I remember when I was growing up, tech industry has so many people that were admirable, and you wanted to aspire to be in life. Bill Gates, founders of Google Larry Page, Sergey brin, Steve Jobs (wasn’t perfect but on a surface level, he was still at least a pretty decent guy), basically everyone involved in gaming from Xbox to PlayStation and so on, Tom from MySpace… So many admirable people who were actually really great…
Now, people are just trash. Look at Mark Zuckerberg who leads Facebook. Dude is a lizard man, anytime you think he has shown some character growth he does something truly horrible and illegal that he should be thrown in prison for. For example, he’s been buying up properties in Hawaii and basically stealing them from the locals. He’s basically committing human rights violations by violating the culture of Hawaiian natives and their land deeds that are passed down from generation to generation. He has been systematically stealing them and building a wall on Hawaii, basically a f*cking colonizer. That’s what the guy is. I thought he was a good upstanding person until I learned all these things about him
Current CEO of Google is peak dirtbag. Dude has no interest in the company or it’s success at all, his only concern is patting his pockets while he is there as CEO, and appeasing the shareholders. He has zero interest in helping or making anyone’s life pleasant at the company. Truly a dirtbag in every way.
Current CEO of Home Depot, which I now consider a tech company because they have moved out of retail and into the online space and they are rapidly restructuring their entire business around online sales, that dude is a total piece of work conservative racist. I remember working for this company, This dude’s entire focus is eliminating as many people as feasibly possible from working in the store, making their life living heck, does not see people as human beings at all. Just wants to eliminate anyone and everyone they possibly can, think they are a slave labor force
Elon musk, we all know about him, don’t need to really say much. Every time you think he’s doing something good for society, he proves you wrong And does the worst thing he can possibly do in that situation. It’s like he’s specifically trying to make the world the worst place possible everyday
Like, damn. What the heck happened to the world? You know? I thought the tech industry was supposed to be filled with these brilliant genius people who are really good for the world…
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Because you can’t climb to the top of the pile without treading on people and crushing others.
Normal well adjusted people get a few million dollars and call it a day. Only people with a mental problem get billions and keep trying to get more.
sociopaths have a pretty big advantage in capitalist leadership positions over non-sociopaths. they are more likely to get there in the first place, and they will perform better.
In all leadership positions, period. Capitalist or communist. Democratic or autocratic. Does not matter, those that are not held back by their morals have an advantage.
In communist societies, many people who rise to power are evil, because theyre seeking their own power primarily. In capitalism, anybody who is not actively evil enough gets thrown under the bus because theyre getting in the way of profits. Communism allows it, capitalism requires it.
It is the opposite. In capitalism, there is at least a chance a good person has some power because power is not only held by governments. There are multiple examples in the main post. Even better examples are European countries where the government and businesses hold each other in check instead of govt being bought off legally like in the US.
In communism, the way power is distributed ensures corrupt people raise to the top. See an amazing video “rule for rulers” by CGP gray for a simplified explanation how that corruption works and why a good person can’t hold power.
Please name which country in Europe has a government thats hasn’t been bought and paid off.
Of course, no one can. Unfortunately, that’s because capitalism is incompatible with actual democracy. Theres isn’t a country in the world whos democratic process and systems of governance hasn’t been utterly corrupted by capitalism and all that it brings with it.
If there’s a top that someone could rise to, it isn’t communism.
Netherlands? Switzerland? Norway?
Like sure, there always is some corruption but relatively insignificant amount.
Honestly, I can’t think of an EU country that is anywhere near the US levels of “corrupted by capitalism”.
If there’s a top that someone could rise to, it isn’t communism.
What? Top? What do you mean?
Nope, come on man are you kidding me (?) and disagree again.
I agree that maybe you can’t but that doesn’t make it true or not. The last Conservative government of great Britain showed themselves to be utterly corrupted by greed and capitalism. They didn’t even have to pretend not to rip the entire country off during the covid pandemic.
