Angela Collier points out a bizarre thing these billionaires do: these people — Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk — are all college dropouts who couldn’t even finish an undergraduate degree, but now they all claim that they could have been physicists. Apparently anyone can be a physicist. No, wait, that’s not it, physicists have a reputation for being supersmart so these intellectual losers are all pretending to have an interest in physics for the reputation theft — these guys are going to grift everything.
I guess I’m not very bright because I never even wanted to be a physicist and was much more impressed with biologists like François Jacob or Lewis Wolpert or Rachel Carson or Rita Levi-Montalcini. Also, I not only completed my undergraduate degree, I finished a Ph.D. Dumb! Dumb dumb dumb.
If you can make it through the first half hour, you might also be amused at her take on Ayn Rand. She read Atlas Shrugged and enjoyed it because it was so ridiculous that she thought it was a satire. I can see that, but I’m still not going to slog through anything written by Rand.
Add Sam Altman to the list of college dropouts.
I think it’s telling that these are all American billionaires.
Not all cultures have this US postwar fetishization of physics as the super-intelligent intellectual discipline for extra-clever double-egghead smart boys. Nor did the US during its last Gilded Age – back then your Rockerfellers and your Gettys and your Morgans Stanley preferred to appear cultured by buying classical art and funding classical archaeology instead. I’m glad it’s someone else’s discipline they’re dressing up as now.
“If you can make it through the first half hour…”
Dr. C does tend to repeat herself a lot. Even so, I much prefer her to Hassenbabble.
The world would be at least a slightly better place if Ayn Rand had received treatment for her PTSD.
I’m a dropout. Where’s my billions?
Stop whining to us, larpar, if you had any initiative you’d get out there and inherit your own! Are there no apartheid police-states? No diamond-mines?
Collier: “why do we listen to what he [Gates] says as if he does have some physics knowledge?”
Why do we listen to Collier when she spectacularly fucks up the simple physics of the space elevator right from the start, and never (AFAIK) issues a correction or retraction?
The fetishization of Science has had many iterations and countermeasures over the centuries. An entry point might be the debate between TH Huxley and Matthew Arnold on the focus of education. Huxley pushed for Science of course where Arnold was more of a classicist. Before that was the Battle of the Books as told by Jonathan Swift. If I recall Gould’s recounting in The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox Swift may have preferred the Ancients over the Moderns.
So in these techbros feigning the physicist or engineer pose they may lean toward the Moderns. In the Renaissance there was much patronage by rich folk like the Medici for the arts and there was a rediscovery of classic works found within the Islamic realm. They rehashed Aristotle and Plato and humanism became a buzzword for pagan recycling projects before Savonarola pushed back a bit and got himself killed. There was some science being done under Medici patronage too, but the much later Enlightenment gets the focus for elevating the objective world before the Romantic pushback against Satanic mills.
Anyway Rand was an odd one. She had her own classical focus as she deified Aristotle and I think also liked Aquinas a bit. She also co-opted Nietzsche’s binary distinction of Apollo versus Dionysus to take a swipe at the hippies living in the midst of the space program. I do think PTSD may explain part of her visceral reaction to the Soviets.
Guess who else didn’t finish their undergraduate degree: sportsball thrower Aaron Rogers.
Much as I loathe the Muskrat, he did actually finish his undergrad, in Physics and Economics. It took 7 years and an interuniversity transfer to do it though. Apparently he was accepted to a masters program but never started, so maybe its the exception that still fits the spirit of the rule. All of the above is according to wiki, so the proverbial grain of salt with someone who can afford to pay people to manage their wiki page. Again, I hate the guy, but we stand on facts here, not stereotypes.
Let us not forget Rand’s praise of William Hickman, an evil a-hole who raped, murdered, and dismembered a 12 year-old girl. Not kidding, Rand thought the guy was a Great Man:
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/08/ayn-rands-superman-a-serial-killer-and-rapist
My parents were Rand fans and got her ‘Objectivist Newsletter.’ I was urged to read her drivel. It was drivel even to my 8th grade mind, obvious nonsense and psychopathy. That she still has fans today, as we await the final unraveling of our democratic republic, is not altogether coincidental.
@DaveH
It’s amazing how many qualifiers you have to add to fact-check misinformation about Musk on the left, isn’t it?
Like, there’s plenty of reasons to dislike the guy that are based in reality. You don’t even have to research it much, he puts it on blast 24/7 these days. You don’t need to make up stuff about his past, or about Tesla vehicles. But 95% of stuff I see on lefty social media about him is “Elon’s dad’s apartheid diamond mines paid to have Tesla cars blow up when you sneeze on them and he didn’t even build any Teslas with his bare hands what an asshat lol.”
I think people recognize he has too much power, due to having too much money, and feel they need to justify why he’s unworthy of having it. But that justification is unnecessary.
Nobody should be allowed to have as much money he has. He’s now capable of spending $50M on every congressional race and still have the same net worth he had at the beginning of 2024. He’s already threatening congressional GOP members with primaries if they don’t do his bidding, and they’re caving to his wishes. Nobody should have this level of power, especially if they’re unelected. Whether he’s a super genius who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, or an incompetent nepo baby who has prat-falled his way to the top, he does not deserve to be this wealthy. Nobody does.
@AstroLad #3: I usually don’t make it past 10 minutes. Her videos are too unstructured, repetitive and long winded for my taste. Which is a bit sad as she seems both smart and funny.
