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Why do people so feverishly defend corporations and billionaires?

Liquid Plejades

Liquid Plejades

Member
Mar 3, 2018
4,514
From Steve Jobs to Elon Musk.

I can admit they have done good things and are passionate people who are furthering various fields by investing heavily in them. I have and still use their products and really enjoy them. But any critique however big or small is met by this rabid almost cult like following.

I just came across this video by Time magazine.



Its not clickbait. At least not to me. The dude talks in a very calm manner about how being in the spotlight affects you and people are always listening etc. Yet it has thousands of dislikes and the comments are filled with people demanding that Time delete the video and not insult Elon Musk. How he is a force of good for humanity, the media is fake news so on and on..

I just don't get this at all. This is a billionaire who's here to make money for his companies. Maximize profits. He makes some nice products sure, but he aint no saint. He's not your friend. Yet even if u look at him the wrong way you get attacked for it. Its so absurd. Ive seen some people say the same shit about Jeff Bezos when critizied about horrible working conditions at Amazon warehouses. How he is creating jobs at the end of the day and pioneering how we shop and deliveries. Seriously? This cult of personality around people who do not give a shit about you besides your money is just baffling.

Edit : typo in the title woops
 
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Jesse_and_the_rippers

Jesse_and_the_rippers

Member
Dec 22, 2017
7,099
We are pack animals, and humans naturally tend to look up to authority. Sometimes this turns into worship. From warlords to royalty to modern day tech kings.
 
Officer Big Mac

Officer Big Mac

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,596
We are a tribal people. It's the same thing with Democrats/Republicans or Team Jacob/Team Edward or even your favorite sports team. This Us VS Them mentality has always been with us and it's not going to go away.
 
Ushojax

Ushojax

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,932
There is nothing people admire more than money.

See also: President Donald J Trump.
 
Akira86

Akira86

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,594
ignorance and fear. corporations have structure and some people are afraid of living without that. those organized rich businesses who's sole purpose is to make our lives better, right?


ignorance, fear, and leading to self delusion.
 

Deleted member 23212

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
11,225
Either they benefit from it, they hope that they will some day benefit from it, or they think that they benefit from it.
 

Deleted member 3335

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,812
It's just American replacement drug for the lack of a traditional nobility.

That's a the reason why you guys have such a powerful president mot that first lady nonsense.
 

Holundrian

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,175
I would say people being very sold on the bootstrap mentality and being 100% on free will memes while ignoring how all socioeconomic data are very reliable predictors about future financial prospects of people pointing to somewhat of the opposite are factors that play a role.
 
KHarvey16

KHarvey16

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
9,193
How do people feel when a critique isn't true or leaves out important details? Should an attempt be made to correct that?
 
Davidion

Davidion

Charitable King
Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,102
Same reason as why people gossip or worship celebrities: it's easy and comfortable to associate yourself with someone else's success.

This isn't news
 
samoyed

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
People really bought into the meritocratic myth, to the point where they'll retro justify someone's success based on their current situation.

An example of the GOP equivalent: Trump must be a good business man and good leader otherwise he wouldn't be rich or the president.

The corporation worship is just the liberal equivalent of that. "If they're successful as a company they must know what they're doing, I'm sure they have well paid people telling them what's best."
 
low-G

low-G

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,144
I think the first few posts about humans' social nature & hero worship are really a lot of it.

I don't understand it myself - I never felt like I had a real hero. But hey I liked Egon Spengler when I was a kid.
 

Deleted member 32563

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 11, 2017
1,336
What happens if you become a billionaire through work,hustle,successful ventures? Regardless of goodwill it will be assumed you are of a corrupt or bougie cloth eventually? Is there anyway to avoid this?

I mean technically in life you are only beholden to you and yours. Even as a billionaire. Can't satisfy everyone all the time.
 
