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Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

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Re: Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

#21

Post by narmiouh »

PaulHoule wrote: post #3

Some of these people might never have been as good as people think. I wonder if in Blue Origin we are seeing the real Jeff Bezos, and that Amazon post-2003 or so has succeeded in spite of, not because of Jeff Bezos. That is, AMZN was in the right place at the right time, got good systems in place at the beginning, and that AWS might have been the only strategic pivot that mattered. (E.g. Prime Video makes headlines b…

Do you believe Amazon would have succeeded as it has with Elon Musk at its helm? Everyone has different qualities and strengths... Amazon's success(in consumer goods) is merely a reflection of our society as to how it wants to live and what its priorities are and Jeff Bezos has found a way to capitalize it.

Re: Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

#22

Post by tcbawo »

seibelj wrote: post #8

Self made rich people lived life a certain way and made their money through a combination of hard work and luck. But you need to do a lot of work to be able to recognize and take advantage of luck when it presents itself, plus the risk taking mentality. There is a very big difference from a rich doctor or lawyer and a wealthy entrepreneur. I don’t believe that all rich people “exploited” those that work for them. Pri…

Advice from billionaires is subject to survivorship bias. Luck and timing have a huge multiplier effect on one's personal wealth. So, personal wealth is not proportional to the quality of message. Most extremely wealthy people I have come to know are surrounded by "yes men" that thrive by stroking their ego. But, wealth does provide a degree of freedom that gives one time for reflection and introspection. Personally, I believe a diversity of perspectives is healthy, while hero-worship is not.

Re: Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

#23

Post by dmarchand90 »

null_deref wrote: post #17
retrac wrote: post #6

I, mean, I get what you're talking about. But it's like complaining that most of the writings we have from antiquity were written by the landed aristocracy class. Aurelius's Meditations was, after all, also written by a decidedly rich guy -- the emperor of the known world. Certainly a bit biased there. But they were the only people with the time, and with the access to the resources and labour, to propagate their ide…

> But they were the only people with the time, and with the access to the resources and labour, to propagate their ideas in multiple copies. Marcus Aurelius didn't publish the book, the book contains thoughts he wrote to himself without any intent to make them public.

Further I think you could make the argument that the meditations works because it's not Markus Aurelius making things up on the spot. He was a careful student of philosophy and to me the charm of the book is it's the wisdom of the ancient world filtered by a man whose later life became dominated by practical affairs.

Re: Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

#24

Post by imranhou »

mishftw wrote: post #18
imranhou wrote: post #12

I have got a question for you instead... What do you call someone who criticizes/mistreats an entire class of people, because there are some bad apples? Disclaimer: I do not belong to the class being referred to.

This comment adds little value... perhaps I should follow suit and ask what you call someone who posts such a comment

Someone who is trying to bring attention to a biased question. Just replace the word Rich with any other class of people here and reread the question and I hope you'll understand.

Re: Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

#25

Post by lowmagnet »

mishftw wrote: post #16

I'm only mildly annoyed when 20 something kids with huge amounts of generational wealth feel like they've got deep insights. Look everyone has opinions and knowledge and I'm sure there is value to it. This behavior shouldn't surprise you... positions of power have always felt self importance and a desire to espouse their ideas either as a means to make their egos feel good or simply cast themselves in a positive ligh…

That's because people with generational wealth are more able to explore their options. It's almost like having money makes you capable of living up to potential or something.

*eta: some of them still turn out rotten.

Re: Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

#27

Post by lowmagnet »

imranhou wrote: post #12

I have got a question for you instead... What do you call someone who criticizes/mistreats an entire class of people, because there are some bad apples? Disclaimer: I do not belong to the class being referred to.

Weird metaphors, since the entire phrase is "One bad apple spoils the bunch." Bad apples affect good ones with ethylene, just like bad apples amongst humans corrupt people through their interactions with them.

Re: Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

#28

Post by lowmagnet »

throwaway210222 wrote: post #13
marto1 wrote: post #7

This won't stop. Rich people telling others how to live their lives has been going on for a loong time and there are many incentives for them to continue. Including tax loopholes..and you know how they feel about that.

> Rich people telling others how to live their lives has been going on for a loong time Sigh, The Taliban aren't rich but they specialise in telling people how to live their lives. At gunpoint.

They capture the means of production through force, does that not make them rich, relatively?

Re: Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

#29

Post by PaulHoule »

narmiouh wrote: post #21
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

Some of these people might never have been as good as people think. I wonder if in Blue Origin we are seeing the real Jeff Bezos, and that Amazon post-2003 or so has succeeded in spite of, not because of Jeff Bezos. That is, AMZN was in the right place at the right time, got good systems in place at the beginning, and that AWS might have been the only strategic pivot that mattered. (E.g. Prime Video makes headlines b…

Do you believe Amazon would have succeeded as it has with Elon Musk at its helm? Everyone has different qualities and strengths... Amazon's success(in consumer goods) is merely a reflection of our society as to how it wants to live and what its priorities are and Jeff Bezos has found a way to capitalize it.

Elon musk’s greatest weakness that I see is that his behavior (e.g. his bullshit tweets about Bitcoin) drives women up the wall which would not be healthy for a consumer-oriented retailer. (He’s the opposite of, say, Benjamin Disreali.)

Musk’s strength, when it comes to SpaceX, is that he takes it absolutely seriously. (Bezos took AMZN seriously, but Blue Origin's main business seems to be suing the government.)

The alternate scenario I see is that Bezos died in 2005 or 2010, they did a CEO search was successful, and the firm did OK without him. Or perhaps AMZN had such a great flywheel that it would have taken legendarily stupendous incompetence to stop it. (E.g. opening lots of brick and mortar stores)

Re: Ask HN: Who else sick of “Rich” people teaching moral/life philosophy?

#30

Post by dinkleberg »

lowmagnet wrote: post #26
sawyerbilt wrote: post #5

I will rather believe in what rich people are saying than people who are teaching philosophy for money

People don't teach philosophy for money, they teach it because someone has to.

That is a big assumption. Many teachers teach because someone has to, but there are also always those who do it for the money.
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