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Posted

That article is so good.  It's also a terrifying further acknowledgement that these people (all of them) exist on a different plane than the populace.  The idea that they (or anyone else in the truly-rich elite and those they politically support) have any clue what it's like to be a farmer in Nebraska, a single mother in Virginia, or even a (mere) millionaire doctor in Vermont is farce. 

We and they are a different species.  We, the people, may as well be an ant-farm sitting on a shelf to them.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

That article is so good.  It's also a terrifying further acknowledgement that these people (all of them) exist on a different plane than the populace.

There are the grifters and the grifted.

Posted

Nah.  That's putting it far too simply. 

Murdoch will be dead soon. It's not simply about grift to him and people in this sphere.  For people two and three notches down, like Barr and some of the folks in their orbit, sure.  For him, and the tech bros, and the hedge fund managers, It's a world view, which is devoid of any understanding (and therefore empathy) towards us.

Shortly after my wife and I got married, we traveled to Uganda as part of an aid group.  We went to the poorest district in the country, and then we went to the poorest family in the district- which was an orphaned teen-aged girl and her 3 much younger siblings living in a half roofed mud hut, their clothes literally falling off of them. We, of course, did have deep sympathy, and some of us immediately started to speculate on what they needed, or how we could help them directly, right there immediately.  Our hosts, however, quickly brought us to the reality that our experience was simply too far removed from theirs as to presume that we had any real understanding how to help them in any meaningful, sustained way.  Of course the aid organization we were there supporting was much closer to the ground, and therefore better placed to assist.  But us? Nope.

I tell that story because it occurs to me that the gap between the mega billionaires and us is actually greater than the gap between us and that family in Uganda.  At least we were close enough in our shared experience to share sympathy, if not true empathy.

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Posted
1 hour ago, TexasHooch said:

Nah.  That's putting it far too simply. 

Murdoch will be dead soon. It's not simply about grift to him and people in this sphere.  For people two and three notches down, like Barr and some of the folks in their orbit, sure.  For him, and the tech bros, and the hedge fund managers, It's a world view, which is devoid of any understanding (and therefore empathy) towards us.

Shortly after my wife and I got married, we traveled to Uganda as part of an aid group.  We went to the poorest district in the country, and then we went to the poorest family in the district- which was an orphaned teen-aged girl and her 3 much younger siblings living in a half roofed mud hut, their clothes literally falling off of them. We, of course, did have deep sympathy, and some of us immediately started to speculate on what they needed, or how we could help them directly, right there immediately.  Our hosts, however, quickly brought us to the reality that our experience was simply too far removed from theirs as to presume that we had any real understanding how to help them in any meaningful, sustained way.  Of course the aid organization we were there supporting was much closer to the ground, and therefore better placed to assist.  But us? Nope.

I tell that story because it occurs to me that the gap between the mega billionaires and us is actually greater than the gap between us and that family in Uganda.  At least we were close enough in our shared experience to share sympathy, if not true empathy.

That is a fantastic analogy (and an important one from both ends/perspectives -- see books like Toxic Charity).

Empathy is important.  It's beyond important, it's essential to functioning societies, and we have turned 180 degrees away from it.  But as a companion to empathy is the humility to realize and accept that sometimes, your experience/perspective absolutely prevent you from even starting to understand the perspective/needs of others.  Which is FINE.  What you have to do then is accept the word/wisdom from people who DO have the perspective and ability to understand the subject matter.  And that humility is hard, because when you're amped up on empathy, you want to save the world.  Letting the adrenaline subside, and realizing that you can't is really important.

And our two-way insanity of projecting our perspective onto billionaires ("they want to help us...because if I was a billionaire tomorrow, that's what I'd do!" is as insane as billionaires telling people "hey, if times are hard, sell a piece art!") is killing us.



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