Mimosa97

Mimosa97

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,754
I feel like in the Western World it's mostly an american problem. Even on this sub. People keep dropping key words like " success ", " Work hard " , " making it in life ". They applaud when an athlete signs a mega contract. They love to post threads about how much money big studios are making and cheer for them to make even more. I mean you really have to be brainshawed from infancy to act like that and worship billionnaire/mega corporations so much. Look at the defense force someone like Bill Gates has. Someone acts like a money hoarder his whole life and probably ruins the life of thousands of people by killing their businesses in the process but as soon as they start " giving money to charity " that's it everything is forgotten. It's just way too easy at this point.

I saw this tweet yesterday and I think it fits here

 
TarpitCarnivore

TarpitCarnivore

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,230
In the case of Musk & Jobs, the devout god like following came from people feeling they were revolutionizing the world. The cult of personality around Jobs is nothing in comparison to Musk though. Jobs was certainly raised up, but a big difference between them is that Jobs was very keen on putting others in the spotlight. There's a reason so many of us knew the names of Forstall, Federeghi, Ive, and so forth. It was because Job's let them stand in the spotlight during conferences and talk about the work they were leading. This is also what lead to coversations being more Apple, than Jobs. People applauded Jobs for his vision and leadership, but most covering Apple (and reading about it) knew who was leading the different divisions.

The counter with Musk is for better or worse it's been the Musk show for the last 5 years when it comes to anything Tesla; this may have changed since I don't keep up with the events as much. So that's why, to me, the defense for them is very different. People view Musk as this savior to the human race with Space X, Solar City and Tesla. They truly believe the world needs Musk b/c without him we these companies would collapse. Why? Because has made it seem as he is the sole brain child of the companies and their success.

Hell look at Bill Gates. People praise him up and down for his philanthropic work he's doing, as we should, but many forget he was just as ruthless as Jobs & Musk early on.

CEO hero worship is legit problem and we need to recognize that criticim are fine as they help to keep things in check.
 
deepFlaw

deepFlaw

Knights of Favonius World Tour '21
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,501
Idolization, the feeling that that could be you too, wanting the real world to be as cool as fiction and buying into the way fiction depicts "good" public figures in the process, etc.

And I get why people do it to begin with, but the rabid defense/fandom of them is just tiring. There's so much possibility for better things in this world and it just comes across as a small way of... I dunno, trying to find a way to enjoy things are at the cost of wanting more? And again I can get that, but when you start getting angry at people not being happy with that kind of complacency...
 
Tfritz

Tfritz

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,302
Dynomutt said:
What happens if you become a billionaire through work,hustle,successful ventures? Regardless of goodwill it will be assumed you are of a corrupt or bougie cloth eventually? Is there anyway to avoid this?

I mean technically in life you are only beholden to you and yours. Even as a billionaire. Can't satisfy everyone all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Literally no one becomes a billionaire without either being born wealthy or by screwing over workers (and usually it's a combination of both!)
 
CountAntonio

CountAntonio

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,735
Some people just don't hate Elon Musk as much as others and disagree with the amount of vitrol he receives on here. I don't think it's very complex.

You want to see real corporate worship go into the crossplay threads on the gaming side.

To answer you OP people have different opinions and defend what they want to.
 
samoyed

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
Dynomutt said:
What happens if you become a billionaire through work,hustle,successful ventures? Regardless of goodwill it will be assumed you are of a corrupt or bougie cloth eventually? Is there anyway to avoid this?
Click to expand...
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They don't exist, to my knowledge. Every time some bullshit article pops up about a self made millionaire you just need to dig a little to see that they got an infusion of cash from some well-to-do family member.

The only truth is that the entire damn system is rigged.
 
deepFlaw

deepFlaw

Knights of Favonius World Tour '21
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,501
And even if it's not from a family member, you'll have other investors, and so on.

Though of course, regardless of how you make it, having that much money and not using it for good is a bad thing. It's not like you earn the right to be selfish if you miraculously really did it all yourself.
 
Jombie

Jombie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,392
People live vicariously through assholes with power, money and immunity from consequence. And all the imaginary jobs they create.
 

Holundrian

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,175
Tfritz said:
Literally no one becomes a billionaire without either being born wealthy or by screwing over workers (and usually it's a combination of both!)
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I don't think this is true. People need to be careful when they make absolute statements like that, because they are easily disproven by one outlier and it takes away from the actual argument of how your socioeconomic factors in general is a really huge predictor of where you end up financially.
 

