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this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2025
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Asklemmy
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I think it is important to recognise people as people. I'm not making excuses for intentionally malicious wealthy or powerful people -- but the wealth or power itself isn't the whole problem (although the various systems that perpetuate and enable certain wealthy or powerful people are problematic of course), and we shouldn't give these adults that as an excuse.
They're wealthy, yes. They're also human beings who choose to be cruel, callous, selfish, uncaring arseholes.
They're powerful, yes. They're also adults who know what they're doing and consistently make the decision to harm people with their choices.
Netanyahu's political power wouldn't be as much of a problem in and of itself if he wasn't choosing to enact a genocide. Murdoch's wealth wouldn't be as much of a problem in and of itself if he didn't choose to use it to buy media outlets and push right-wing lies to millions.
No excuses for cruelty; the money and power didn't "corrupt" these people, because we don't live in a fantasy world where money and power are magic cursed items. These people intentionally decided to be cruel.
I agree mostly, but I think there is something to be said about the detachedness of it all though. Having you and your entire livelihood and ability to sustain your family/empire utterly insulated from the destruction your decisions cause, and in this day and age, even informationally insulated by simply either staying in bubbles or literally paying others to confront the criticism or negative effects you'd be hearing about.
When you willfully destroy any frame of reference that portrays what you're doing as evil and destructive, or when the system you're apart of is designed to facilitate that sort of mindset... I realize you mentioned similar points in your comment but I couldn't help coming from a different direction.
I think that level of pure power and wealth does breed a type of ignorant sociopathy akin to a very young child picking the wings off of a butterfly, on a societal level (a simplification of course).
All this to say that while we don't live in a fantasy land where money and power are cursed artifacts, I think it's not helpful to cover for the effects such tools can have when a human being acquires both in nigh-untouchable quantities.
Edit: Not trying to cover for the horrible decisions these people make, and it's true some people can just be cruel - just trying to float that they were and are human beings born into these systems just like everyone else.
Edit2: Goddamn it I typed all this out just to realize it's a .world account and therefore they can't see this. Neat. ๐