I’m old enough to remember that Sam Altman’s claim to fame before OpenAI, before running YC, was running a failed also-ran location-based whatever Web 2.0 scam startup thing that accomplished nothing and that no one remembers. His entire “career” is based on persuading people with money to give him more of it.
The incentive structures are such that everyone sucks up to people in a position to give you a lot of money, so all these people with no real skills, talent or track record get regarded as “geniuses”, but like, even when you understand why this happens, it doesn’t make it any less rage-inducing.
What would have to change in this society for people who actually do shit to have a higher profile than people who just have a lot of money?
This is a good example of Goodhart's Law: "when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". Money is supposed to be a measure of value exchanged; the idea is that if you aren't receiving something actually useful in exchange for your money, you don't spend it. This assumption breaks down as the economy grows in complexity and it becomes harder to judge what you're actually receiving. It becomes increasingly easy to game the process of convincing people to give you money. People who get good at this outcompete people who don't, and there is a lot of money floating around out there without much accountability.
This also suggests ways to reverse this: 1) reduce the complexity of the economy 2) have more repeated interactions, where you cannot simply stiff someone and go away to do it to someone else 3) have more information about who has stiffed people and gone away to do it to someone else 4) reduce the costs involved in the sale process, so that this can become a part-time job of someone actually providing the service, rather than having people whose dedicated role is to make the money change hands managing people whose dedicated role is to actually do the job.
The problem is not that society is too complexity but extremely unequal distribution of money. Those few that have most of it usually did not earn it by providing a useful service to society and for them it becomes a random investment game without consequences which creates additional winners that also never produced something useful.
We need to start talking about people like this truthfully: they are sick. Fucked up. Broken. They do not deserve fame or fortune, they deserve a padded cell, close observation by psychologists and neurologists and try and figure out how we can stop it happening.
Horribly manipulative Smaug-likes who only care for themselves, why must the rest of us be beholden to them? To be victims to the havoc they wreak? Why do we put up with it?
> What would have to change in this society for people who actually do shit to have a higher profile than people who just have a lot of money?
A wealth tax. Higher capital gains taxes. Closing tax loopholes.
But wealth is interchangeable with power so the wealthy will just undo any fixes we create to the structural inequalities of capital. The problem might just be intrinsic to human nature.
In my experience, all wealth comes down to either (1) producing and using something yourself, or (2) convincing somebody else to give it to you. Most of us trade labor or goods for wealth, convincing others that our stuff is worth the wealth they give.
If you want more wealth for your work, you need the other side to value it more. Better goods and labor are the obvious choice, but that's difficult. Better schmoozing is less effort and good payoff. Epstein was a paragon of this skill. Also companies that spend tons on advertising, like Coca Cola. Everyone knows their soda exists, but the ads are meant to convince you that you need one right now. No need to improve their product or innovate cheaper production. They just lean on the persuasion.
I can't think of a way to avoid this. If you want more money, it has to come from somebody. How could there be an unbiased and impersonal way of redistributing it?
This might be a little pedantic and certainly off topic, but Coke ads really aren't intended to convince you that you need one right now, they are intended to make sure they are the first drink you think of when you think of sodas. Everytime a waitress says "oh sorry will Pepsi be ok?" Coke ads have achieved their purpose even though they didn't sell any soda or change your preferences.
RC Cola exists right alongside Coca Cola, but has a marketing budget that is a tiny tiny fraction of Coke's, do you ever hear anyone ask for an RC Cola? Coke spends on marketing so they don't become RC Cola, not to convince you of anything.
Reminds me of Elon Musk. Grifting off of techno-futuro-optimism. Hyperloop, Boring tunnel, going to mars, self-driving cars, etc. Perhaps it's common to CEOs, lying/manipulating to people to create hype in order to convince them to give you money.
Sure, but Elon Musk had known engineering roles at various companies, and built a space company nobody, not even himself thought would succeed, into the most viable and affordable way to get things into space.
Idk if I had to be stranded on an island with either Elon or Sam, I think I'd rather be stuck with Elon.
The incentive structures are such that everyone sucks up to people in a position to give you a lot of money, so all these people with no real skills, talent or track record get regarded as “geniuses”, but like, even when you understand why this happens, it doesn’t make it any less rage-inducing.
What would have to change in this society for people who actually do shit to have a higher profile than people who just have a lot of money?