Critiquing billionaire fan fiction
The gospel according to billionaires:
- Without elite control there is no progress — as Thoreau said, “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us”. Modern progress at scale requires sacrificing something in the present for the future and populist control can’t do that.
- Elite leadership requires giving them great status and / or wealth. It somewhat even includes keeping elite children above others as there cannot be a gap in elite control.
- These grants of great status and / or wealth will inevitably lead to regressive societies, but that is the price paid for progress. Progress potentially makes that trade off worth the price.
This gospel is difficult to disprove. We can’t know what decisions a more democratic government would take when our governments are all highly controlled by elites. We can’t properly debate mudsill theory when we never have a society without lower classes.
We can measure that human progress is stalling, but the same report puts forward that AI is somehow a solution. This lack of alternative is where the world was with royal theology until a series of regicides in the 19th and 20th centuries mostly ended that form of society.
The end of royal rule is the first point where billionaire theology can be concretely disputed:
- Billionaires and their offspring cannot be allowed to become royal. Royalty failed as a modern ruling mechanism (see for instance WWI) and will again be violently opposed if it rises.
As billionaires start experimenting with king like behavior — privately owned islands, above the law, buying government control, royal like nepotism, etc., they are outside the bounds of “advancing progress”.
Nor was there ever any need for them to have king like fortunes:
When Thomas Edison died in October 1931, he left behind an estate valued at approximately $12 million USD. Adjusted for inflation, this fortune is equivalent to roughly $170 million to $217 million in 2015–2016 dollars.
Plus electrification was a vastly larger and more important project than anything that has been accomplished this century.
The second problem with billionaire theology is that it is incompatible with democracy.
2. Billionaires can advocate their version of progress with their money but cannot be allowed to directly force it against majority wishes.
This problem arises because the cost of modern progress can only be taken by governments. No single person will ever have the kind of money and time necessary to take on cancer, build and run a super collider, or map the neural pathways of the human brain.
So if the populace were really as against progress as billionaire theology has it, then billionaires would have to circumvent democracy to get government funding. Also creating a giant combined NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) that rivals a government for resource control violates the no kings rule 1 above.
The third problem with billionaire theology is that it has no coherent concept of what progress is.
3. If a billionaire advocates transhumanism as progress, then by definition ordinary humans will never benefit from it.
The ultimate example of Thoreau’s “We do not ride on the railroad” is transhumanism as it benefits only creatures that are beyond what we currently call human.
Essentially billionaire theology is a fan fiction rewrite of reality where a racist South African spending an inherited fortune is an “innovator” worthy of unlimited reward even at the cost of democracy.
In the fan fiction version, a billionaire puts the full weight of his fortune behind a technology like Neuralink (which has not happened so far) and the world would be much cooler. In the real world the billionaire just lobbies governments and normal humanity are the ones who are actually paying for the research. Yet normal humans never benefit from that investment unless they are willing to become more cyborg.
Now let’s ignore that billionaire worshipers have confused fan fiction with reality and just critique this fiction as fiction. Even approached as pure story telling billionaire fan fiction still has real problems.
First the protagonist of the billionaire fan fic has almost no empathy. Their love of monarchy and disregard for others is somehow seen as heroic.
Second there are no character arcs in billionaire fan fiction. No one learns any lessons or changes or grows in anyway.
Third, one is supposed to accept the billionaire in these stories as a “genius” but purely because top of the hierarchy is a genius by definition. Where royals invented the idea of a divine bloodline, billionaire fan fiction sees investment as a sport where a very successful investor must have skill.
Investment as a meritocracy is obviously not true but even accepting this premise within the fan fiction world building does not work for the story:
Tony Stark was a genius and he invented a technology that no one else would have invented for a hundred years.
but if instead:
Tony Stark was a genius who invested in an obscure technology and than ran the business with great acumen.
The former is one of those improbable things we accept for the sake of a story — sure we can’t think of any invention that was ever like that but maybe there could be.
The latter statement though can only be included in fan fiction written specifically for middle managers. In this plot line the work is done by others, except the protagonist goes to meetings and does well in them.
It’s a fan fiction where the manager is not only the hero but somehow gets all the credit and unlimited rewards. It’s a fan fiction for people with delusions of grandeur where the delusions are accepted as fact.
There’s a strong element of German idealism in a story like this as the hero takes whatever he is doing and simply declares it as great. If you are a father then declare yourself a great father worthy of all praise. If you are single then declare yourself the greatest most pure single worthy of all praise.
The hero of these stories is heroic for his rejection of reality in the opposite way of a normal story where the hero is praised for successfully engaging with reality.
In the end the castle above built by the king of Bavaria is enjoyed by visitors from all over the world but Ludwig’s stated intention was that no visitors be allowed. Similarly Musk is associated with electric cars but whether he actually helps humanity or not isn’t the point for the fan fiction — either way he is great.
Elon Musk has described excessive empathy as a “civilizational suicide” risk, arguing it threatens Western civilization by acting as a weakness.
In reality empathy is the only thing that has prevented humanity from blowing itself up. Unfortunately for a heroic rejection of reality even admitting other humans exist is a weakness.
This simplicity is the appeal of this fan fiction. It’s easy to write, easy to understand, and let’s one evade the messy details of a functional merit system and having to define progress meaningfully.