Haha. I've spent enough time looking into Elon Musk's story.
He is, to his credit, an extremely hard working and ambitious guy. Back in the nineties when he was working on Zip2 and PayPal, he earned his success.
From there, it gets complicated. Now he's basically just a golden boy, selected by financial elites to manage their wild pet projects (electric vehicles, private aerospace, brain computer interface, underground transportation, advanced battery technology). The finance industry has fed his companies abundant capital by keeping stocks afloat during crises that should have sank them and, obviously, would have ruined any independent entrepreneur.
Hedge funds and other institutional investors routinely collaborate in ways that run afoul of antitrust and SEC regulations (and leaked communications have caught them in the act). But they always get away with it because they're powerful people who outspend basically everyone in PAC contributions. Elon Musk is a very good example of the results in action.
Adding to this, it needs to be understood that the myth of the self-made billionaire persists due to public ignorance about how massive enterprises finance themselves. Bill Gates et al earned their wealth in the sense that they took risks and worked hard on projects that were well-timed. But if, for example, Bill and his crew weren't willing to make ethical sacrifices and take direction from finance titans or, in their specific case, work with intelligence agencies to help them accomplish some clandestine projects, they would have picked someone else for the job.
There is a ton that you can learn by peeking under the hood into the lives of these billionaire founders.
If you're looking for someone to admire, take a look at some of the shoestring founders who told the private equity sharks to take a hike and made it without them.
The Walton family still owns controlling stake in Walmart, I believe. The Ford family owns very close to controlling stake in Ford Motor Company. The Cargills own 85% of Cargill. I think Michael Dell has controlling stake in Dell Technologies. There are similar stories around Bosch, Tyson Foods, Mars, LG Electronics and many others. These are the real heroes.
Many years ago I read a fantastic web book called "Returning to Eden," by Daniel Pouzzner. I met him personally after moving to Houston.
He traces the philosophical, memetic path from the European Protestant movement, to Englightenment thinkers, to liberalism, to modern communism and socialism. And he demonstrates, compellingly, that these movements and thinkers never abandoned religious tactics along the way. They turned science into religion. They turned political thought into religion. And, now, they operate political, academic and news media institutions in the same fashion as medieval European churches.
Yeah, I basically agree. And, things are different today. In the past there was the Pope and a Group a Cardinals; and they got their word out to Bishops at Cathedrals in big cities; and then the word was passed along to the priests at the local parishes. Today, with MSM and Censorship, they can bypass all the middle-men and directly control billions of people!
More to the point, perhaps, they never abandoned utopian thinking and utopian promises. They make grandiose, impossible promises, in large part because their religious thought leaders (Karl Marx, Ayn Rand and so on) really believed in it. Modern liberalism -- most notably in the forms of democratic socialism and libertarianism -- are cults that poison our culture and lead us down self-destructive paths.
Anybody who stands before the public and says, "we can never live in a comfortable world; there will be suffering, failure will be common and success rare; disaster is scarcely avoidable, and the universe is cruel," is burned as a witch.
I've heard you say that before and I'm not sure if you're being tongue in cheek but, presuming otherwise, I'll say this.
I am certain that it cannot. Human civilization is far, FAR to complex and rapidly evolving to be managed into such a state. Despite how much is loathe the men behind the curtains, I have to give them credit for keeping things running to the extent that they have, even if they have caused so much suffering and enriched themselves to a preposterous degree along the way.
To sum up, I'll say this. Even a king or an emperor will be stabbed to death if they mismanage their realm badly enough. Our current PTB understand that very well and know that it applies to them, hence their impressive pursuit to hide themselves behind a facade of democracy and contrived social conflict. But they seem to also be aware that it isn't enough to hide, they still need to keep food on the shelves. Some are panicking about that and fleeing to places like rural Canada and Cyprus.
But, really, it isn't possible to achieve that paradise, by perfect design of a decentralized system or by autocratic central control.
Could we do better than what we have now? Oh, yeah. We're being pillaged my monsters.
I'm fine with that because I think their unmitigated pillaging will be the end of them one day.
I just got an Inspiration! I know who to trust!
I'm just going to wait for Elon Musk to Tweet something about the Vax's and Believe whatever he says! And buy more Tesla stock and be RICH !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15WprOmOan0
Haha. I've spent enough time looking into Elon Musk's story.
