Jelani Cobb
Old Dog New Tricks@Jelaniya no surprise. Why do so many people think amassing large sums of wealth makes someone intelligent? I’ve met a number of these folks and my experience is most are bat shit crazy narcissists.
Fallon Stone@thom @Jelaniya I agree.. but I have to say.. we were taught in school that only intelligent people become rich. Whether it's "you need a college degree to make a lot of money and you have to be smart to get into a good college" or "here's a parade of wealthy men throughout history and because our system only rewards the good, smart people, they are all smart"
Angry Centrist@FallonStone @thom @Jelaniya
smart != Good.
Smart != Just.
The Robber Barons were smart, but most were ruthless and greedy and rapacious and unrepentant.
smart != Good.
Smart != Just.
The Robber Barons were smart, but most were ruthless and greedy and rapacious and unrepentant.
@dkbgeek @FallonStone @Jelaniya agreed and my point exactly. There are many forms of intelligence and I definitely recognize many different types of genius. My point is many people are choosing to follow the narcissistic money maker as though that alone makes them smart enough to follow.
Elon and Kanye are geniuses.
Elon and Kanye are geniuses in narcissism.@FallonStone @thom @Jelaniya I don't know if there's been any work on identifying cause vs effect, but studies have shown that on average people who are more wealthy are less empathetic. If that scales up even linearly, Musk is less surprising (but no less disgusting)
@dkbgeek @thom @Jelaniya what you're referring to is mentioned in Jon Ronson's book on psychopathy. According to Ronson, capitalism rewards the fundamental traits of psychopathy... Chief among them, as you pointed out, is a lack of empathy. In this way, the system rewards the unempathetic, the narcissistic, and the domineering with lots of money and power.