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this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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Watch Wolf of Wall Street - extremely NSFW btw - or if you cannot handle watching it, read the book.
For some, the money isn't even the point, it's the thrill of the con game.
For billionaires though, it's something on a whole other level. Like, look at pictures of them - Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos, etc. - there's something not right there at all. They are playing an entirely different kind of game when, e.g., they don't even allow their workers to take breaks to pee, even if they are pregnant. Ofc YOU would not do that, nor likely would anyone that you know, nor would even meet in your entire lifetime. Who would do such a thing!? (unless their boss mandates it ofc, so like they would get fired if they don't, I mean like if nobody was forcing you to do so and yet... you did it anyway, and then you also forced thousands of other ~~humans~~ people to do it too)
That's why they are a billionaire and you and I are not - b/c they are on a whole other level. It's true, money cannot buy happiness, but they are damn sure going to ~~watch~~ cause the world to burn while they try.
There was a twilight zone episode called "a nice place to visit" where this petty crook died and ended up in a place where he could have anything he wanted any time. Every time he'd gamble, he'd win. Every woman he talked to wanted him. Etc. But he couldn't lose.
A billionaire can have anything, but without challenge nothing really means anything. It's all fake, and they're surrounded by people who just agree with them in order to get to their money. They have no friends. They can't even go outside. They're trapped in the mansions and sports cars and yachts, unable to live in or even experience the world they have so much influence over. They are trapped by their wealth, so they come up with impossible plans to escape... To Mars, to space... But there is no escape. They are trapped on a world they are killing, surrounded by people who they need who also hate them.
The crook in the twilight zone episode asked to lose or get turned down, wanted some kind of challenge. He didn't want to be in heaven anymore... And he was informed that he was not in heaven. That was hell.
Of course they're broken. They're in a living hell that everyone imagines is heaven.
Both Bezos and Musk were also abused or neglected by their parents. They feel like they have to prove something, but there's nothing to prove and the people they want to prove themselves to are dead.
I love sci-fi, and fantasy too, in large part bc that is a way of seeing clearly into the real world, when you can isolate things and put them into a different context that makes it easier to digest.
I think you hit the nail on the head and also, I think that it's arguably not even their fault. Hear me out! If you were a person with IQ of 300 let's say and you are talking to a literal toddler who says "let's go eat at Arby's", and you do and get food poisoning... then how do you avoid that again in the future? Kill the toddler? Or perhaps learn not to let toddlers control all of our actions? After all, the toddler was not fully aware of the consequences of their own actions, nor were you at the time, but of the two, one is capable of learning more readily than the other. It is partly the result of the toddler's actions that you got sick, but not solely, and perhaps not even mostly.
Billionaires got rich via the system, and aside from those particular individuals there are many more that would follow them. Being merely "rich" isn't (only) the problem, it's the entire system that produces that. However, it is too late for that now, bc the toddler has been elected King and it is no longer an option to change the system. At some point technology will allow billionaires to become effectively immortal, and they may gain super powers besides that as well - already they have access to "medical care" and "a place to live that they actually own" and other things that are fast disappearing for the rest of us. e.g. when it becomes common again for the average person to die of easily preventable diseases, even a lifespan of 1-200 may be a close approximation of that in comparison. Soon we mortals may also lose "access to information", since it will become diluted so much by the flood of misinformation that basically "what we know" will devolve into what we are allowed to know, by those who with the touch of a button could cause the media outlets, which they own, to put out an authoritative story telling us whatever truth they wish us to hear.
In any case, that is why I support being subversive - e.g. they are unkind to their workers, so we can oppose the trend by being kind to our fellow human;-). Whether it works or not, it's also a lot more fun.
Musk's father is actually a pretty big asshole, so he probably was abused and neglected. Not sure about Bezos.
Not that it excuses anything about either of them.
https://pagesix.com/2019/01/10/the-sad-story-behind-jeff-bezos-and-his-biological-father/
There's some profound resentment there. Maybe the first question we should ask billionaires is, "who hurt you?"