4 ms·
I sometimes wonder if I would be any better if you gave me a billion dollars. It seems like effectively unlimited wealth does something to people. I wonder if i
by api 8y ago
I sometimes wonder if I would be any better if you gave me a billion dollars. It seems like effectively unlimited wealth does something to people. I wonder if it's a result of what it does to the people around you. Basically you end up surrounded by sycophants and people saying what you want to hear because they want some of your money, so it's not unlike the ego trip cult leaders and gurus get. You no longer get any balanced social feedback.
Same probably applies to power of a more political sort. Are dictators dictators because they're dictators or does placing a human in a dictatorial office turn them into one?
- ZeroGravitas 8y agoI was wondering the same about these mysterious big money donors that fund reactionary stuff. You could think of them as bond villains from a Handmaid's Tale or you could just think of them as the juiciest targets in the Fox viewers demographic. Why try to scare money out of thousands of sheltered old people when you can go for the big score and terrufy one super rich sheltered old person.
- api 8y agoBingo. Money does not magically render a person impervious to the same insecurities, emotional reactivity, and other failings as ordinary people. It doesn't magically make someone more rational, more secure, less depressed, less fearful, or anything else. Rich people are just big bipedal monkeys with large integers in certain columns of a SQL table.