He is, to his credit, an extremely hard working and ambitious guy. Back in the nineties when he was working on Zip2 and PayPal, he earned his success.
From there, it gets complicated. Now he's basically just a golden boy, selected by financial elites to manage their wild pet projects (electric vehicles, private aerospace, brain computer interface, underground transportation, advanced battery technology). The finance industry has fed his companies abundant capital by keeping stocks afloat during crises that should have sank them and, obviously, would have ruined any independent entrepreneur.
Hedge funds and other institutional investors routinely collaborate in ways that run afoul of antitrust and SEC regulations (and leaked communications have caught them in the act). But they always get away with it because they're powerful people who outspend basically everyone in PAC contributions. Elon Musk is a very good example of the results in action.
Adding to this, it needs to be understood that the myth of the self-made billionaire persists due to public ignorance about how massive enterprises finance themselves. Bill Gates et al earned their wealth in the sense that they took risks and worked hard on projects that were well-timed. But if, for example, Bill and his crew weren't willing to make ethical sacrifices and take direction from finance titans or, in their specific case, work with intelligence agencies to help them accomplish some clandestine projects, they would have picked someone else for the job.
There is a ton that you can learn by peeking under the hood into the lives of these billionaire founders.
If you're looking for someone to admire, take a look at some of the shoestring founders who told the private equity sharks to take a hike and made it without them.
The Walton family still owns controlling stake in Walmart, I believe. The Ford family owns very close to controlling stake in Ford Motor Company. The Cargills own 85% of Cargill. I think Michael Dell has controlling stake in Dell Technologies. There are similar stories around Bosch, Tyson Foods, Mars, LG Electronics and many others. These are the real heroes.
Well, if I can't trust Elon, I'll just have to stick with Greta and Gore!
Many years ago I read a fantastic web book called "Returning to Eden," by Daniel Pouzzner. I met him personally after moving to Houston.
He traces the philosophical, memetic path from the European Protestant movement, to Englightenment thinkers, to liberalism, to modern communism and socialism. And he demonstrates, compellingly, that these movements and thinkers never abandoned religious tactics along the way. They turned science into religion. They turned political thought into religion. And, now, they operate political, academic and news media institutions in the same fashion as medieval European churches.
Yeah, I basically agree. And, things are different today. In the past there was the Pope and a Group a Cardinals; and they got their word out to Bishops at Cathedrals in big cities; and then the word was passed along to the priests at the local parishes. Today, with MSM and Censorship, they can bypass all the middle-men and directly control billions of people!
More to the point, perhaps, they never abandoned utopian thinking and utopian promises. They make grandiose, impossible promises, in large part because their religious thought leaders (Karl Marx, Ayn Rand and so on) really believed in it. Modern liberalism -- most notably in the forms of democratic socialism and libertarianism -- are cults that poison our culture and lead us down self-destructive paths.
Anybody who stands before the public and says, "we can never live in a comfortable world; there will be suffering, failure will be common and success rare; disaster is scarcely avoidable, and the universe is cruel," is burned as a witch.
And, on the other-other hand, this world COULD be a paradise!
I've heard you say that before and I'm not sure if you're being tongue in cheek but, presuming otherwise, I'll say this.
I am certain that it cannot. Human civilization is far, FAR to complex and rapidly evolving to be managed into such a state. Despite how much is loathe the men behind the curtains, I have to give them credit for keeping things running to the extent that they have, even if they have caused so much suffering and enriched themselves to a preposterous degree along the way.
To sum up, I'll say this. Even a king or an emperor will be stabbed to death if they mismanage their realm badly enough. Our current PTB understand that very well and know that it applies to them, hence their impressive pursuit to hide themselves behind a facade of democracy and contrived social conflict. But they seem to also be aware that it isn't enough to hide, they still need to keep food on the shelves. Some are panicking about that and fleeing to places like rural Canada and Cyprus.
But, really, it isn't possible to achieve that paradise, by perfect design of a decentralized system or by autocratic central control.
Could we do better than what we have now? Oh, yeah. We're being pillaged my monsters.
I'm fine with that because I think their unmitigated pillaging will be the end of them one day.