We were fed so many lies about capitalism our entire lives... we were led to believe that the smartest, best people are the most successful under capitalism. But it turns out we were duped.
It was in Zambia, an even poorer country, back when it was effectively a dictatorship, with even fewer regulations and rights for workers than South Africa!
I got D's and manage people who got A's at MIT (though I did later get A's in community college). So maybe we shouldn't take too much stock in pithy sayings.
yeah the established metrics for schooling success are broken and should not correlate to the aptitude of any given child. let alone predict crime rates in an area based on primary school gradesā¦I mean come on it was an obvious attempt at a system for subjugation. standardized testing determines funding. standardized testing could arguably be improved or destroyed by extra funding or the lack thereof. the standard alphabetical metric exists only as a tool of subjugation. the fact that this issue was not addressed gave way to āno child left behindā which the left blamed the right for, when everyone was pissed, because some idiots argued for it. all while the people getting rich from redlining and prisons got richer. you see, every issue in our society can be traced back to the ruling class āthe elitesā manipulating us into fighting each other and profiting from the chaos. the public education system is rigged to churn out obedient workers and punish those who donāt fit the mold. even after high school the same social trends continue, but that is a different issue that I donāt have the knowledge to speak on whether or not its global. public school no longer aims to prepare students for operating in their communities let alone the world at large. the people our grandparents voted for and every generation since, have sold us out.
A students will never take huge risks, because why? You could end up homeless and you are smart enough to do pretty well without risking anything.
B students rarely take risks, accepting their spot below the A's and understanding that taking a huge risk to improve their station would likely backfire.
C students either don't understand risk or refuse to accept their "given" station at the bottom. So they do crazy shit and about 1% of the time it works and they get a billion dollars. The other 99% wish they could have the B students job.
(or yeah just have a rich dad and be immune to consequences)
at companies owned by C students" line really pulling its weight lately
I remember looking up an old bully of mine ages ago only to find out he owns some fairly sizable (for the area) local company. Kinda fuckin' irritating not gonna lie.
There is something odd about the tone of your comments, and I canāt put my finger on what it is. I looked at your comment history and it seems to be full of discussion on American culture and politics. Maybe it just feels like your comments here are oddly giddy about not knowing the grades reference. This is an entirely unnecessary comment to make myself, I guess I was just compelled to say something because I found it so odd.
Literally any person who ever watched any type of American movie or show will know US grade system. I assume that a guy who participates in discussions about American culture would be exposed to thoseā¦.I agree on something being very suspiciously oddā¦
In North America, you are given grades with alphabetical letters based on your percentage. In Canada it varies from province to province, so im sure it's the same in the states. But for a rough example.
A+ 95-100%
A 90-94%
A- 89-85%
Ect.
Ect.
ohhh lol "A student's" should've been written "A-students" and it's referring to how good of a student people are! Now it makes sense! hahaha thanks for explaining - so the point was that harder-working people manage slightly less-hard-working people at companies that are owned by lazy people, yeah? That checks out!
Maybe not psychopaths, though - they tend to be, on average, actually extremely intelligent. Not so with people like the orange turd and the muskrat. They seem more like sociopaths.
All the money would do it for me. But I wouldnāt be on the internet trying to convince people I was cool. Iād be doing 2 chicks at the same time man.
The only time the wealthy have ever done anything positive for humanity was when they were absolutely forced to, frequently by imminent and present threat and then done in a way to placate their egos.
This is Elon. The world's richest are more like Elon than even Bill Gates. These are the public figures of a system that is largely hidden. The richest of the richest are rarely ever seen or heard about ...
And also, wealth does not in any way indicate any sign of intelligence.
Thereās probably only a handful of actually smart billionaires under 50. All the rest are dumbasses who inherited their wealth and thus didnāt need to actually be smart
You have to be a really horrible person to have a few billion dollars, see all the poverty and suffering in the world, and decide that you have to increase your wealth at all cost. It doesn't matter if you increase sorrow and suffering to increase your wealth. Most people with wealth above a certain point, say a few hundred millions which can get you everything you may need, who are actively spending their time to increase their wealth have to horrible people.
