There is no particular mystery to unravel around the political views of Elon Musk, the billionaire technology and social media executive. He is — and for some time, has been — on the far right wing of American politics. He is an enthusiastic purveyor of far-right conspiracy theories, using his platform on the website X to spread a worldview that is as extreme as it is untethered from reality.
If you’re that much astronomically richer than everyone else, how could you possibly be comfortable with it? How do you convince yourself that you deserve it? You either genuinely try to do something good, or you convince yourself that you’re just Better Than The Poors because of some innate attribute. I don’t think there’s another option.
Yep, there’s gotta be a whole raft of psychological issues that any human would encounter being raised above everyone else in wealth and entitlement and power. I’ve certainly seen a glimpse of it … just weird trains of thought that start to run free.
An interesting comparison might be with people who reach the top of their field, up to celebrity status, but in ways that don’t afford them mass wealth and power, just adoration and fame within a very specific, if sometimes prestigious, field. While you’d often find arrogance there, I’d also imagine there’d be more groundedness and even humility through knowing how hard it is to do good and meaningful work and how many others in the world are also doing good work.
During CPU startup Transmeta’s Dyson “It” style campaign leading to their first product launch, they widely publicized that Linus was on staff.
Ironically you chose a picture of Linus holding a laptop containing the only product he’s famous for shilling.
Dude, I went through so many people looking for someone famous and well regarded in a semi-prestigious field who isn’t outlandishly wealthy. TIL that Gabe Newell has 3 billion freakin’ dollars.
I chose this picture of Linus for the oddly smug expression on his face. What does he know???
He’s daydreaming about going all Gordon Ramsay on the LKML after the photo shoot.
Academics and artists strike me as the obvious examples, depending of course. You may get properly wealthy people in those categories, in that they’re technically financially independent if they want to be … but no where near “I’m gonna go buy a company” wealthy.
He has the history of doing the first option, his whole thing is going to Mars. That’s close enough to something good. The real problem is that he’s just doing both.
I don’t think that his plans for Mars are good for anyone but himself. Creating a small privately owned Mars colony is more likely to increase problems like climate change and inequality than reduce them. If it were Nasa or another government agency, we could argue that technological advances from the attempt would benefit everyone, like they did in the space race, but this won’t even do that. Best case, it makes him even richer. Worst case, it pumps a lot of carbon into the atmosphere and wastes a bunch of resources for no benefit.