Disagree
Elon musk is a great example of how this is not true. The media portrays him as some genius but many of his ideas are incredibly dumb. He grew up in a rich family that exploited apartheid South Africa and got lucky and even richer off the intelligence and hard work of other people at pay pal. was replaced as CEO of what became pay pal after only 2 years, but his shares skyrocketed in value. He passes off ridiculous ideas like the “hyperloop” and “rockets replacing airplanes” and the media eats it up. In reality, high-school math and basic engineering can prove they’re impractical. Simply, he got to where he is from inheritance and luck.
I’m not claiming to be smarter than the engineers at Tesla or Spacex, rather I believe they know to keep their mouth shut about the bosses dumb ideas. By firing anyone who is not a “yes man” Elon has created an environment where noone challenges him. Additionally the media will uncritically praise his dumb ideas because they want to be seen as relevant and perpetuate the idea that “rich people are smart” because rich people own the media companies and it helps them hold their position. Watch how this newsperson salivates over what is an extremely underwhelming tunnel.
Also, Elon is a bald face liar. He said all of the houses in solar city, had the new solar roofs, in reality only one did and the rest were mock ups. He’s claimed “full self driving” was a couple years away ten years ago! when in reality it no where near working even today, and is probably another decade or more away from reality. Almost everything he says is a lie or streched truth, but noone seems to mind when his ideas are proven impractical.
He is just one particularly egregious example, but It highlights the flaws with the idea that “capitalism favors intelligence”. In reality, having no morals allows buisnessmen to lie cheat and steal without consequence. A dumb psychopath has an easier time becoming a billionaire than a smart person with empathy. Capitalism often favors psychopathy.
What’s the point of posting a thesis if you’re going to immediately argue against it? I haven’t seen anyone really arguing that capitalism favors intelligence, at least not in the sense you’re arguing against. Capitalism favors efficiency, or rather it favors nothing, it’s just that with relatively unconstrained conditions for competition those who are more efficient tend to survive. You clearly have an axe to grind against Musk, so why not post an opening statement against that guy in particular, instead of what is effectively a strawman against capitalism as a whole.
https://gtio.io/post/105/comment/49
How is it a strawman? It’s a case-study.
Capitalism is just the economic system. What about it would lead it to ‘favor intelligence’?
I think it is clear historically it favors nepotism and exploits intelligent people, such as Nikola Tesla as a classic example. To climb to the top of capitalism takes some cunning, but I believe that’s a different concept to favoring intelligence. Intelligent people are frequently kept down by capitalism, especially those who want to act in public benefit rather than personal benefit.
Exactly capitalists exploit the intelligent people.
On January 23rd, 1923 Banting, Best, and Collip were awarded the American patents for insulin. They sold the patent to the University of Toronto for $1 each. Banting notably said: “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.” His desire was for everyone who needed access to it to have it.
And today in America a months supply can cost upward of $1,500 dollars. Capitalism doesn’t reward intelligence, it rewards greed.
Yes: Con-artists are intelligent. Washington lobbyists are intelligent.
Outside of capitalism, gang leaders are intelligent, priest-kings are intelligent.
Intelligence is generally helpful.
If you stab your partner in the back and take his half, some could say you were “smarter” than him, but I dont see that as “being smart” I see it as being “ruthless”. You could define who ever wins the backstabbing contest as “the smartest”, but its not always a strategical win like in a game of chess, but rather who was the best liar.
My main argument is that most people conflate being a psychopath with being intelligent because they’re successful. I assert If these successful psychopaths took intelligence tests with the people they stabbed in the back, they would not always be the smartest.
My fist point was that capitalism often favors con-artists and lobbyists.
which I agree with. I’m just pointing out that you could define intelligence as “being good at capitalism”, and arguing that its really the same as “being good at deceiving people”, and suggesting its different than intelligence, or that intelligence is a broader term.
Ok. This post is confusing. Since you made the post, I thought that the title was your assertion “Capitalism Favors Intelligence”, but it seems like you actually reject that assertion.
yup
