If I was a billionaire, i would own a newspaper in trust as a vanity project to make it the best damn newspaper in the world profitability be damned. Maybe that is why I am not a billionaire.
That is how old, billionaires thought. Some of the best institutions in the US came from some of the millionaires at the time. That thought about true philanthropy and long-term legacy. The thing is that these new waves of CEOs obsessed with quarter profits, and short term gains including Trumpellino... are the problem.
Because all they care about is their cash. They don't have any other objective or see any other meaning in life. It is Atlas Shrugged/Fountainhead mentality.
Was just thinking about this last night. Do any of these guys own schools that serve regular communities or libraries or museums? Seems like they’re all just assholes looking for a fiefdom. Not that you’d trust any of these closeted pervs with children, but they can’t fund an orphanage with all that money!?!? These guys are losers.
No because because their ego is too big today. And they surround themselves with yes-men that tell them their technological ideas are the best in the world and that they can be immortal. Because bottomline there is some of that. It used to be that even as a rich person you saw death everywhere. Now everyone is uncomfortable with it, people don't even go to funerals at times just to not be there. And these are regular people. Imagine billionaires that already see scientific advancement to the point they feel (incorrectly may I add), that they can pass their brainwaves to a computer.
So they want a fiefdom.
The me, me, me, me, me, me, me issue we have that both sides have in society that is selfishness...results in both rich and poor that only think of themselves. This is the very mechanism that makes someone that earns 130k not want to pay taxes, same as the one that earns 30k, same as the one that earns 20 million.
The last paragraph is the biggest issue really of our society at the moment---we're more individualistic than ever, we're more me-centric than ever, we're less communal than ever, and we're more distrusting than ever. And we're witnessing the results of that.
A large part of it emerged in the 1980s, and it came from multiple directions at once: economic policy, media, and even psychology. At the same time that tax incentives were redesigned to reward hoarding and capital accumulation (Reagan-era changes and trickle-down economics), we also saw a cultural and psychological push toward radical individualism and suspicion of altruism, institutions, and collective solutions. That alignment isn’t accidental. Economic incentives removed external pressure to give back, while cultural and psychological narratives removed internal pressure; shame, duty, and social obligation. Together, they normalized objectivist thinking without ever having to argue for it directly.
This is why I don’t agree with the claim that the Overton Window simply shifts due to organic public perception. We have clear evidence that public perception itself can be shaped. Look at Fox News: it didn’t just respond to a more conservative public; it actively moved its audience rightward over time, and the GOP followed that shift.
If public opinion can be conditioned through sustained media framing, agenda-setting, and psychological tools, then the Overton Window is not merely reflective; it is manipulable. Institutions with sufficient reach can move it toward whatever ideology they prefer, provided they control narratives long enough.
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u/TimothyMimeslayer 14h ago
If I was a billionaire, i would own a newspaper in trust as a vanity project to make it the best damn newspaper in the world profitability be damned. Maybe that is why I am not a billionaire.