I'm lucky to still have both maternal grandparents at age 41, but grandpa's mind is unfortunately heavily on the decline. He was always an intellectual which makes it extra painful.
one wonders if figures like Bezos will still expect to command respect and authority
They already don't. Their power is based off money alone. No one actually likes them, let alone looks up to them. The people who claim to be "inspired" by them are only inspired by their vast fortunes, not with their persons.
I don't trust any of these "giving pledges" upon death. In name, their fortunes will pass on to nonprofits. Nonprofits controlled by their family members, which comes down to letting them keep their inheritances tax-free. This even happens in Europe.
I'm fully banking on it. They'll argue the office of the president is "special" and not beholden to the same rules and regulations that are supposed to bind public servants. And the SC will grant them that.
Absolutely agree, but I'm continuously surprised at how many people don't WANT to think for themselves. It's not that they lack the ability or their IQ is too low, they simply have decided to outsource their goddamn morality. That's perhaps worse than simple ignorance.
I love how this used to be attributed to anonymity. Then big sites with comment sections made use of real names mandatory and... nothing changed, the same people still happily spew their hateful drivel and propaganda. They're fucking proud of it.
At first it annoyed me slightly but I've noticed that I can understand most of them without having to use a translator, so now it's just free language practice. And deciphering memes is decidedly more fun than taking a course.
That's a legit societal theory called "accelerationism". Make everything so awful that people will realize what's happening and instigate massive backlash.
Except... the first time this was tried, in the 30's, we got WWII instead of solutions. So maybe not that great of an idea after all.
The largest upward transfer of wealth in history... so far.
Not counting the ones during Covid or 2008.