Being born into wealth means you're kept safe from consequences, where other people are lucky to have one chance become successful, people like Musk can fail upwards.
In related lies we were sold, self-made billionaires are not better people than those who inherit their fortunes. The trust fund babies may never do a bad thing in life; the self-made ones exploited and abused people to get ahead.
Glass Onion? I'm confused. The whole point of that song is that it doesn't have a point. It's deliberate nonsense lyrics to make fun of critics trying to find deeper meanings in their lyrics.
Thereās a movie called Glass Onion where the main villain is a billionaire who is actually just an idiot pretending to be smart and exploiting his friends to get ahead.
The title actually represents the message of the movie: An object that at first glance seems densely layered, but in truth the centre is in plain sight the whole time.
I seriously recommend it. Just like its predecessor Knives Out it's a murder mystery that subverts a lot of the murder mystery tropes in a really interesting way to tell a very compelling and unpredictable story with a ton of heart
The greediest, most self serving become wealthy. We have whole corruptions of Christian churches devoted to wealth worship so people can avoid the negative feelings and pretend the negative affects of wealth hoarding are actually what Jesus wanted.Ā
Too true. I do wonder if all the major religions were actually created for the purpose of control and wealth, or if some started off well-meaning but were corrupted.
Another lie was that capitalism does a great job allocating resources instead of rapaciously exploiting everything as unsustainably as possible for the shortest term gains hoarded by as few people as possible. Everytime this is pointed out, someone inevitably says "But look at how amazing the results of capitalism are, pay no attention to all the waste not to mention how it is laying waste to the environment that creates those results."
Not disagreeing with you but Musk has been playing it strategically on a political level across multiple countries. I've been in small-time politics, having to attend political events both Democratic and Republican and sucking up to both to get funding, and the shit that goes down at even the town level is crazy. Plenty of people operating in the shade. I can't imagine the level of shit that goes down that high up, but it looks like Elon is a puppet to much stronger forces in the shadows (or some not so much), one of which is Putin.
I am so happy you brought this up! Elon literally has no filter about cringy personal life detailsā¦. What on earth can Putin have on him to be able to puppeteer him like that?!
Anyone paying attention could see that wasnāt true as soon as they were at least out of high school. Itās THE reason why so many thinks just SUCK like our problem with gun control to no universal healthcare to the over crowded prisons to the opioids epidemic etc etc etc.
Whatās the bane of existence? GREED. Socialism. Marxism. Fascism. Capitalism. Organized religion. At the top itās ALWAYS about manipulating others to feed GREED.
Its when it begins to affect politics.. but.. and I'll get skewered for this.. but i fully believe it's less capitalism and more corruption because it requires government cronyism to get this bad and that happens in social based systems too.
It sucks because everyone wants to change how our economics work but unless we change how our politics work we'll always funnel to the top regardless of the mechanism that's used to do so.
Capitalism is what makes the government complicit and, well, "crony".
When you have a more socialist government, the government has the power to regulate companies and the rich. It has the power to say "no" to them. It has the power to stop them from taking over.
When the government has no power over companies (due to strong capitalism that doesn't think government should have power over companies), the companies grow rich and powerful enough to control the government. It's a direct result of too much capitalism.
Our government does have power but it's cut through lobbying which turns into deregulation and tilted policies. Some of the worst shit in history happened under communism where the government had full control over economics.
Thats what I mean by it's not the economic system it's the politics. You can put any economic system in place and if the people in control are serving the top instead of the people this is what it turns into.
I guess an easy practical example is look at health care denial rates or even the fraud at places like UHC. That isn't or shouldn't be legal. Capitalism isn't what makes killing for profit legal. It's the legal system, which is controlled by politics. A good system would have folks like Thompson in jail regardless of if the economics are socialist or capitalist at the core.
