TitaniumTroy
Well-Known Member
While I haven't read this book, I heard about while listening to Chris Hayes, show on MSNBC, All In. Thought is sounded like interesting food for thought, about our current state of the world. In the book a the author takes aim at the Mark Zuckerbergs and Elon Musks of Silicon Valley.
From an interview with the author.
How did you find yourself in this world of philanthropists and “thought leaders?
"A friend nominated me for the Aspen fellowship. I went through an interview, then I got a call late one night, in early 2011, basically saying, “You’ll meet four times over two years for a week each. You’ll sit in a room with 20 other people, discuss Plato and Aristotle and Gandhi, we’ll talk about our lives, and it will be an advice circle, all very private.” It was generally businesspeople and entrepreneurs who want to make a difference, to shift from just making money to giving back. Every year they invite two or three people who don’t fit that profile, to spice it up slightly — journalists, artists, people designed to be a little reneged-y.
It seems that this experience made you even renegadier. Were you immediately radicalized?
"I would love to tell you I figured it out within two minutes, but these things are seductive. It was a drip-drip-drip-drip of moments where you thought, “Wait a second, why are we sitting in the Koch building? Why is this event funded by Monsanto, and by Pepsi, which seems to be changing the world by fattening kids? Why is Goldman Sachs a sponsor of our annual summer retreat?” The reality of the world outside kept getting worse and worse, and the people in the fellowship, and the sponsors, seemed to be the very people sucking most of the juice of progress. What I started to realize was that giving had become the wingman of taking. Generosity had become the wingman of injustice. “Changing the world” had become the wingman of rigging the system."
From an interview with the author.
How did you find yourself in this world of philanthropists and “thought leaders?
"A friend nominated me for the Aspen fellowship. I went through an interview, then I got a call late one night, in early 2011, basically saying, “You’ll meet four times over two years for a week each. You’ll sit in a room with 20 other people, discuss Plato and Aristotle and Gandhi, we’ll talk about our lives, and it will be an advice circle, all very private.” It was generally businesspeople and entrepreneurs who want to make a difference, to shift from just making money to giving back. Every year they invite two or three people who don’t fit that profile, to spice it up slightly — journalists, artists, people designed to be a little reneged-y.
It seems that this experience made you even renegadier. Were you immediately radicalized?
"I would love to tell you I figured it out within two minutes, but these things are seductive. It was a drip-drip-drip-drip of moments where you thought, “Wait a second, why are we sitting in the Koch building? Why is this event funded by Monsanto, and by Pepsi, which seems to be changing the world by fattening kids? Why is Goldman Sachs a sponsor of our annual summer retreat?” The reality of the world outside kept getting worse and worse, and the people in the fellowship, and the sponsors, seemed to be the very people sucking most of the juice of progress. What I started to realize was that giving had become the wingman of taking. Generosity had become the wingman of injustice. “Changing the world” had become the wingman of rigging the system."
