Unless someone made money teaching philosophy about life, I think it is phony for rich people to tell others about "moderation, family, values and what not". I mean they become rich by putting everything on backseat and then when they hit millionaire or billionaire, they start preaching online, writing "lessons learned" and worst make more money by "selling" philosophy. I can't stand this anymore. Any one else feels this way too?
I, mean, I get what you're talking about. But it's like complaining that most of the writings we have from antiquity were written by the landed aristocracy class. Aurelius's Meditations was, after all, also written by a decidedly rich guy -- the emperor of the known world. Certainly a bit biased there. But they were the only people with the time, and with the access to the resources and labour, to propagate their ideas in multiple copies. Not much has fundamentally changed on that one.
Self made rich people lived life a certain way and made their money through a combination of hard work and luck. But you need to do a lot of work to be able to recognize and take advantage of luck when it presents itself, plus the risk taking mentality. There is a very big difference from a rich doctor or lawyer and a wealthy entrepreneur.<p>I don’t believe that all rich people “exploited” those that work for them. Private businesses have customers who (in a non-crony system) voluntarily chose to give them money. It is the most noble and honest way to earn a living.<p>So they have interesting stories to tell and things to say as they accomplished a rare thing a lot of people dream about. Makes sense to me.
I'm only mildly annoyed when 20 something kids with huge amounts of generational wealth feel like they've got deep insights. Look everyone has opinions and knowledge and I'm sure there is value to it. This behavior shouldn't surprise you... positions of power have always felt self importance and a desire to espouse their ideas either as a means to make their egos feel good or simply cast themselves in a positive light.<p>The good thing with the Internet is that there is so much out there...
I understand what you feel, but I don't share that feeling. These people are free citizens, they can write what they want. The crucial question is: why should I read it? In general, I read things that will increase my knowledge in the areas I'm interested in. If I'm interested in moral things, I don't have to believe in whatever someone wrote, but I can try and test any system in practice myself.<p>In this way, for example, I learned that 99% of the time it makes little sense to get confrontational but it's better (for both sides) to try to resolve things peacefully. I tried both approaches repeatedly and that's why I know this. But if I wrote it down, why would anyone believe me? How would it change things if I made a lot of money or not? It makes no sense.<p>Everybody needs to put these things to test and see for themselves how they feel when they do good things, when they do bad things, what works in the long run and so on. Reading others reflections might be inspiring at times but rarely corresponds to specific real-life situations we need to deal with.
I have got a question for you instead...
What do you call someone who criticizes/mistreats an entire class of people, because there are some bad apples?<p>Disclaimer: I do not belong to the class being referred to.
I'm tired of seeing Bill Gates lecture us plebs. Saw a meme: "Joe Rogan, who's not a doctor, said such and such about corona" (a negative take) juxtaposed with "10 Things Bill Gates wants you to know about new corona variants"
This won't stop. Rich people telling others how to live their lives has been going on for a loong time and there are many incentives for them to continue. Including tax loopholes..and you know how they feel about that.
Why do you read what they write? Life is too short to worry about what strangers online are telling you to do, whether they are rich or not (unless you are wanting the advice).
I'm not -- I have found Paul Graham's essays and Ray Dalio's book "Principles" to be quite interesting. No one is forced to read them.
It's just survivorship bias but often sadly believed by the survivor. Like old folks who explain how they achieved great age though their own endevours while the dead cry out from their graves "I did that too!"
What does the word "teaching" mean in the context of this post?<p>Writing blog posts?<p>If you want to learn about moral/life philosophy, then there are some great free courses on Coursera<p><a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being" rel="nofollow">https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being</a><p><a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/moralities" rel="nofollow">https://www.coursera.org/learn/moralities</a><p><a href="https://www.coursera.org/learn/moral-politics" rel="nofollow">https://www.coursera.org/learn/moral-politics</a><p>If someone else wants to read Paul Graham's blog I do not see the issue...
Some of these people might never have been as good as people think.<p>I wonder if in Blue Origin we are seeing the real Jeff Bezos, and that Amazon post-2003 or so has succeeded in spite of, not because of Jeff Bezos. That is, AMZN was in the right place at the right time, got good systems in place at the beginning, and that AWS might have been the only strategic pivot that mattered. (E.g. Prime Video makes headlines because the media is the #1 favorite topic of the media, not because it changes anything)