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> Musk has become a poster child one can easily point to and ask a question along the lines of 'is it reasonable for society to allow a person with resources ne
by jl6 4y ago
> Musk has become a poster child one can easily point to and ask a question along the lines of 'is it reasonable for society to allow a person with resources near some nation-state levels to exist and not limit their ability to gather that amount of resources?'
It’s an interesting question but if you’re hoping for a ‘no’ answer, Musk is a pretty mild test case. For all his failings, he hasn’t used his personal wealth for anything that bad. Far worse is done by corporations and governments (and actual princes).
In fact, I’m not sure individualistic supervillainy actually happens all that much. Being bad at scale is still a team effort.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoOh, I absolutely agree. That is why I opened with poster child qualification, because it seems most people need an appropriate scapegoat ( it is just easier to have one 'bad guy' to focus on as opposed to a menagerie of individuals with varying levels of liability and involvement ). We like to keep things simple. The part that annoys me is ( as you indicated ) that Musk actually did bring into being some rather neat stuff ( Tesla comes to mind -- I hate that he made car into subscription, but I love that he moved the entire industry 20 years ahead ). I probably need to qualify that statement. Like with most people, I like some of the things he did. I dislike some of the things he did. To your point, with corporation at least that power is somewhat distributed and each individual is a ( mild, but still ) check on the other. You raise a good point though and I wonder if billionaire class overshadowed pan-nationals for me for some reason.