to respect on the basis that that's the exact thing I'd do if I was a billionaire.
I mean, if I was in Zucks shoes, I'd also probably enjoy studying martial arts as an exercise routine.
I'd also probably manage Facebook...er... Meta... differently, but that's a separate matter...
