The Elon Musk Thread
- Thread starter Woebot
- Start date
luka
Well-known member
It's what they talk about those people. Stocks and stuff. English people must do it too but keep it a secret. But nowadays you're supposed to actively participate in capitalism. Having a job and consuming is not enough you have to invest. When I went to Sydney I noticed all the men read the business pages like English people read the sports pages. It was the big game everyone was consumed by. People like Musk are the equivalent of Michael Jordan or Jimi Hendrix for Beiser and his comrades. Pin up idols. Superheroes. Icons. World-Shapers. It's an escalation of capitalist realism. Cool in a way but weird for me I still belwive in dropping out and being a rebel. For them there can only be total buy in total commitment. There is only one game and you have to play whether you like it or not.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Musk and Thiel et al are rebels as far as their fans are concerned. They're weirdo nerds who've got so rich and powerful that they can whatever they like. They can practically tell the government/police to fuck themselves, in fact. It's like they've gamed the system instead of being part of the system. (Hence the 'disruptor' label.)
IdleRich
IdleRich
To be fair... who is anyone?
beiser
Well-known member
i ask myself this too
IdleRich
IdleRich
sus
Moderator
sus
Moderator
My worry is that this problem in America—which is not really about medical debt, though I agree, medical treatment is absurdly expensive—is intractable because it's about inequality. The slogans of the Sanders campaign or OWS weren't about medical debt, they were about inequality. And a free society is, by definition, unequal, because status is a zero-sum game (and talents are unevenly distributed, and parental love means gains compound, and a thousand other effects). This is a problem because of a lot of self-esteem is tied up in status.
(I didn't mark up the page; psych studies are fake, especially animal psych studies, and I wouldn't trust the cocaine finding but)
(I didn't mark up the page; psych studies are fake, especially animal psych studies, and I wouldn't trust the cocaine finding but)
IdleRich
IdleRich
The thing is, I agree that free societies aren't equal and blah blah... but I do think that basic human rights are... basic. And what they are is not universally agreed on of course - for example, I think I'm right in saying that in the UK they can't cut off your water, they can take you to court for not paying your bill, they can take your stuff, they can throw you in jail (eventually) but they can't cut it off cos water is a human right, but in Portugal you don't pay the bill and they come round next day and turn off your water - so of course it's not something that is universally agreed on... but so what... US is backwards in healthcare and I do find it weird when you say "People have everything they need and cigarettes and playstation and they still moan" cos they don't have a thing that all the other countries think is basic. I really don't think until that is addressed that you can say that. But I get that you can't see that cos it's a built-in blind spot. But.. but nothing. See it. SEE IT.
sus
Moderator
Ah I see. I tend to think "basic" human rights are just a social construct, a concept enlightenment thinkers came up with and the United Nations formalized. A moral framework I can get behind, but not one I think is basic or self-evident or inherent or anything. And I think it's especially unclear or hard to say what belongs within that group, "basic rights," versus what doesn't. You can conceptualize universal health care one way to call it a basic human right ("the right to health"), or conceptualize it another way and say it isn't ("the right to your neighbors' money"). Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay on positive vs negative conceptions of liberty, and how they clash—it sorta gets at this as well. Is liberty about being unhindered, or about being empowered? There's a big divergence in what optimizing for one vs. the other looks like.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Actually... one doesn't have to argue from first principles... from fundamental rights... it's not hard to think that the average American might look at Europe or wherever, all these places they've been brought up to believe are worse, and see that there if you break your tooth or your arm or whatever it doesn't ruin your life and think "hang on a sec".
If relatively - in that one ENORMOUS respect - the US citizen is poorer than basically every other developed country in the world, then it's not surprising she aint happy.
If relatively - in that one ENORMOUS respect - the US citizen is poorer than basically every other developed country in the world, then it's not surprising she aint happy.