Thiel is on the spectrum, and was bullied for it. But because he was privileged, it couldn't have been his fault, all the peasants are just stupid. Tolkien was his escape.

Hitler was treated like a prince by his mother, and lost his mind when he was rejected from art school. By the Jews, of course... The Jew part was sarcasm...

Himmler was a D&D nerd who tried to create his own Viking Religion, beheaded subjects to cast a spell where the heads were supposed to speak prophecy, spent a ton of Deutschmarks looking for The Holy Grail, Mjolnir, Gungnir, etc. Magical thinking. Delusional.

Musk pays people to make him look like a "L33t G@m3r" to impress edgelord teenage boys.

Trump wants a military parade to try to impress Putin, Xi, Kim, etc., because he thinks they're badass, and wants them to think he is.

All of this is narcissism. Which is a psychological defense mechanism against a massive inferiority complex developed in early childhood, due to neglect, abuse, or both.

These people have the emotional maturity of pre-pubescent children. And always will, Which makes them very dangerous, due to having virtually unlimited wealth.

Imagine a child under 10 years old with the wealth and authority to do anything they wanted to you. That's what we're dealing with.

[–] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 4 days ago (2 children)

And putin was a nobody who started as a useless agent in then soviet part of Germany, then carried a bag after a city's major and only then, with connections, he was put in power by oligarchs with none of them believing he'd be anything but a doll, until his goblin ego led him to rob, poison or throw out everyone he disliked.

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Would you explain why? I'm not familiar with any reference.

[–] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

It’s basically a crystal ball from tolkiens works- they can be used to communicate or show different times/places, but they’re not really reliable. (Edit: they’re also specifically vulnerable to being manipulated and used to selectively show misleading but true things if they fall into the hands of very powerful wizards, and Sauron’s use of them has been broadly compared to wartime propaganda, which is actually especially relevant for the type of data mining they do.)

The unreliability is a reason not to name your company after them, but I don’t know if people would be as surprised by the names “crystal ball“ or “scrying pool” or other unreliable magical methods of seeing things.

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thank you!

[–] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Of course! It did also just occur to me that they’re also specifically vulnerable to being manipulated and used to selectively show misleading but true things if they fall into the hands of very powerful wizards, and Sauron’s use of them has been broadly compared to wartime propaganda, which is actually especially relevant for the type of data mining palantir does.

[–] Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

Really living up to the name.