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6. Treating of poverty or lack of success as a character flaw rather than just “it is what it is” 7. Systematic downplaying of the role of chance (even by the demonizers who overweight determinate structural oppression by the wealthy/successful in social explanations)
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The structural/institutional effects are all over the place. Drug war, ridiculous incarceration rates, casting of any social cost problem as a “you’re trying to shill for/punish wealth/success”... Signaling oriented consumerism, premium mediocrity...
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The darkest effects are around things the US expends vast amounts of energy and capital in but barely talks about in anything like an appropriate proportion: healthcare, military adventurism, etc. Why? Because attitudes to wealth/success imply very little of use on these issues
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If you try to derive a sound view on healthcare, military adventures, or climate action from whether you love or hate billionaires or movie stars, you will end up with ridiculous cartoon views because these problems are fundamentally not even about wealth/success.
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Note that obsessive focus on wealth/success is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. More individuals will be wealthy and/or successful as a fraction of the population and the society in aggregate will also be more wealthy and successful. But median is not the same as maximum.
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You’ll have more billionaires and rockstars per capital and higher GDP and growth perhaps. But you’ll also be more cruel to your poor, sick, dying than societies with less individual/collective wealth/success. You’ll have bigger social costs, snowballing faster.
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You will de facto criminalize lack of success or wealth. Your ability to solve for anything else (wisdom, compassion) will atrophy, because those are skills too. Privilege literally means private law. That will become the only kind of law. Public law will become prison yard law.
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Solving for wealth/success will look like breaking out of prison. If you’re not born to privilege, you’ll be born into increasingly prison-like situations, designed to contain, coerce, punish, tame. What I call breaking smart in more optimistic writing will become breaking out.
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All countries have their share of transient problems, acute crises, chronic structural problems, and existential paradoxes. But the US probably has the most severe collective mental health problem among countries I think I grok. And the root cause is a wealth/success monoculture.
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The US is still one of the most religious countries amongst rich western democracies. Not saying that’s a cause, but disagreeing with the monoculture statement.
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The religious culture is also entirely oriented around solving for wealth and success! From 19th century Calvinism to Napoleon Hill and Norman Vincent Peale to Joel Osteen, to be religious is to hack godliness for worldly success.
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How does this apply to the masses in middle America + Bible Belt. The masses that contribute to the high percentage of religiosity are neither. The leaders are but that’s always been the case with clergy & church