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One of the core problems I think America refuses to acknowledge is the pervasive culture of idolatry and putting the rich on pedestals. It seems inevitable that

by BowBun 1y ago

One of the core problems I think America refuses to acknowledge is the pervasive culture of idolatry and putting the rich on pedestals. It seems inevitable that if the "American Dream" is basically just becoming rich enough, that you get lots of people that value money over everything else. Power and wealth usually seek more power and wealth, and here we are. Capitalism is a cancer.

vacuity 1y ago
America is perhaps the pinnacle of "got successful mostly by luck but believes it was all hard work". The pinnacle of successful self-delusional narratives. We like stories, but this is taking it too far.
- Neonlicht 1y ago
  Its a lot easier to "bootstrap" yourself in a country with a functional government. The ultra rich don't want to pay the taxes that keeps civilization running. People like Elon Musk would not be on top in a Mad Max world.
- jrflowers 1y ago
  It will never stop being funny how adamant Americans are that lottery winners win the lottery because they deserve to win the lottery. Like people will point to Peter Thiel investing early in Facebook as proof of some sort of genius or prescience. That’s not true! That’s not how investing works! That’s not how anything works!
buggerme 1y ago
It’s not unique to America as that’s the pattern of religion, history. The American Dream for me was always freedom from others bullshit in a “ok I have no obligation to your social gossip, religious or otherwise.” Language is cancer as that is the source of all these mind viruses about economics when economics is just physical statistics. Language is used to obfuscate our only imperative is biological survival. We’re still running on the fumes of the consciousness of the last century. We had the automation in the 50s to provide the basics for everyone in the US and religious nutters full of honorific ideas to history decide we had to make orthogonal jobs, modern piousness point achievements, a virtual scoreboard, to serve physical reality still. Americans are pathetic. I’m glad I’m off the hook for their healthcare. This is an utterly insane culture reliant on 1984 Newspeak to align itself with the world not its own experience. Refuses to admit it may be the bad guy. Glad the other 8 billion are end running around 300 million idiots
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- graemep 1y ago
  > It’s not unique to America as that’s the pattern of religion, history. What is interesting is that America has done it (and the rest of the west is following) despite its historical religion being very hostile to the accumulation of wealth (all the "eye of the needle", "root of all evil" etc.).
  - bigbadfeline 1y ago
    I say this often, but it's worth repeating - culture is easy to change given money and what it can buy: media, bot farms, GPU farms, LLMs, politicians, etc. Naturally, in every single one of these cases the US has got the best models money can buy...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pllbnk 1y ago
I don't see any relationship between idolizing rich people as a culture and capitalism. There's also nothing wrong with capitalism when it's constrained by the rules and the rules are enforced.
- BowBun 1y ago
  > I don't see any relationship between idolizing rich people as a culture and capitalism The primary goal of capitalism is profit. Therefore successful people in capitalism are rich. People look up to and idolize the most successful people within their cultures. The connection is crystal clear to me. > There's also nothing wrong with capitalism ... I think if you put yourself in my shoes, you could come up with your own counter examples. There's plenty of things wrong with the pursuit of profit when many people suffer needlessly. It breeds callousness, greed, selfishness, and other personality traits that aren't great for society.
  - pllbnk 1y ago
    In a perfect world, we would agree on a wealth ceiling and would tax everything above it. Want that $200M yacht? Then better sell your mansion or the government will try to sell it. If nobody wants to buy it - it's your problem and a bad investment, try to sell it for much much cheaper than what it cost you to build and maintain it. The implementation is difficult but not impossible. There's just been no interest in implementing it due to lobbying.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
  > There's also nothing wrong with capitalism when it's constrained by the rules and the rules are enforced. But that isn't how it works. Those 'winning' at capitalism can use their wealth to change the rules and/or avoid their enforcement. The wealthy cannot be constrained by the system that they themselves control.

by BowBun 1y ago

vacuity 1y ago

America is perhaps the pinnacle of "got successful mostly by luck but believes it was all hard work". The pinnacle of successful self-delusional narratives. We like stories, but this is taking it too far.

Neonlicht 1y ago
Its a lot easier to "bootstrap" yourself in a country with a functional government. The ultra rich don't want to pay the taxes that keeps civilization running. People like Elon Musk would not be on top in a Mad Max world.
jrflowers 1y ago
It will never stop being funny how adamant Americans are that lottery winners win the lottery because they deserve to win the lottery. Like people will point to Peter Thiel investing early in Facebook as proof of some sort of genius or prescience. That’s not true! That’s not how investing works! That’s not how anything works!

buggerme 1y ago

It’s not unique to America as that’s the pattern of religion, history. The American Dream for me was always freedom from others bullshit in a “ok I have no obligation to your social gossip, religious or otherwise.” Language is cancer as that is the source of all these mind viruses about economics when economics is just physical statistics. Language is used to obfuscate our only imperative is biological survival. We’re still running on the fumes of the consciousness of the last century. We had the automation in the 50s to provide the basics for everyone in the US and religious nutters full of honorific ideas to history decide we had to make orthogonal jobs, modern piousness point achievements, a virtual scoreboard, to serve physical reality still. Americans are pathetic. I’m glad I’m off the hook for their healthcare. This is an utterly insane culture reliant on 1984 Newspeak to align itself with the world not its own experience. Refuses to admit it may be the bad guy. Glad the other 8 billion are end running around 300 million idiots

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
graemep 1y ago
> It’s not unique to America as that’s the pattern of religion, history. What is interesting is that America has done it (and the rest of the west is following) despite its historical religion being very hostile to the accumulation of wealth (all the "eye of the needle", "root of all evil" etc.).
- bigbadfeline 1y ago
  I say this often, but it's worth repeating - culture is easy to change given money and what it can buy: media, bot farms, GPU farms, LLMs, politicians, etc. Naturally, in every single one of these cases the US has got the best models money can buy...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

pllbnk 1y ago

I don't see any relationship between idolizing rich people as a culture and capitalism. There's also nothing wrong with capitalism when it's constrained by the rules and the rules are enforced.

BowBun 1y ago
> I don't see any relationship between idolizing rich people as a culture and capitalism The primary goal of capitalism is profit. Therefore successful people in capitalism are rich. People look up to and idolize the most successful people within their cultures. The connection is crystal clear to me. > There's also nothing wrong with capitalism ... I think if you put yourself in my shoes, you could come up with your own counter examples. There's plenty of things wrong with the pursuit of profit when many people suffer needlessly. It breeds callousness, greed, selfishness, and other personality traits that aren't great for society.
- pllbnk 1y ago
  In a perfect world, we would agree on a wealth ceiling and would tax everything above it. Want that $200M yacht? Then better sell your mansion or the government will try to sell it. If nobody wants to buy it - it's your problem and a bad investment, try to sell it for much much cheaper than what it cost you to build and maintain it. The implementation is difficult but not impossible. There's just been no interest in implementing it due to lobbying.
Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
> There's also nothing wrong with capitalism when it's constrained by the rules and the rules are enforced. But that isn't how it works. Those 'winning' at capitalism can use their wealth to change the rules and/or avoid their enforcement. The wealthy cannot be constrained by the system that they themselves control.