Even then, its not “more” or less than the US. My point is just that capitalism corrupts all governments, to one extent or another, because its incompatible with democracy.
If there is a top, in terms of money or having things etc., then it isn’t communism.
CGP Grey refers to dictatorships in that video, not communism exclusively. Marx predicted a revolution of labor that would get rid of scarcity which was never realized by the Soviet system. If you read a bit about it you’ll see that the so-called marxists never reached communism, as they kept pumping resources into the government, police and bureaucracy.
Communism. A utopian society without classes, divisions of wealth, exploitation or suffering. Members would provide what they could and receive what they need. The instruments of state, like government bureaucracies, police and military, would become unnecessary and would “wither away”.
Rules for rulers is explicitly about human behavior in heirarchy, not specifically anti communist. He mentions fascist dictatorships and monarchial systems as well.
CGP gray very specifically refers to democracies as well and explains how things like farm subsidies are used to buy votes. Maybe re-watch the videos.
And yes, CGP gray also indirectly explains why Marxists kept pumping resources into the government, police and bureaucracy. It is inevitable in a system where you concentrate power in a limited group of people.
That is why distributing power between large number of independent capitalists and voters is the system that so far worked best, although still very far from perfect.
As long as humans behave like humans and are in charge, the utopian communism is as realistic as wizards in flying castles.
The book he references in that video does not make the capitalist argument you are making and by my interpretation neither does CGP. Capitalism is not inherently democratic as the market is unregulated by government. If you vote with your dollar, those with more money have more votes.
I’ve edited my previous comment with more context and sources.
Sorry if it is unclear, I am saying CGB Gray explains how corruption happens in leadership structures and why it is so difficult to prevent.
The opinion that this is why capitalism can work better than communism is entirely my own logical conclusion. I am not trying to claim CGP Gray said so.
Again sorry for the confusion.
In communism, the way power is distributed ensures corrupt people raise to the top
In communism, power is typically distributed somewhat democratically; eg every level above the lowest in the party must be democratically elected by the previous level. Capitalism doesn’t even require that.
You can’t look at capitalist government and assume that government under communism behaves the same way.
I’d blame capitalism. And corporations prefering short term growth and attracting investors. And the whole modern business model of exploiting users private data to sell advertisements. That’s how the whole internet works these days and thak makes being evil baked into every successful company.
And btw: Zuck did one good thing. He personally gave us competetive AI models to tinker around with. If it weren’t for people like him, we would have AI dominate us without the average person having access to more than the online services like ChatGPT. Yeah but that doesn’t take away from the things you lined out.
Their job is to maximize shareholder profit. That is their only and one true job as CEOs. If you want a CEO that is not evil, look for companies that are not public even though they could be.
Years ago, I was hanging out with a manager of finance and asking a few basic questions about finance. After a little while, i guess she got tired of the conversation because she handed me her old finance textbook.
Anyway, I was mostly interested in the foundational ideas of finance, not the details, so I went away and started reading the introduction. It turns out that the introduction was very short, no more than two pages. It was extremely well-written, simple, and to the point.
The foundational idea of modern finance, according to this standard textbook, is very simple and highly reductionist: the one and only goal of finance is to maximize shareholder value, and share prices are the ultimate way that goal is measured. I’ve never seen a whole discipline reduced to such stark and prosaic terms with absolutely no attempt to articulate ethics or justify it in relation to some wider public good.
Two big ones:
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Power corrupts
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The laws in America have been bent or repurposed specifically to serve the entity, not person, with more money over all else.
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Bill Gates was an evil piece of shit, that did many illegal things to secure Microsoft’s software empire.
It was much easier to “hide” sit back then unless you were in the know in the industry.
That said I think because tech was such a young industry and innovating so quickly. Many geeks got a chance to run companies that took off. Nowadays it’s Like every other industry with sociopaths in charge.
Bill Gates was an evil piece of shit, that did many illegal things to secure Microsoft’s software empire.
Yup. And his wife left him because of his association with Epstein.
