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Looking at individuals adds detail and concreteness that makes it difficult to hate on or criticise. Bezos, Musk, Gates, even Thiel etc are just as human as we

Looking at individuals adds detail and concreteness that makes it difficult to hate on or criticise. Bezos, Musk, Gates, even Thiel etc are just as human as we are. We could have done the things they did, but we didn't. Our children could do they things they did. They may be arrogant, unethical, they might jump through loopholes, etc, but they're just like us in that way too. We do the same on smaller scales. Looking at a group removes the humanity from what we're looking at, makes it abstract. And abstractions are easy to hate. They don't exist in reality, they are not a reflection of ourselves. It's very easy to hate or throw stones at an abstraction. It's possible to hate the abstraction and love the people in the abstraction at the same time. This is not self-contradictory.

bell-cot 5y ago
From the names mentioned, I wonder if the individuals they picked were biased toward people who "the man in the street" might plausibly see as the creators of important and socially valuable things. Vs. wealthy folks who increased prices of vital drugs by 50X, or "looted & flipped" good companies, or just received huge compensation packages for mediocre (or worse) corporate leadership. A quick text search does not find "Sackler" in either the article, or the HN discussion. Nor "Enron". Nor...
- sudhirj 5y ago
  So it's pretty easy to hate on criminals or jackasses, and they do get hated on already, even if they're rich. And we throw them in prison if at all possible under the current laws. The premise of the article seems to be the disconnect between the feelings the public has for group vs its constituents, when the feeling is positive for each constituent but negative for the group. Bad billionaires aren't in the group, and I'd argue that people do hate on groups even when they love each and every individual member.

bell-cot 5y ago

From the names mentioned, I wonder if the individuals they picked were biased toward people who "the man in the street" might plausibly see as the creators of important and socially valuable things. Vs. wealthy folks who increased prices of vital drugs by 50X, or "looted & flipped" good companies, or just received huge compensation packages for mediocre (or worse) corporate leadership. A quick text search does not find "Sackler" in either the article, or the HN discussion. Nor "Enron". Nor...

sudhirj 5y ago
So it's pretty easy to hate on criminals or jackasses, and they do get hated on already, even if they're rich. And we throw them in prison if at all possible under the current laws. The premise of the article seems to be the disconnect between the feelings the public has for group vs its constituents, when the feeling is positive for each constituent but negative for the group. Bad billionaires aren't in the group, and I'd argue that people do hate on groups even when they love each and every individual member.