Opinion piece, hasty generalisation. #notallbillionaires.
https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/
“The 400 richest people in America are having a rollicking time in the roaring 2020s. In all, they are worth a record $5.4 trillion, up nearly $1 trillion from last year. A dozen have $100 billion-plus fortunes, also a record. And admission to this elite club is pricier than ever: A minimum net worth of $3.3 billion is required, up $400 million since 2023. Despite the high bar, 23 newcomers managed to break into the ranks, having grown their fortunes in everything from mundane plastic pipes to cutting-edge artificial intelligence.”
OOOH, these people — Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk are all so sciency!
But, factual documentation on them clearly says they are all abusive and more parasitic than benevolent.
@14 John Morales wrote: hasty generalisation. #notallbillionaires
I reply: I do a agree with John that we should be very careful and selective in who we label as abusive billionaires. However, the best example of a decent one, and the only that comes to mind immediately, is Taylor Swift.
Hey, PZ, how about adding the tRUMP/muskrat cheerleader idiot Rummyswummy to the list?
Also, this is another nail in the muskrat’s coffin for me:
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/10/elon-musk-yes-guy-was-illegal-immigrant-us
Elon Musk – Yes, That Guy – Was An Illegal Immigrant In U.S. Revoke Musk’s citizenship and deport him now!
By NewsHound Ellen — October 27, 2024
A Washington Post investigation has found solid evidence that Elon Musk did not have the legal right to work in the U.S. when he ditched graduate school and began a start-up company.
Some of The Post’s findings https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/26/elon-musk-immigration-status/ :
Musk arrived in Palo Alto in 1995 for a graduate degree program at Stanford University but never enrolled in courses, working instead on his start-up.
Leaving school left Musk without a legal basis to remain in the United States, according to legal experts.
shermanj @15: I’ll reserve judgement on Swift, depending on what she does with her remaining billion+ dollars. Obscene wealth is obscene, regardless of the billionaire’s good points.
These guys equate personal wealth with IQ points, and share certificates with post-graduate diplomas.
That’s how I enjoyed Ready Player One.
They might want to be physicists but they sure aren’t rocket scientists .. Oh wait, Musk. Bezos, Branson. Hmm…
Okay, they bought rocket scientists more than actually being them but still.
Er, Brain Surgeons anyone?
Or they may not, StevoR.
(You’re relying on a third-hand opinion, you know)
“Brain Surgeons anyone?”
So Collier buys into the Ayn Rand died in poverty on food stamps thing (at around 28:04). Did she really?
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2011/1015/Six-things-you-probably-didn-t-know-about-Ayn-Rand/Capitalism-and-the-stock-market
$800,000 in 1982 sounds a tad above poverty to me.
I’m a bit skeptical on the food stamps claim then. From what I gather she received Social Security benefits, which I presume she paid into and Medicare. She had lung cancer so wasn’t exactly super healthy. Medicare was prudent then or her meager wealth could have been eaten away by medical expenses. The problem with receiving SS and Medicare in her case is whether that’s hypocritical. She had a rationale at least for Social Security, having paid into it, which may parallel an argument she had made about the rightness of receiving student aid. Medicare is maybe more of a stretch given her radical libertarian philosophy. See:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ayn-rand-social-security/
So the Ayn Rand dying in poverty on food stamps seems not substantiated. Food stamps and Social Security payments retirees receive are not the same thing. The hypocrisy of decrying moochers and parasites while then dipping into that same pool upon retirement is arguable.
As for Atlas Shrugged, best book review ever:
Imagine if more billionaires looked up to & respected Climate scientists and ecologists as much as they admired rocket scientists.
Also:
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/28/nyregion/article-024270-no-title.html
Kinda goes against the dying in poverty trope.
Found that link referenced here:
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Ayn-Rand-die-poor
Ahem. One can own a dwelling yet have little liquidity or income.
“Rand had surgery for lung cancer in 1974 after decades of heavy smoking.[117] In 1976, she retired from her newsletter and, despite her lifelong objections to any government-run program, was enrolled in and subsequently claimed Social Security and Medicare with the aid of a social worker.[118][119] Her activities in the Objectivist movement declined, especially after her husband died on November 9, 1979.[120] One of her final projects was a never-completed television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.[121]
On March 6, 1982, Rand died of heart failure at her home in New York City.[122] Her funeral included a 6-foot (1.8 m) floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign.[123] In her will, Rand named Peikoff as her heir.[124]”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand#Later_years)
(https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/120-E-34th-St-APT-6G-New-York-NY-10016/2109372544_zpid/
“Off market | Zestimate®: $1,359,200 Rent Zestimate®: $6,410”)
StevoR:
[I mean, I could go on… copyright vs. royalties, etc; point being, she was not too proud to get the pittance, which is kind of indicative]
John Morales @26
So you’re evaluating Rand’s putative financial situation ca. 1982 based on a Zillow page giving us real estate figures from 2024? Ok I guess. Thanks.
Anyway I completely screwed my algorithm now but if anyone wants surreality watch Jordan Peterson get all into the weeds on his meandering view on Ayn Rand:
People in the comments are confused AF as to what was even going on with this video. It would have been better if JP had compared Rand to his guru Jung given both branched from the same Nietzschean root. Or maybe not because I doubt Peterson could pull that off without getting bogged down in kooky asides.