What can I do about my possibly narcissistic hatred of socie

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We can but dream. Will there be sharks with lasers?

Yes! There's a blueprint already, the rest should be simple enough.

[img][800:695]http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs21/f/2007/253/8/8/Laser_Shark_by_McGibs.jpg[/img]

I really don't understand not that I am projecting judgement. You said this statement...



I am very literal so saw an interesting image and then took that to mean that you think that all of these people are trying to prove who has a bigger dick which equates to being a "bad" person in my book. I honestly do not understand the whole stigma around the penis so just use that anology to mean "bad". (guess that is black/white sort of thing)

You make this claim about these people...

"pointlessly ostentatious displays of wealth..... "

Personally, I am not bothered by the ways in which people spend their money and trying to understand why you make these claims RE these people. Why do you judge how they spend the money that they make or is this not a judgement statement?

Just trying to understand this mentality as I really am so socially clueless that even doing this escapes me. Yet, I think it would benefit me to understand it as I am in the very top % of earners in the world.

Damn straight. Whenever you manifest any personal qualities that society deems as "undesireable"(Especially as it relates to social awkwardness or ability), your objective abilities and accomplishments are often overlooked in their assessment of your "ability" and "contribution". I can't tell you how many complex projects I've completed on my own that the majority of my peers are simply incapable of, just to be graded as a "failure" in a project by my team where I had more than contributed my fair share of the work(Especially more than them!), simply because they and other critical people disliked me, for reasons that I don't understand. I'm assuming it has to do with "social awkwardness"...

(Or maybe it's for not entirely-well-hidden feelings of superiority, hardy har har.)

We will have an army of robotic laser sharks, eh?

I want to live in a tourist space colony that's touring the universe at light speed.

I've often thought the same thing but am still learning so much so do not really know. It is a "spectrum" and many of us who are older and making it may just be on a different level. idk at this time. I do know that I am mentoring a 13-year-old kid and before he met me he did feel like he was doomed to be a failure due to his disability. From what I can tell, we have the ability to DX these kids but the expertise to actually grow them is still not there. This kid has a world of resources available to him. He has a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a speech paathologist, a personal aid for all his class rooms, etc..... etc.... Yet when I visited his school recently to teach in his classroom I discovered that this kid did not have basic needs met like a private or quiet place to eat lunch... (sigh....) I mean really people???! ! I am also working very closely with the local adult Aspergers people in my town to try to understand what makes some able to cope and others not so much... My guess is that it has more to do with co-morbid issues than just about anything else but that is just a theory right now. I know that if I can keep my anxiety to a low rumble that I can actually do some degree of coping. Without that though, I can really fall apart. I don't think there is an "easy" answer but I really am motivated to get "into" the minds of people like the OP and others on this thread who feel so vicitmized in life...

For me, it's a political and social justice issue. 3 billion people live in desperate poverty, and of those 1 billion don't even have enough food, that's why I personally consider ostentatious displays of wealth to be in very poor taste.

You seem to believe that the world is a meritocracy and those who deserve it or work hard enough will rise to the top, but that is not the case. Even though I gather from your posts that you have worked very hard to be where you are and have faced significant adversity, you also said that you are gifted which is just that: a gift. Not everyone is born gifted, and even if everyone was, the economic system requires that many live in poverty or work for slave wages to supply the resources to those at the top. There are many people who work just as hard as you do and yet are stuck in abject poverty. Those who are extremely wealthy have for the most part not worked for their wealth, certainly not to the extent that their wealth is merited. Unless they are willing to share what they have, then I don't see them as pulling their weight and yes, I do pass judgment on their McMansions and gas-guzzling cars, which I consider to be ostentatious displays of inequality and injustice.

Those people live under oppressive regimes that inhibit free trade.

I think it would be a very rare thing indeed to find someone dying of starvation in a first world, predominantly capitalist nation.

Huh.... So where is the "line" drawn? Is my new Volvo considered an "ostentatious display of wealth"? What about the 100K sports car that I paid cash for awhile ago? Having several homes? I really am trying to find where the "line" here is in your mind and so far am not seeing it being stated in any way that makes sense to me. Why would you make exceptions for me when you generalize others with wealth as "not worthy" of their salaries? Andy Grove came from poverty just as I did. Many of use come from quite humble beginnings and many of us have worked years and years at 50-80 hour work weeks to get to where we have the luxury of working 40-50. My point being that every single person I have ever met in high tech who is a milllionare today has really busted their asses to get there. Guess my personal experiences are very different from yours and am interested how you came to the conclusions that you ahve RE people of wealth.

I get lumped quite often enough in this sort of gropu and am wondering why and how this happens. The thing is that even though I have great wealth I also return it many times over to my community and to individuals. In my industry, we are taught gratitude and to care about our communities. This is also true of people like Bill Gates who taught me as a young engineer that "with great wealth comes great responsibility". There are many, many things in my area such as art projects, programs at schools, medical facilities for poor, etc that is a direct result of these multi-million dollar earners returning to society and their communities. Yet instead of any sort of gratitude for these programs they called out a having "penis extensions" etc. ??? Trying to understand what it is that we should do differently and if I am even part of the "we" to which you refer.....

Last edited by kfisherx on 27 Apr 2011, 2:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Free trade is a problem, not a solution. If people were able to move freely in the same way that capital is, they would be able to move to places where wages are higher. I'm not however, going to debate this issue here any further.

That has nothing to do with free trade...?


Then why bring it up?

When I wrote about people who have not earned their wealth, I was referring to those who have made their money through investing and speculation and not through work, but more broadly, even those who have earned their wealth through hard work have not worked hundreds of times harder than those who toil for low wages, yet their wealth is in some cases hundreds of times higher. Janitors, food service workers, etc. work just as hard but for much lower returns.

Even when the wealthy give back to charity, they are in most cases draining more from the system than they are giving back. And I mean that in a very broad sense, because the system is set up in such a way that the worker bees at the bottom of the pyramid create much greater wealth than they receive in return, and that wealth is siphoned off at the top. (Not intentionally by people like yourself, or myself -- I was raised in a not wealthy but comfortable family -- but we benefit from the work and natural resources taken from others.)

I am not specifically exempting you from this, nor am I blaming you, because my feelings are not directed at individuals, but at the broader system. If I didn't know you and saw your 100K car, it would not sit well with me, but I still don't think that it would be my place to tell you as an individual what kind of car you should buy.
I didn't bring up free trade, you did. I was just trying to answer kfisherx's question.

Sorry I assumed you were aware of these

Perhaps the "penis extension" reference now makes some sense. These guys (and it is always men) build new super yachts in order to get a few feet ahead.

It makes no sense in a world full of such poverty. I quote from Wikipedia here:

"In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth and the top 1% owned 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth."

And that's the richest Nation. As bee33 pointed out, wealth accumulated isn't even necessarily related to how hard you have worked.



Think about those yachts. I have no need of one and the bragging rights it brings. What would I do with one? What purpose do they serve?

It is strange to think I share the same planet with the likes of Abramovich, Ellison et al. They may as well be 3 winged lizards from the planet zog for all I understand them.

I'm not sure who you think feels victimized here. I can only speak for myself of course, but I've enjoyed my own modest degree of success, such that I continue to support myself despite having not worked now for nearly 3 years. I've never had a problem working (except through recent ill health) but have nonetheless always held these views.

It's just that my primary drivers are not financial. I prefer intellectual rewards to trinkets and baubles.