I've been saying since the 90's that Republicans want to take us back to a feudalistic society. And I was a fucking teenager in the 90's and I clocked that shit.
"when we invest so much of our attention on the billionaire class, the billionaire class’s mores and worldview tends to trickle down into the culture."
Yeah, regarding "very smart people with very poor social skills", I always come back to human intelligence being a bundle of strands. A few robust strands might make you a niche genius, but an effective moron in most other contexts.
The lonely boys are only a portion of our country and yet they somehow get to force the rest of us to go along with them on this technocratic journey.
But I didn't want to live Lord of the Flies...
Good news is these changes don't last forever. Society rarely moves backwards for long. It may be just a few years or a decade or two, but it will get better.
Yes, what is happening is chilling. And we know the answer is education. Now a warning. In the past, when countries slide into authoritarianism, some of the first people who are jailed are the educated. Pol Pot killed everyone with glasses, assuming they must be eggheads.
Is tech itself one of the problems? Is tiktok hollowing out our brains? Another concern I have is a deteriorated world order. All the fiefdoms nibbling away at the empire. It's easy to prey on a paradigm shit, to get what you want out of this dissolution. People are taking advantage of this.
Psychopaths more easily exploit change, and there's a lot of technology change right now
Think about the emergence of iron and steel technology, and the psychopaths who literally covered themselves in suits of it to keep the peasants in perpetual poverty
I’m not sure it has to do with neurodivergence. What does it have more to do with? Hint: Both Musk and Thiel have formative experiences in apartheid South Africa.
I think you're on the right track -- there is a powerful and dangerous move toward feudalism -- but it gets confused with your attitude toward technology
It's easy to point fingers at the phones and web sites, and lose track of the monsters who are flooding them with nonsense that unravels society
They are just entitled assholes who made the enlightenment ideal of individual freedom into a cult of the individually powerful, of authoritarianism, the patriarchy, and bad memes.
That you think their megalomania and anti-humanitarian traits are due to neurodivergance, is incredibly bigoted.
That's not my point. My point is that neurodivergent people like Musk tend to over-emphasize the analytical to the detriment of compassion and empathy.
You're missing that people like Musk and his batshit ugly-on-the-inside-and-out mother (don't let your heart steep in hate kids, or you end up looking like that) are hiding behind this excuse of neurodivergence. You do realize people who are neurodivergent, 1/2
including those with autism, absolutely are in fact capable of empathy and that being analytical at the expense pf considering your impact is a problematic trope, right? 2
They're relying on people buying into this idea that it's almost as if Leon can't actually help being a fascist dick because it's just how he experiences the world, and you're playing right in to their hand. 3/3 (ack sorry for the miscount this was longer than I thought)
Excellent read. Although I feel like the CEO assassination is a bit of an anomaly because the victim actually was a source of suffering and not random people.
Maybe that's only because he personally suffered and if he hadn't, he would have ended up with misplaced rage and blame like the rest. 🧵
I do disagree that the overlords think they're making the world better on their terms. I think it's just an insatiable addiction to money and control. They do all have an assortment of other known addictions, after all.
Comments
https://parkspeople.substack.com/p/facing-the-reality-of-indulgent-tv
But I didn't want to live Lord of the Flies...
Good news is these changes don't last forever. Society rarely moves backwards for long. It may be just a few years or a decade or two, but it will get better.
Think about the emergence of iron and steel technology, and the psychopaths who literally covered themselves in suits of it to keep the peasants in perpetual poverty
(maybe a more apt analogy than I thought)
It's easy to point fingers at the phones and web sites, and lose track of the monsters who are flooding them with nonsense that unravels society
That you think their megalomania and anti-humanitarian traits are due to neurodivergance, is incredibly bigoted.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1362361319883506
Imo, the framework of narcissism and psychopathy is much more useful for billionaires like Elon, than claims about autism's "known" empathy problem.
"Only I can fix this problem"
I'm not expert at all, but I haven't seen a connection between neurodivergence and lack of empathy
Maybe that's only because he personally suffered and if he hadn't, he would have ended up with misplaced rage and blame like the rest. 🧵
I do disagree that the overlords think they're making the world better on their terms. I think it's just an insatiable addiction to money and control. They do all have an assortment of other known addictions, after all.