> This has always been the case with the massively wealthy. They may be incredibly smart in their specific line of business, which leads them to an enormous amount of wealth and fame. ... Their own egos get inflated as a result, and a feedback loop ensues - they think everything they do is great because, collectively, our culture wants everything they do to be great.
This doesn't just apply to the wealthy, but more lowly people too: see "Engineer's disease."
People like Musk and Adreessen are getting hit by a double-whammy: they're software engineers (the stupidest and most arrogant class of engineers) AND they're massively wealthy.
Yep, STEM people asked why we need humanities. And now they are starting to hold hot debates that strangely resemble things that humanities discussed centuries ago.
One curious thing. My country was erased from maps for 123 years (Poland). During that time, universities in all three occupied parts could freely teach engineering, physics, math or biology. Occupiers didn't care, they even wanted to have access to talent pool of specialists educated on these universities. On the other hand, teaching of history, philosophy etc. was highly controlled and restricted.
One can wonder - if humanities are so useless for the society, why did they even bother?
In undergrad I had a buddy who was a political science major, and he put it pretty bluntly one day: "Do you engineers realize how arrogant you sound when you're talking about things you have no clue about?" 20 year old me just laughed and thought to myself "lol liberal arts majors" but now that I'm older and more grown up, he was totally right and I see it all around me in the industry. Especially here on HN.
This doesn't just apply to the wealthy, but more lowly people too: see "Engineer's disease."
People like Musk and Adreessen are getting hit by a double-whammy: they're software engineers (the stupidest and most arrogant class of engineers) AND they're massively wealthy.