> There's plenty of wealthy folks who aren't especially evil or greedy in any real way, but you wouldn't know that because they don't tend to show off or spend their wealth to begin with

I'm well aware, I'm personally early-retired person with financial independence, and of course I have friends too :) With that said, many of them are greedy, some in big ways others in smaller ways, even if they're generally good people too.

I think it's the combination of "famous + wealthy" that seems to poison people, pick one of them and it doesn't seem so bad, but both together seems like a recipe for disaster.

My first- and second- hand experience with rare counterexamples is that if you meet a Hollywood star in person they will make a good impression; as if they make a bad impression it will make an impression and you will tell your friends.

Lately I’ve been doing a sort of street performance which makes it very likely people will remember me and that again motivates me to be nice.

On the other hand I hear Elon Musk comes across better in person than he does on X and Trump seemed pretty cordial meeting with Zohran Mamdani.

Actors, trained to get to their cognitively resonant freq at a snap. Graham Norton show is complex enough to show off their basic charisma. No need for "reverse-psycho" multidim post-AI inoffensive-charm-offense that has Thiel's approval. Prediction: not going to see Karp appear, guy is too "complicated" (normies: creepy) for an "ivy league" game. with respect to sama. Needs an academic-sociopath drinking game show together with Sarah Payne, Thiel himself, Catherine,David Deutsch etc. it's probably going to be some kind of faux-snobbish LATAM liquor. Fernet con Coca?

Musk is basically a nerd who's ever surprised at what he can get away with, other times over his head in technical matters, and still other times suffering the South African typr of elite arrested development.

Trump recognised that he was facing a equal or better operator. Musk would feel insecure in the same situation. That's nerd. Maybe Trump has a similar training as actors (by actors?), just not to the frequencies normies expect :)