this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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If you offered me hundreds of billions of dollars, whatever Mollusk is worth these days, or any obscene amount of money, I wouldn’t take it if I had to wake up every morning and look in the mirror to see a quivering sack of worthless, toxic shit like him starting back at me.
That said, I would actually probably take it and immediately stop being a sleazy, classless, vile heap of rotting offal like he is, and start a foundation that could single-handedly make the world a profoundly better place. But that’s because I’m not a fucking psychopathic bigoted asshole polyp.
I would do the same but I do feel, this isn’t defending them, that money seems to change people. Particularly if you build it gradually, you just become accustomed to slight changes.
As another example I have noticed. Look at the unbelievable stuff people have done like Harvey Weinstein, Musk, Trump etc.
I don’t believe people start out that insane or weird, it’s gradual. You’re a little strange but usually your peers keep your ego in check. Now if you happen to be powerful or rich, then the first strange thing you do is minor, they agree to go along and gradually the craziness escalates.
This is indeed true, but I suspect that most people who achieve that kind of wealth started out as psychopaths. Maybe you were a decent person until you had enough money to exploit the socioeconomic order, but odds are you got that much money because you’re not a decent person.
Yes I believe a good portion are psychopaths or misguided in that they think they’re doing a greater good and they’re better suited to choose how to (or not) distribute that wealth. Like Bill Gates, dude did some terrible shit, then some good shit, but still he had the ego to keep going and building wealth because he thinks he knows best.
The sad thing is you could reset tomorrow and this or similar will always happen again, as like you say, there very nature is what leads them to the top as most people are not like that.
I find It fascinating even though I know very little about psychology.
I think what you may be overlooking or undervaluing is the fact that once you have all the money, there’s only one thing left to do: try and whitewash your legacy. You can’t take it with you, but you can get a hospital wing named after you, even if you put a significant proportion of its patients there.
It’s like prestiging in real life. It’s disgusting but it tracks.