this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
737 points (98.9% liked)
Not The Onion
12321 readers
1816 users here now
Welcome
We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!
The Rules
Posts must be:
- Links to news stories from...
- ...credible sources, with...
- ...their original headlines, that...
- ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”
Comments must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.
And that’s basically it!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Profit. That's pretty much it. Why does anyone seek excess power in a capitalist society? Personal wealth gain. That insider info allows them to make their winning stock trades, and the "perks" they receive from their high offices (think private jet travel, free meals, tickets to events, etc) ensure that their expenses are kept at a minimum. Their lavish lifestyles while we struggle, and the fact that they could help resolve society's problems yet don't to keep the status quo, is the epitome of "fuck you, I got mine."
I don't really understand how it's a lavish lifestyle if you have to hang out with a bunch of politicians and business people all the time. That sounds like pure hell to me. Like you're going to hang out with the vice president of East Coast sales for some manufacturing company or some shit, no thanks.
Yeah but some people get off on it, like that being in the company of the rich and powerful increases their social stock (in their own insular world), and some thrive on that type of stuff.
That sounds fucking pathetic.
I agree, but welcome to the world we live in.
I think that's partially why the well connected and famous billionaires are such miserable assholes. Their lives really aren't that great because they're all uninteresting losers surrounded by uninteresting losers who sold their souls for money and power and spend decades between having any moments of real joy.
It's like that movie, The Mask (and it's like that for the rest of us, too): the more times you put it on and the longer you wear it, the more you meld into it and the mask into you.