[Andy_B]

This is something I've noticed about modern Western culture. There is this implicit assumption that wealth, comfort and convenience are good in unlimited quantities. There's no sense that

A) Too much money makes you lazy and soft.

B) Doing pathetic shit for money is tantamount to selling your soul.

I could just be imagining things, but terms like "selling out" or "being spoiled" seem to have fallen out of use in the last decade or so. Nobody questions the notion that you should shamelessly go for the gold all the time, or that being rich is a great thing. We look up to celebrities BECAUSE they are rich now, not IN SPITE of their being rich, as in the past.

Something got me thinking about this.

I was posting on another forum about this dude on Youtube who eats weird shit and chugs liquor. In one video he was eating something particularly disgusting, so I shared it and was like, "WTF this is gross, who would do this?" And someone commented, "dude look how many subscribers he has, he's probably making like 300k."

Like... that makes it less self-demeaning?

But this seems like a pretty common attitude these days. People seem to think it's like no big deal to sell out your values and humiliate yourself and submit to other people's will for money. This is very, very beta behavior (it's prostitution really), but people have somehow been convinced that it's alpha, like "baller" or something like that.

It's like American culture literally GLORIFIES being beta, while encouraging men to go around getting on steroids and play this movie character parody of an alpha man.

So I wonder: how much time does a society that thinks this way really have left?

It is ultimately toughness, not wealth or popularity, that determines who wins. And America has completely forgotten the importance of being tough.

[InternationPlayboy]

I live in a very wealthy area, and a lot of the wealthy people here are pussies. My friend is a ski instructor and he's teaching a rich kid right now. The kid is a big time bitch. My friend says he cries when they ski too hard. My friend says he's probably the only person who's ever pushed him in his life. Too many rich families let their kids become pussies. They give them everything and spoil the shit out of them. But at the same time, there are a lot of people with a lot of money who worked really hard to get where they are, and I respect that. You can learn a lot from rich people.

[guerrilla]

(03-29-2013 06:46 PM)Andy_B Wrote:  

This is something I've noticed about modern Western culture. There is this implicit assumption that wealth, comfort and convenience are good in unlimited quantities. There's no sense that

A) Too much money makes you lazy and soft.

B) Doing pathetic shit for money is tantamount to selling your soul.

I could just be imagining things, but terms like "selling out" or "being spoiled" seem to have fallen out of use in the last decade or so. Nobody questions the notion that you should shamelessly go for the gold all the time, or that being rich is a great thing. We look up to celebrities BECAUSE they are rich now, not IN SPITE of their being rich, as in the past.

All advertising and marketing tries to entice you to live beyond your means. Unless you're one of the "weird guys" who doesn't buy into what's popular, you are programmed to think that you need to live beyond your means to be cool, have lots of friends, and be popular and happy and satisfied.

This sells more goods and services than a message that says "live well within your means."

That's capitalism. And in this information age it's being taken to its excess. That is neither a good thing or a bad thing, that's just how it is.

If you see through the bullshit and you live this perspective, you'll never be part of "it." If you live the bullshit, then you're part of it but you're living a lie.

Red pill, blue pill.

Catch 22.

[Andy_B]

(03-29-2013 06:57 PM)InternationPlayboy Wrote:  

I live in a very wealthy area, and a lot of the wealthy people here are pussies. My friend is a ski instructor and he's teaching a rich kid right now. The kid is a big time bitch. My friend says he cries when they ski too hard. My friend says he's probably the only person who's ever pushed him in his life. Too many rich families let their kids become pussies. They give them everything and spoil the shit out of them. But at the same time, there are a lot of people with a lot of money who worked really hard to get where they are, and I respect that. You can learn a lot from rich people.

Yeah, no doubt.

I mean, I'm working hard to make as much money as I can. But I'd never do something that's "not me" to make money.

[polymath]

I was with you until you started using "beta" to describe what you see as basal/crude/unseemly behavior. In fact I'm still with you, but let's extricate it from the idea of being "beta" or "alpha."