Kiji

Alt-Account
Member
Jul 8, 2018
29
The narrative of the American Dream is built by those same corporations and billionaires who are praised by the populace. It allows them greater freedoms to expand their wealth.
 
Bedlam

Bedlam

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
4,536
At least half of our species are stupid herd "individuals" who seek strong men to lead them.
 
Trickster

Trickster

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,533
"From Steve Jobs to Elon Musk" kinda covers all (both) of them though, doesn't it? It's certainly not this common phenomena to have Billionaires be adored by a cult like fan base.
 

Copper

Banned
Nov 13, 2017
666
Years of propaganda can do that. Demonizing unions, taxes and idolizing the "self-made man" and the "american dream".

It should be transparent, but people are by and large not much smarter than the average great ape, so there we go.

EDIT: see also how people vote and how there's 0 long term vision and the need to be "catered to" by voters as well. Make me hope for a gamma ray burst tbh.
 
mutantmagnet

mutantmagnet

Member
Oct 28, 2017
12,401

This cult of personality around people who do not give a shit about you besides your money is just baffling.

You really don't know what a cult of personality actually is.


To put it simplest terms you notice how sometimes in governments you have two leaders, one who inspires and one who makes sure everything is running behind the scenes?


Billionaires like Jobs and Musk are the type of men who can fill both jobs at once. They aren't simply and only selling a product. They are selling a dream.


In the typical corporation the founder is the visionary and the CEO is the guy who gets shit done.

The founders who manage to have the skill to get shit done like Gabe Newall or Musk build a fanbase in a way that other rich people can't achieve.


Until you grasp this concept you'll never begin to understand why these type of people are worshipped.

Here is another hint. Their biggest fanboys are some of their biggest investors. Other rich people getting suckered in by their charismatic hype dream machines have an amplified reach on the masses.
 

Imperfected

Member
Nov 9, 2017
11,737
Most of the time there are other agendas in play. At a minimum there's always consumer capitalism vs. marxism. There's usually an element of cultural imperialism vs. progressive politics. There's often also specific agendas relating to the industry in question. (Monopolistic business practices in software, ethical sourcing of components, etc., etc.)

Like, it's basically never as cut and dry as "do you like billionaire man or do you not like billionaire man" in these topics.
 
djplaeskool

djplaeskool

Member
Oct 26, 2017
19,788
As a society, we're trained to gravitate toward the successful and the wealthy. They've reached the end game where the unobtainable win condition results in the endless accumulation of wealth.

On the flip, we may just like the benefit of the goods/services they offer. People will go to bat for Amazon because where else can you get all of the books of Dean Koontz and a Playstation 2 copy of Kingdom Hearts 2 delivered by hand in under 12 hours?
and people will shrug when you try to explain how the cogs ofo the machinery work. They by and large don't care, as long as it works for them as a consumer.
 
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Laser Man

Laser Man

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,683
They represent an ideal that many people have, in Musks case specifically I think it's a mixture of the entrepenueur visionary and the selfmade billionair. So they go to bat for their ideal idea of themselves. I don't think he has much of the charismatic leader traits, which would make him way more dangerous in regards to the thread topic. But I could be wrong about that as I also think that about many politicians in high positions.
 
tokkun

tokkun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,414
KHarvey16 said:
How do people feel when a critique isn't true or leaves out important details? Should an attempt be made to correct that?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

In our modern, connected society there is pretty much an infinite well of things to disagree with. You could spend your entire life doing nothing but pointing out things you think are wrong on the Internet, and not even make a dent. Given that, the topics that you choose to spend time arguing about and the things you don't choose to spend time on can say a lot about you.

If you find yourself defending Company X or Billionaire Y over and over again - even if you think you are factually correct each and every time - it may be worth some self-reflection on why it is that you feel it is necessary to spend your time defending these extremely powerful entities who don't really need your help, as opposed to pretty much anything else you could be spending that energy on.
 
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