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Extreme wealth has a deadening effect on the super-rich – and that threatens us all
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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I think the latest insights are showing that it is more than just that though.
Extreme wealth also leads to mental health issues. Paranoia (leading Zuckerberg to build a $260M bunker in Hawaii), god complexes (people like Trump and Bloomberg running for president) and just general anti-social tendencies, like Musk buying twitter and impregnating SpaceX employees.
Pedophilia also deserves a special mention. Look a level deeper at the Epstein situation. Note that they were mostly after post-pubescent young girls, so it wasn't the "I am attracted to pre-pubescent kids" type of pedophilia, but the "I am so powerful, I'm going to eat the forbidden fruit" type of pedophilia.
There should definitely be a cap on wealth.
I think this is more of a correlation != causation issue. I think it’s more likely that the kinds of people who have the traits to seek obscene wealth also tend to be people with a higher probability for mental health issues.
IMO to be driven to collect as much power and money as possible is harmful to both one’s self and those around you.
A lot, I dare even say most, of these people are born into wealth though.
The more rags to riches type of people tend to be more normal.
Very true, however that fact seems to support the idea that those who seek wealth are from families who also sought wealth, and it may be, in many cases, that it is a genetic predisposition. Which also supports the idea that it’s possible that this could be a mental illness passed generationally. We just don’t attribute the behavior to mental health due the cultural conditioning that wealth is good.
I mean no one thinks eating, and eating consistently and reliably is bad, but when you see someone eating everything they can get their hands on, most people would agree that’s bad. Obese children are often born into obese families…
Fair enough. The old nature vs nurture strikes again.
As a counterpoint, DNA gets very diluted very quickly, so someone like Prince Andrew has basically zero DNA in common with the earliest English kings.
On the other hand, that's one of the most f-d up family trees in the world, so just the inbreeding could explain a lot.