People don't have money and jobs nowadays, so the guy who sells out is really just securing an opportunity that may or may not have any alternatives. I will be moving to New York to work at an investment bank in June, and my only alternative (of those positions that I wanted, applied for, and received offers from) was far less pay in a job with the government abroad. In a sense, it is tantamount to selling out, but on the other hand I'm a young guy making a shrewd decision for my future.

I don't personally look up to celebrities, although I wouldn't mind spending some time alone with Kourtney Kardashian.

Also, I note that in the finance world, making tons of money takes hard work and dedication to the job, which does the opposite of making someone lazy and soft. I suppose you're still selling your soul, but there are plenty of less lucrative ways to sell your soul, too.

Some people still resent the hyper-wealthy, and see them as spoiled. Many nations have seen protests akin to the Occupy movement, Indignados protests in Spain, and the Arab Spring. All of these protests are spurred in some sense or another by a combination of economic frustration and extreme resentment of the highest classes.

Personally, I think you will see a return to the idea that selling out once the economy improves and people who followed their hearts in school can once again find good jobs. I have a buddy with a degree in biology from MIT who is currently working as a barback. He interviewed for a few finance jobs, but couldn't get any offers. People aren't going to hate on selling out when even the smartest people around have trouble doing it.

[Ovid]

If you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth and have everything handed to you on a platter in life, you never face real adversity and never have a chance to develop your character, or develop traits like willpower, perseverance, hope in the face of defeat, and the ability to practice virtue under stressful and difficult circumstances -all of which are essential to manliness. Because our society has so much wealth, and increasingly flaunts it shamelessly, more and more kids grow up coddled and spoiled, with a grasp of reality that is tenuous at best.

[Kingsley Davis]

This remind me of a portion in The Millionaire Next Door. Basically there's lots of dough to be made by specializing in shit that cater to the affluent. Teaching the cunts how to sail, ski, ride horses and that mess.

[teh_skeeze]

Once again Guerrilla hits the nail on the head.

Who gains the most from celebrity worship? It's certainly not the morons who lap it up like swine at the trough. These morons will incur thousands of dollars worth of debt buying the useless shit that will go out of style and be thrown away in six months. Everybody wants to live in comfort, but nobody want to work for it. We work for it out of necessity. This shit started with reality TV. It sells the idea that you could be next. Fake it 'til you make it!

Baby Boomer mentality also goes into this. I remember talking with my dad about Jersey Shore. I hate the show with a passion. I feel it gives my home state a bad name. To top it off, only one of the cast members hailed from New Jersey. Anyway, after a long winded rant similar to the last few sentences, my father responded "Yeah, you know how much money each one of them makes in a year"? My father is no idiot.

Here's a clip I just watched that's sort of relevant, especially since I was like 7 or 8 when New Kids on the Block came out.

It's interesting to note how a lot of timeless music comes from those who died so young. Could it be because they died before they traded in the ethos of their youth for comfort in old age?

[iknowexactly]

The goal of capitalism is to reduce all human interaction to the cash nexus.
-Leon Day

A talk with your neighbor or a girl you see on the street?

No. Facebook only.

[Lemmo]

Nah, the point of view you express is currently the dominant one and we hear it all the time. It is just that people are hypocritical so they rail against the rich and consumerism while chasing money and products themselves. But your thoughts definitely dominate now. Do you see a lot of movies about the kind hearted rich?

Like we are supposed to believe fat ugly people have hearts of gold we are supposed to believe that the poor are virtuous and the rich are evil. In reality, you'll find more positive qualities among the middle class and wealthy than the poor and better personalities among the good looking than the ugly. It is all part of a sickly egalitarianism that permeates the culture. Every good must be linked with a bad so we all magically come out equal. It is a comforting blue pill fairy tale.

[kazz]

If you are born into money, and/or have it in excess your entire life, you DO NOT ever 'need' anyone for anything, you will never have to ask for help, you will never have to step outside your comfort zone, you can effectively separate yourself from the real world if you choose to; complete independence. This is not a good thing and this does not build character, it makes you a weak, pasty pleb. Fortunately, many wealthy people arent like this, they 'choose' to work, to be part of the world.