Like all powerful people in all of history, something is broken in their brains. They would be happy to rule over the ashes of civilization as long as they get to call the shots. No amount of actual failure will make them think any of it is their fault, because they’re a genius, doncha know?
Like Jim Jones, they are true believers in their own bullshit, which is part of why other people find them so easy to believe, because there is never any doubt in their own minds that this is the right path. Jim Jones didn’t just kill other people in his name, he also killed himself.
All these billionaires suffer from the same malady, believing their own bullshit.
I’m cool with him Jim jonesing himself then
They all do eventually, when faced with no escape from the terrors they have wrought.
See: Hitler blowing his own brains out to defeat the Nazis
I’d be ok with musk and bezos each piloting one of their rockets into the sun with some of their most ardent followers. Trump could gorge himself on Big Macs and filet o’ fish.
Gotta slip it in musks ketamine
And all of his followers
problem with that is JJ had a limiting amount of followers, Trump has many more…and…nukes…so…
Related: Billionaires want you to know they could have done physics (YouTube, 50 min.)
That’s funny. Jeff Bezos dropped out of the physics program at Princeton. Because it was too hard.
I watched this a month or two ago, solid video. I think more could have been done to connect this to popular media especially from the 90’s about physicists. Gordan Freeman of Half-Life, Eddie Kasalivich (Keanu Reeves) and Dr. Lily Sinclair (Rachel Weisz) from Chain Reaction, and others all portrayed physicists as some kind of superheroes whose work could solve all relevant human problems. I think popular media about physicists was probably a big part of it, and I was just slightly disappointed the video didn’t touch on that very much.
Inverting things, I’ve recently begun wondering whether a good way to subvert the pervasive ideology of “the super-rich are super-rich because they are geniuses, so it’s fair” is by increasing the visibility of mathematicians and physicists, so that people be exposed more often to actual off-the-charts intelligence.
This can still degenerate into undue IQ worship at times, but at least the ego trips of scientists tend to take much more benign forms than those of billionaires, generally speaking.
More broadly, everyone can participate in this, simply by using terms like “intelligence” and “genius” in reference to pre-eminent individuals involved in any endeavor other than business and tech (the fact that these two have become the only fields where people unironically talk of geniuses actually is high up on the list of dystopian feature of our time).
by increasing the visibility of mathematicians and physicists, so that people be exposed more often to actual off-the-charts intelligence.
While I like this idea, there’s a general rejection of the intelligence and knowledge of Academia in America. I’m not sure exposure to it would change minds as much as re-enforce the feeling that they need to bully “nerds” who speak too eloquently for them to understand.
It is fall of the Roman Republic all over again.
I’ll share this again. Keep swiping!
This website always make me both depressed how bad wealth inequality has gotten and angry that we have to do something about it.
404’d
Fixed!
The 1st and 2nd Amendments exist for a reason. If powerful captains of industry and elected leaders don’t want to comply with the Constitution and pulse of the people we’re allowed to revolt. It’s fucking written down. Voting isn’t our only civic duty. Sometimes “good trouble” and non violent Kumbaya sit-ins aren’t enough. The rich and powerful have convinced multiple generations that it isn’t democratic to revolt. It’s bullshit and anyone paying attention knows it.
Edit: A lot of the arguments below prove my point that they’ve been successful in convincing us not to fight. It isn’t just about the guns it’s about the will and tactics more than anything. Rebels can do the same thing with some gas and a bit of gunpowder that a multifaceted multi billion dollar army can.
US is armed to the teeth. The local home guard is more armed than militaries of some countries. This is before the army gets called in. Any chance of an armed uprising is naught. The only thing that will work is making the police join in the strikes.
Violence will be used as an excuse to attack people who stood against the govt. This part has been played many times in history. The last major one being in Tianenmen.
We don’t need to defeat the US government as a whole or entire branches of the military. We need to assassinate like 8 people. That’s definitely doable.
Its a hydra and not a minotaur. 8 heads will spawn 16 heads in stead. Structural changes require non violent continous revolution of Gramscian nature. Violence does not work as well as you think it would.
Maybe not but I think it would work better than you think it would.
An armed insurgency just defeated the US military in Afghanistan though
Not the same. US tried to establish a government and then leave the place. They had no plans what would happen after the invasion. If the plan was to establish permanent colony, there would be control structures which make sure that happen.
From my perspective these ultra-rich just don’t seem to think they have any responsibility to humanity. It’s one thing to say they don’t care about their home country, but they just don’t care about humanity at all. If they do anything philanthropic it’s because they’re seeing direct benefits from it. They sit on their unfathomable stockpiles of wealth like a dragon. At best they do nothing, at worst they actively work to destabilize order.
The ultra-rich should not exist!!!
The billionaires have money and power. They do not need or want more money, what they want is more power. The existing power structures with all the laws and democratic processes put more barriers in their way than they like. They see America is in decline, and climate change rapidly approaching (which will wake the moronic masses when it begins to burn down their homes and starve their children). They have assessed that the most efficient way to get more power is just to hasten the decline of America, and all those pesky laws and democratic processes. Then they can build their kingdoms on the bones of what is left.
They should be imprisoned for the rest of their lives for all their exploitations
“Only little people pay taxes.”
