i think it’s (1) wealth doesn’t lead to contentment, the very rich are people who started with a burning grievance and desire and now that they are rich, they still have it; 1/

(2) rich people adopt theories of the world that flatter themselves. even the ones who made their fortunes directly from government contracts and subsidies, or from medicare coding innovations, flatter themselves Randian/Niezchean ubermenschen, gravitate towards false self-aggrandizing theories. 2/

(3) rich people finance whole ecosystems of intellectual workers who dignify and flatter these preconceptions. these come to rival in prestige and (tendentiously applied) technical quality work by more neutrally situated thinkers. the best people tell them they are right. 3/

(4) at an interpersonal level, they claim to value independent thought but it’s in fact too painful to be told that they are wrong about these things. they select for sycophants who are willing to reinforce their preconceptions for access. 4/

so, in the end, they remain as a matter of permanent character full of grievance and passionate desire, desperate to act in the world to validate themselves and express their grievance, guided by persuasive but false ideas, stuck in an intellectual cage of their own construction. /fin