The people who said history is over basically retracted their claims. This stuff comes from the eternal human desire for money and power.

Meta wants to attract kids and new users. We've always had vapid, attractive stars. There's no grand conspiracy for anything, except for packing the US court system with conservative judges, that's out in the open.

Anyone can have a vision, talk to people around the world in an instant, and find others who might align or be inspired by what you're doing. We live in a world where you can create a website, ship a product, post to a public forum whatever you'd like (short of some illegal things and even those there are places for better or worse to do so). There are no elites shutting you down, there is a wealth of technology that has made it easier every day for someone with no initial power to get influence.

I'm not talking about startup ideas, I'm talking about radical visions for political and cultural reform. Those are toxic in a society that strongly believes it is already on the right track.

You can post and talk about whatever you’d like and see if others agree. Others disagreeing doesn’t mean society is toxic imho

Exactly, this thread more or less proves my point.

in the old days, people were anthropomorphizing the forces of nature into persons doing battle; today "the elite decided" takes the place for incomplete thinking catch-all.. No - it is economic and legal systems that are competitive, shifting and unpredictable.. in other words, games run by game rules.. when one CEO won't do something, another takes their place, despite the personalities or ideas.. e.g. Shell Oil CEO in the early 2000s saying "we are diversifying our business to other energy sources" .. four years later, different CEO.

The treadmill of mediocre entertainment-oriented Grand Corporate Product Challenge is some combination of "wealthy visionaries are on vacation due to wealth" and "grifter consultants have quick ways to make a buck and are always availble" .. while "stock price uber alles"

it is undefensible in 2023 to say "the elite decided this" in any meaningful way unless the definition of "the elite" is expanded to a ridiculous degree, and even then .. no, they dont agree.. they bicker and push each other off the telephone post like seagulls do..

You do realize the irony of your post, right? I use "the elite" broadly instead of targeting Bezos or Musk or Clinton or Trump because it is a collective phenomenon. If one member of the elite stumbles, another member of the elite will replace them.

The elite verifiably did get behind "the end of history" narrative, and their opinions matter because they have a global megaphone in the form of the mainstream media.

It's not some grand conspiracy of rich people plotting in a dark room. It is the common interest of an extremely influential class.

it is exactly my point that social class analysis is not applicable to the current conditions, to some large extent...

There is tremendous consolidation among global corporations. Look at their boards. The vast majority are Ivy League-educated and/or come from generational wealth.

Same schools, same boards, same vacation spots, same parties, etc. Same ideas about how the world works. The class delineation is quite clear. Yes, there is a lot of variation and rising "counter-elites", but why exactly should we ignore the elephant in the room?

here in the USA, long and durable actions were taken to break apart class lines, into competitive sub-situations.. and many steps. Since I know only the USA, I said some "overly general and under-informed" things like this about class dynamics, to a colleague from Japan. I got hours of lecture as a response.. some of the same in England too, post WWII.

A giant driver for the massive deconstruction of class privelage was exactly an unrelenting obsession by bystanders, to claim that any and all adverse results are due to "the elite decided this" .. so -- to be on the Board of any of those companies is generally speaking an end-result of 25 solid years of competitive situations, where some people "win" .. the Board directors are MORE exploitive and aggressive precisely because they will be replaced with others that will do it. I utterly disagree that there is some insider track in the USA that results from where you went to kindergarten or who you spend vacations with..