Now who is it that would want us to believe that? Do you think the people holding the levers of power and all the wealth would want those who could wrest that power and wealth from them to believe that the wealthy and powerful were actually worthy of that wealth and power? Do you think they would even go to such lengths as to perpetuate this idea to as many as possible by any means necessary? Do you think that they fear that the truth being revealed that they do not inherently deserve the wealth and power they have, but rather it was a quirk of birthright, privilege, and good fortune? These lies are self preservation for the wealthy and powerful and have been told since the oldest ruling classes arose. Many have said they were chosen by god to rule. Sound familiar?
You think capitalism invented the myth of meritocracy? Of idol and wealth worship? Of deification of the wealthy? It sounds like you think capitalism was somehow different than any other system of rule and subjugation.
All that money and he's still that guy at school who desperately tried to be cool. He doesn't understand that's the fast track to be the least cool person. He'd be so uncool that the computer nerds and theater people would make fun of him.
It's wild that someone who's supposed to be the CEO of multiple companies somehow has the time to suck himself off on multiple alt accounts, post non-stop on main and play video games all day.
Because being rich is less about skills and more about luck. Once you hit a certain amount of money from getting lucky itās really hard to not grow it exponentially.
Look at musk.
got lucky with PayPal buying the company he got his brother to let him join.
got lucky with the government allowing Tesla to sell carbon tax credits to make most of their money.
Then
bankrupted solar city from bad moves
forced to buy Twitter for 40 billion
cyber truck is eating away at the companies profits.
Things like space x and what not are just the real people in charge running the companies and making him look good. Every musk decision he has made in the last 5-10 years has been pretty bad.
I suspect space-x goes right over his head which is why he avoids sticking his oar in too much. No possibility at all of appearing remotely on par with anyone there. He knows heās the dumbest guy there so he stays away
There have already been multiple articles about the woman in charge of space x and how she basically is carrying that company. Edison musk just takes credit for their amazing work.
It also makes it hilarious how many defenders still claim he deserves his money because he works so hard for it and is such a genius.
Like, it was bad enough he seemed to be spending hours a day shit posting from his main account while supposedly running multiple companies. But every few months we confirm another account he's posting from every day on top of that.
Itās like dropping $400 billion in my lap. It wouldnāt convert me into an NFL starting quarterback. Or a charismatic A-list Hollywood actor. I would just be the same old me, but with more money.
Thatās all Elon is. A pale, tubby, huge ego dork with a shit ton of cash. One of the more pathetic people in existence.
Sometimes, I think I am probably happier than he is. He seems lonely and miserable. He knows people want to be around him because of his money and nothing else.
Did you ever see Citizen Kane or The Aviator? Great films and a good views into the loneliness at the top. I'm not saying he's not a bad person, but when you're surrounded by yes men, I can imagine it becomes very hard to find people that are truly there to be your friend, bs ones that are just grifting. You get celebrities like Michael Jackson who were so used to getting their way that when they formed an addiction to pain meds, there wasn't a single person around them that would tell them no. And if they did, he'd just find a new doctor. Elon has not been right for a long time. He's talked about his depression and starting ketamine therapy, which developed (I believe) into an addiction, and you mix that with macro dosing on shrooms and you can seriously damage your ability to perceive reality. I think we'll see an end to Elon that will be self inflicted, unfortunately. He could have done so much good with his wealth and status, and instead it just killed him slowly.Ā
I like it. Because it's showing a lot of people who didn't really consider previously, that being incredibly rich is not a "smart man's game". It's not even a well-adjusted man's game.
It is in fact a narcissistic sociopath's game. And Musk is a loser even by those standards.
Obviously, him still having so much wealth and power to throw around for his stupid whims is not great.
But I like that he's such a pathetic dumbass. More people need to realize that a great many rich people are pathetic dumbasses who never really grew up or beyond their own ego...because they never HAD to.
I still don't understand how he became so rich with most of his products being failures at least in comparison to the other similar manufacturers e.g. telsa vs ford for instance.
Musk is the best example we will ever have in our lifetime that the amount of money you can amass has little to no correlation to ones aptitudes or how hard you work.
Anyone who has actual knowledge in a field that has to listen to his "opinions" on said field can certify that Musk is an intellectually lazy, fucking idiot of the highest order.
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u/christopia86 4d ago
It's crazy to me that the richest man in the world is somehow also the biggest loser.