Melinda Gates Says Bill Gates’s Work with “Abhorrent” Jeffrey Epstein Led to Divorce
Nah, she knew about his husband and Epstein ( and his at least strange occupation ) far lower than she’s wiling to admit.
It was much easier to “hide” sit back then unless you were in the know in the industry.
It wasn’t hidden. Everybody knew back in the day what an evil piece of shit he was.
It has just been forgotten about and many current adults weren’t old enough, or even around, in the heyday of his evil empire, so he has been able to whitewash his image. My 50 year old ass remembers though. Fuck Bill Gates.
You don’t get to be a billionaire and a decent person. Choose 1.
George Soros? The occasional hollywood star?
Capitalism is the death of society and aligns the interests of people and corporations alike towards a race to the bottom for maximum exploitation.
What economic concept are you proposing that’s better than the current systems in place?
At least government regulations can help keep capitalism in check, but taking that too far leads to monopolies and dictatorships.
A CEO can be good. But a CEO with public shareholders has no choice.
I’m not saying that most CEOs aren’t bastards but it’s not necessary to be in the position or compete. But when you have public shareholders they are going to demand that you take every dollar through whatever means possible.
My father was the CEO of his small business. At his funeral, everyone talked about how kind of a person he was. We were rich growing up, but we never lived like it because he was too busy helping people.
He didn’t have shareholders. Just coworkers.
I’ve had a couple of good CEOs. Any really good CEOs end up getting fired when they go public because they’re not willing to exploit the people for the product.
Because tech is capitalism, and it goes hand in hand with fascism
Oh summer child
you either die a hero or live long enough to see your self become a villain
Bill Gates, founders of Google Larry Page, Sergey brin, Steve Jobs (wasn’t perfect but on a surface level, he was still at least a pretty decent guy), basically everyone involved in gaming from Xbox to PlayStation and so on, Tom from MySpace… So many admirable people who were actually really great…
They weren’t that good, just charming.
And, well, they also at least knew where their power came from. Maybe Jobs was not some genius inventor normies consider him to be (those who remember him), maybe Bill was born to a rich family, but they still knew deeply enough what they were doing and they really had visions of future (they wanted, of course, to get all the dough from those being reached, but that’s a normal capitalist wish) towards which they were walking step by step for decades. They can be compared to WWI ace pilots in some sense (not about risking their lives).
Still they were doing things similar to what corps do now. Just a bit more subtly, because it required some subtlety back then.
Then their corporations overgrew them, and outlived some of them.
Elon musk, we all know about him, don’t need to really say much. Every time you think he’s doing something good for society, he proves you wrong And does the worst thing he can possibly do in that situation. It’s like he’s specifically trying to make the world the worst place possible everyday
I have a suspicion he just secretly wants to help those big corps suicide themselves to free space for something new and good.
Like, damn. What the heck happened to the world? You know? I thought the tech industry was supposed to be filled with these brilliant genius people who are really good for the world…
Everything ages and rots. The secret to still having the world nice and fresh and optimistic is waste disposal. And also removing weeds from your garden. Like those corps and politicians.
They weren’t that good, just charming.
They weren’t even that charming. Just a little more able to keep their mouths shut while in front of mixed company.
Source: In the early 2000s, I worked in a position that was two degrees away from BillG. I put together presentations and demos that my boss delivered to the man.
Listen to how Melinda talks about her relationship with him for clues about how little actual charisma he has. She’s responsible for every bit of humanity he’s shown over the last three decades. There were interviews he gave prior to marrying her where he expressed open disdain toward humanitarian endeavors.
when I was growing up
This is really the key. We’re all stupid and unaware of how things work and the particular goings-ons when we’re kids. There were plenty of shitty people running the tech giant companies back then, but we just didn’t realize the extent of what was happening.
Yeah we’re baffled about how kids get sucked into worshipping Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but I remember a brief time in my life when I thought Steve Jobs was the greatest and that he singlehandedly invented the iPhone with a rusty pair of pliers and gumption.
