alt Hacker NewsIt's increasingly a pet theory of mine that the uncontrolled concentration of wealth into the hands of the richest, their subsequent existential ennui, and their disconnect from reality owing to media consolidation and algorithmic content feeds have basically created a world where the superrich are in a "post-game" mentality. There are no further material comforts to obtain. They just want to feel anything at all and the only way to do that is by bringing about the end of the world.
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Impressive thought. It could also be a built-in mechanism by nature to reshuffle the cards.
Damn! I just nuked a long conversation with ChatGPT outlining my pet theory that with changes in scale of energy regimes (labor->wind/water->coal->oil->solar) we get an excess energetic capacity that means our entertainment systems can't handle! That excess spills out as elite political retrenchment, entertainment jealousy, and (finally) violence, expanded civil rights, and a new entertainment regime.
Mostly tongue in cheek... but the whole thing hangs together.
Sounds like Fallout
There’s a great opera on this topic called “Death and the Powers”, a trillionaire who transfers his consciousness to get out of his ailing body and, free from dependency on others, loses all empathy, while trying to convince the rest of his family to join him in cyberspace (thereby killing themselves), lots of themes of what you lose when you become disembodied, and becoming rich is just getting half way there.