It’s often said that one of the signs of being very
rich is the fact that you can show the world that you really don’t care about
everyone else. Look at the way some of the world’s billionaires dress. A lot of
them are spectacularly shabby, because, well the rules about dressing to
impress don’t really apply when you don’t need to impress anyone but everyone
else needs to impress you.
The other big perk of being exceedingly wealthy is the
fact that the very concept of work takes on a different meaning when you’re not
doing it to survive. People like Bill Gates, for example, have moved away from
the activity that made them spectacularly wealthy and moved to passion projects
like saving the world.
So, in a sense, the ultra-wealthy are a boon to the
rest of us. Take Bill Gates as an example. Mr. Gates, for the longest of times,
on top of the rich list with a wealth comparable with a few nations and then,
he gave it up and poured his fortune into making the world a better place. Whilst
Mr. Gates wasn’t always the most popular billionaire (He didn’t push us to use
the best software around – just his software), most people would say his contribution
to humanity has been a net positive. Mr. Gates made being very wealthy easy
(Just go work for Microsoft and get your stock options) and he’s throwing money
at things like bringing sanitation to the world and finding a cure for HIV/AIDS.
These are things which only the insane would say are bad. Likewise, there’s Mr.
George Soros, who made his fortune cashing in on the incompetence of finance
ministers, who has used his fortune to do things like promote more open societies.
So, whilst we may not like certain members of the ultra-elite,
there are certain members of that circle who do good by putting their brains and
fortunes to make the world a better place.
However, happens when members of that part of society
decide that they should use their fortune to make society worse? The prime
example is the richest man in history, Mr. Elon Musk, whose taken on a passion
project of making the world a nastier place by giving credence to the world’s
most shameless opportunist who only get potent when bashing up people significantly
weaker than themselves.
Mr. Musk is well known for his backing of Mr. Trump, who
recaptured the White House on the premise of ending crime by dark skinned people
who do work that no one else will do and freeing violent criminals who actually
attacked the national capital.
Once his boy got into power, Mr. Musk proceeded to
p*** off the rest of the world by giving what looked suspiciously like a Nazi
salute.
Mr. Musk would probably be an American farce if kept
his focus within the USA. However, he hasn’t. Take his efforts to prove that he
had no love for history’s most infamous political party, Mr. Musk proceeded to rally
a political party that runs pretty much on a platform similar to the Nazis in
the country that the Nazis mobilized to their awful deeds by telling the German
people not to carry the guilt of their past.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iB9SefG5Ow
Sure, nobody is saying that Germans shouldn’t be proud
of their country. On the balance of things, Germany post 1945 has been good for
the world. Modern Germany anchors Europe, which has moved from a continent where
nobody could conceive of being at peace to one that nobody can conceive of
being at war within a generation. There is also a case to say that Germany does
get trapped in its past when it backs whatever Israel does unconditionally.
However, nobody, including a good many Germans (for
the record, I have Germans that I call family) believe that Germany should
never forget its past. The so called “guilt” has made it such that Germany has
acted on the global stage through Europe and brought up the European continent
as a whole.
Let’s think of who else Mr. Musk has befriended. In
the UK, he’s decided that Nigel Farage of the Reform Party isn’t extreme enough
and is looking for someone who makes Mr. Farage looks like one of life’s better
specimens.
Again, let’s remember that Mr. Musk isn’t some troll
in a basement. His net worth, which at the time of writing, is estimated by the
Bloomberg Billionaire index stands at some US$422 billion. To put this in context,
Mr. Musk is worth more than the GDP of Finland, a highly advanced economy. So,
when Mr. Musk opens his mouth and makes pronouncements on various topics, he
does so with a lot of weight behind him. Let’s not forget we live in an age
where we worship wealth. We assume Mr. Musk is “smart” because his net worth is
what it is.
The issue here is not that Mr. Musk is rich. He did
what he did and got rewarded for it. By all accounts he’s a hard worker. However,
the issue here is the fact that he’s gone out of his way to help social scum
dominate the rest of us.
So, what can we do to limit someone with that much influence
of things without banning wealth or freedom of expression? Yes, we do need more
funds going into things like research to fund deadly diseases and lifting
people out of poverty. We don’t need people funding the type of people that victimize
the people who can’t fight back and do work. How do we encourage the very
wealthy to give back rather than to throw s*** against the rest of us? These
are questions we need to work on.
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