Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
joanwestenberg.com
Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
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Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
#2That is the entire basis of the TV show - "The boys" - and the entire reason for no kings in America.
Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
#3For my mental model how White House politics work, this article was very influential: https://www.thewrap.com/obama-aides-say-veep-accurate-west-w...
> “The funny thing about ‘Veep’ is, we as people who worked in the White House always get asked, okay, what’s the most real? Is it ‘House of Cards? Is it ‘West Wing’? And the answer is, it’s ‘Veep.’ Because you guys nail the fragility of the egos, and the, like, day-to-day idiocy of the decision-making,” Vietor said.
Same vibe as "conspiracy theorists are optimists because they believe there is a great plan."
Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
#4I kind of feel like people know how to human, and how the humans around them human, but someone they've never met but only heard about or seen on TV or in meme posts? No clue at all.
Sure, we know the hotshot CEO of COMPANY_NAME_HERE has to put on his pants one leg at a time, but the similarity ends there. They're different, they won't fall for the stupid tricks we fall for. They don't have trouble getting out of bed or ever worry about what their kids are up to. They have CEO spouses that don't ask them to take out the trash or think about which yogurt to buy.
On the flip side, if they do something bad, that's because they're evil. A deep dark evil totally unlike the banal lameness of the people around us. They don't do stupid shit when someone jerks their chain and they get all worked up. Why would they, they're surrounded by money and other powerful people and have servants feeding them brilliant insights all day long. Everything they do is planned and calculated and they think through the damage they're doing to people in excruciating detail.
There's only one species of humans on Earth, and we're all dumb as shit.
Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
#5Better title: Sometimes people do dumb shit, even powerful people
Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
#6And how does the price Musk paid for Twitter look now? Sure, maybe it was really a dumb move and he just got lucky. But he's been lucky a hell of a lot.
Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
#7I kind of feel like people know how to human, and how the humans around them human, but someone they've never met but only heard about or seen on TV or in meme posts? No clue at all. Sure, we know the hotshot CEO of COMPANY_NAME_HERE has to put on his pants one leg at a time, but the similarity ends there. They're different, they won't fall for the stupid tricks we fall for. They don't have trouble getting out of bed…
> Sure, we know the hotshot CEO of COMPANY_NAME_HERE has to put on his pants one leg at a time, but the similarity ends there.
That’s probably because we know consciously or subconsciously that in order to get and maintain a position of power at a multibillion dollar firm the person either never had a moral compass or quickly had to find ways to justify ignoring or compromising it.
Any one of us who has worked for one of those companies is pretty confident the person running it views other humans not in the way you describe, but as numbers in a spreadsheet who can either justify their continued employment by other numbers in a spreadsheet or not.
Most of us can’t imagine viewing and treating our fellow humans that way.
Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
#8And how does the price Musk paid for Twitter look now? Sure, maybe it was really a dumb move and he just got lucky. But he's been lucky a hell of a lot.
He bailed out his Twitter investors by having xAi purchase Twitter, then he bailed out his xAi investors by having SpaceX purchase xAi, and how he is trying to bail out SpaceX by having the index funds be forced to purchase SpaceX.
Twitter valuation aside, there must be some intangible benefits to the purchase. Lots of influential people use Twitter, he has amplified his reach, and the purchase seems to have moved the overton window in favor of his agenda.
Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
#9And how does the price Musk paid for Twitter look now? Sure, maybe it was really a dumb move and he just got lucky. But he's been lucky a hell of a lot.
Absolutely horrible? He absolutely lost his ass on the purchase and is one election away from fraud charges.
I guess congrats you bought Twitter and then spent half a billion dollars just so you could temporarily dismantle the regulators who were preventing you from committing open fraud?
Or, you know, if you did manage to permanently dismantle the regulators it means you’ve destroyed your primary source of revenue.
Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit
#10I kind of feel like people know how to human, and how the humans around them human, but someone they've never met but only heard about or seen on TV or in meme posts? No clue at all. Sure, we know the hotshot CEO of COMPANY_NAME_HERE has to put on his pants one leg at a time, but the similarity ends there. They're different, they won't fall for the stupid tricks we fall for. They don't have trouble getting out of bed…
If they're not special, why do we have to pay them so much just to get out of bed?