He’s a lot like trump. When you have that much money, it’s basically infinite, you get anything you want, anything. So you just do stuff, whatever pops into your head, because there are no consequences. When there are no consequences, nothing matters. You’re the main character, everything revolves around you. What does that do to a person’s mind? We see the answer before us in Musk and Trump.
It must get so boring, when you’re surrounded by people who are nothing more than background characters in your movie, servants at your beck and call, sycophants flattering you. So you have to do outrageous things to get people to react. Do a nazi salute. Threaten to invade Greenland or Panama. Get them to say something against you, so you can punish them, to feel your power. Sue them, destroy them, squash them like a bug because you need to prove to yourself over and over that you’re not the pathetic loser your father always said you were.
There’s a growing body of research from behavioral neuroscience which indicate that power and privilege have a deleterious effect on the brain. People with high-socioeconomic status often:
Have reduced empathy and compassion.
Have a diminished ability to see from someone else’s perspective.
Are more impulsive.
Have a dangerously high tolerance for risk.
When you don’t need other people to survive, they become irrelevant to you. When you’re in charge, you can behave very badly and people will still be polite and respectful toward you. Instead of reciprocity, it’s a formalized double standard. When you have status, you’re given excessive credibility, and rarely hear the very ordinary push-back from others most of us are accustomed to, instead you receive flattery and praise and your ideas are taken seriously by default.
Some sources:
Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years
He’s a lot like trump. When you have that much money, it’s basically infinite, you get anything you want, anything. So you just do stuff, whatever pops into your head, because there are no consequences. When there are no consequences, nothing matters. You’re the main character, everything revolves around you. What does that do to a person’s mind? We see the answer before us in Musk and Trump.
It must get so boring, when you’re surrounded by people who are nothing more than background characters in your movie, servants at your beck and call, sycophants flattering you. So you have to do outrageous things to get people to react. Do a nazi salute. Threaten to invade Greenland or Panama. Get them to say something against you, so you can punish them, to feel your power. Sue them, destroy them, squash them like a bug because you need to prove to yourself over and over that you’re not the pathetic loser your father always said you were.
There’s a growing body of research from behavioral neuroscience which indicate that power and privilege have a deleterious effect on the brain. People with high-socioeconomic status often:
Have reduced empathy and compassion.
Have a diminished ability to see from someone else’s perspective.
Are more impulsive.
Have a dangerously high tolerance for risk.
When you don’t need other people to survive, they become irrelevant to you. When you’re in charge, you can behave very badly and people will still be polite and respectful toward you. Instead of reciprocity, it’s a formalized double standard. When you have status, you’re given excessive credibility, and rarely hear the very ordinary push-back from others most of us are accustomed to, instead you receive flattery and praise and your ideas are taken seriously by default.
Some sources:
Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years
(Abstract) or (Full Text)
Does power corrupt? An fMRI study on the effect of power and social value orientation on inequity aversion.
(Abstract) or (PDF Full Text)
Social Class and the Motivational Relevance of Other Human Beings: Evidence From Visual Attention
(Abstract) or (PDF Full Text)
The Psychology of Entrenched Privilege: High Socioeconomic Status Individuals From Affluent Backgrounds Are Uniquely High in Entitlement
(Abstract) or (PDF Full Text)
Damn, that hurt and it wasn’t even directed at me.