These days I'd say more are the like than not.
I've noticed sociopathy is highly present in the kind.
Psychopathy in this case..
R
I’ve always said that some of it comes from having the money (or the power or both) to fulfill any whim. Think about the affect that must have in your mind when you have no real limits to what you can do.
Most of us have to make trade offs. Do this and I can’t do this. Do that and I might get in trouble or my friends would disown me.
But not so once you reach billionaire status… or become so powerful that you are untouchable.
You are surrounded by sycophants who tell you how smart you are…. The strangest desire… you can fulfill. No needing to ask if it is good or bad, right or wrong. You can just do it. And your minions I’ll cheer it on.
Then you decide that you are way smarter than everyone else. That only you can save society. Or make the planet better. Or save the human race. Suddenly… you are a god… and your disciples are cheering your every move because they want your breadcrumbs.
So you create a eugenics movement. You exterminate a whole religion or race. You release a virus to depopulate the earth so you can be its savior. You become the “real” destroyer of worlds because you are the only one smart enough to see how easy it all is to engineer the world in your billionaire image.
Besides, those little people who aren’t rich… they clearly have to be taken care of like children because they aren’t smart enough to be a billionaire like you. They need to be treated like infants and told what to do and how to think and, oh, if the are needed as cannon fodder for your little plans… it’s not like anyone I’ll miss them. They don’t matter. Just useless eaters. Animals.
IMHO the ones it afflicts the most are the young ones who hit it rich… inventing a car for the masses. A telephone. The Oil industry. An operating system. Social media… PayPal…. Google. Because when you have all that money and power without ever really having to put in the hard work… lead a team… build something over time… struggle… make mistakes… I think it really fucks you up in the head.
Henry Ford was a fucking monster. Edison was a monster in his own ways. Rockefeller was a monster. Gates… Zuckerberg… Buffet… Soros… Bezos… holy shit their depravities are unreal.
And as much as I like Musk, who seems to have put his coin behind things I definitely like (innovation, free speech, anti-corruption and Patriot values…) is he immune? We’ll see. I hope so. Because within about 4 years he will be a trillionaire. The first.
How much will that weigh on him?
The good news at this point is that he is on “our” side for the most part. And if some of the lesser billionaires start to get frisky… well, let’s just say that Misk could swat Soros down like a fly financially.
Though I would really prefer if he burns him with a magnifying glass…
Sirhr