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Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

It seems like such an absurd thing to care about. How nice of a home do you really _need_? Is it really necessary to bully and harass the citizens of your city into capitulating to your demands? If you stop being a paper billionaire can you even afford to keep the home?

It just seems like unsustainable absurdity for the primary purpose of rubbing everyone else's face in it. I suppose that's what makes some people good at being CEOs, but consequently, it makes them terrible neighbors that no one wants to be near.

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> It just seems like unsustainable absurdity for the primary purpose of rubbing everyone else's face in it. I suppose that's what makes some people good at being CEOs

The arrow points the other way: Power corrupts, corruption then loses power.

Spending resources on rubbing people's faces in 'it' doesn't produce anything of value; it wastes valuable resources on personal desires, which is corrupt.

A traditional model of Chinese history is the pattern of the dynastic cycle: The dynasty rises to power, then they are corrupted (I'm not sure of the model says 'corrupted by power' specifically) and decay, and then finally lose their mandate and fall.

Much better to have democracy, where you can vote them out much sooner and generally they can't stay for generations. And also, better to have well-governed corporations where the board is independent from the CEO.

At this level of wealth, there is no reason or empathy. It's all ego.

Economic systems that prevent excessive wealth are controls and guardrails against paperclip maximizer mental models.

You don’t need a nice home, but you certainly need a big home. Otherwise, how do you show how much money you have?

But realistically, I also think are just automatically more critical of billionaires. If this had been anyone nameless building a house on this property I imagine people would be less inclined to protest it as much.

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