Comment by hn_throwaway_99
2 days ago
The idea is that as money gets so concentrated, so does real political power. And with that concentration of political power comes extreme disregard for the opinions of the masses. I think it's a fair argument that the world has always catered to the will of rich people, but the difference now is that rich people are so unfathomably rich, and so much wealth is concentrated in so few.
I see, thank you.
More plainly on my part, though I'm worried sounds like berating when the comments are viewed consecutively: what does that have to do with the article we are discussing?
> “There was an aspect of, like, ‘Fuck the system,’” Masad said. “‘We need to remake civilization.’”
No matter what the political views, running into "real" money radicalizes most people and gives them the impression that they reached a superior evolutionary stage that uniquely entitles them... no, demands from them that they bend society and human civilization to their will, reshape it in their image, make it better because they are better. A sort of messianic complex.
This is the famous horseshoe paradox that says extremes are closer to each other than to the center. They might look completely different in their views but in reality they're back to back in the same place. 2 sides of the same coin. Different imprint, same value.
> but the difference now is that rich people are so unfathomably rich...
Compared to when? How many times in history has wealth been less concentrated?
As far as I'm aware, for almost all of history post-agriculture, wealth was highly concentrated while the average person lived in abject poverty (think: kings vs peasants). The mid-20th century was an era of mass prosperity in the US and parts of Europe, but it was an anomalous few decades, not the norm.
"The mid-20th century was an era of mass prosperity in the US and parts of Europe, but it was an anomalous few decades, not the norm."
But to those living and remembering that era - it was the norm that they (we) compare with, so it is the reference that matters.
Thank you
In the past you could find rich people on the battlefield. The last time America tried that was in Vietnam.
That is what has changed.
> How many times in history has wealth been less concentrated?
Mostly all of them! There have been periods where inequality dropped, but mostly it's been rising since at least the 1300s. I'm on mobile and can't link research, but there are a few papers that investigate this.
> As far as I'm aware, for almost all of history post-agriculture, wealth was highly concentrated while the average person lived in abject poverty (think: kings vs peasants).
And yet it was less unequal than now, an era where we've managed to use technology to concentrate wealth at an unprecedented scale. No longer is the richest person you know the king who collects your taxes next door, now it's a SV trillionaire on the other side of the world.