It may be counter intuitive, but in some ways the opposite may be true. Viruses that are more deadly, are much less likely to cause massive pandemics like we experienced with Covid. When a virus is so virulent that it kills its host quickly and consistently, it dies off faster as the host doesn't have as much time to pass the virus to another host.
Call me cynical, but I think the likes of Kanye, the Kardashians, Trump, even Elon, etc. are much more calculated than they are deranged. They know how to work the media and manipulate the public better than anyone else. We're living in a world now where journalists are paid by click counts more than quality of content. In the same vein, Kanye and the likes know that the more absurdist and unconventional their actions, the more publicity they get.
This isn't an either/or: Kanye West (or anybody else) can be simultaneously shrewd, calculating, and mentally unwell. Nobody has claimed that Kanye is stupid or otherwise compensating, only that he has a publicly attested history of mental health problems.
Maybe the current media environment selects individuals that just happen to do well in such an environment. People that crave attention and are just naturally gifted at attracting it. Basically "effective narcissists".
I think this is it. The environment enables the behaviour and the CAUSE of said behaviour can be multiple things separately or at once. The right kind of deranged combined with the right kind of stupid? Maybe that works. Completely manipulative and not deranged at all? Maybe that works too.
Why not both? I agree with you that all of those people know how to play the media to their benefit, but Kanye is also clearly bipolar and currently in one of his episodes, and Trump also clearly is the clinical definition of narcissistic personality disorder. The Kardashians and Elon have their flaws too, but I don’t think they rise to the level of clinical issues in the way that Kanye and Trump do.
Nobody in their sane mind would say some of the stuff that Kanye said/tweeted, but as well there's very few people who have the ability to profit off making insane statements to the extent that people like Kanye or Trump can. It's almost like a perpetual vicious cycle of profitable victimhood.
I was never a big fan of the guy's work but he was an incredible producer back in the late 90s early 2000s. I think him experiencing the death of his mother was the start of a very serious downward cycle (mentally, at least) that he's yet to recover from.
Exactly. They know what they are doing. And calling out the crazy inevitably repeats whatever they were saying, giving it even more publicity and them attention.
This is literally the policy aim of the Fed right now. Unemployment is at historical lows with inflation running rampant. The ostensible aim of interest rate hikes is slowing inflation, but the byproduct is a cooling in the broader markets and economy, which in turn, affects the labor market.
Nobody wants to say the quiet part out loud but... It's bad politics in the United States to have a strong labor market for too long: you have lots of anxiety among small and large businesses and you have inflation pressure. So they're going to manufacture unemployment to cool everything down.
Another more optimistic way of looking at it is the idea that as we transition into a higher interest rate environment, there will be short term pain as unprofitable businesses downsize / go under, their workers are let go, but they eventually make their way into healthy/sound companies that now have the scope to grow and contribute to real macroeconomic growth rather than just the nominal smoke and mirrors of the recent economy.
I hope you're correct. Those businesses closing will cool off the job market and people will be left behind. Lots of people never recovered from the 2008 crash.
This is a bad take. Oracle today is worth $216B. Over the last 15 years Oracle, under the leadership of Ellison, has grown 5x in value, returning significant shareholder value. I personally very much dislike Oracle and its products, but I have to respect Larry Ellison for his performance as an executive.
"All staff members preparing to depart to the station had to undergo a PCR test in Belgium two hours before leaving for South Africa, take a PCR test five days after their arrival in Cape Town, where they also had to quarantine for ten days. Another test was required when leaving Cape Town for Antarctica and another PCR test had to be undergone five days after arrival."
I read his biography over a decade ago in one night and it has stayed with me probably more than any other book I've read. It's such a gripping read. His talent and intellect were so clear that it makes his story all the more tragic.
Just one small anecdote from the book. By the time he was like 13 or 14 he was playing in the biggest underground card games on the East Coast. We're talking sketchy backrooms of bars hanging with some of the shadiest people betting tens of thousands of dollars. Not only was he super young, he had a small underdeveloped frame that made him look even younger.
So how was he able to get by in such an environment taking the money of shady characters much older and bigger than him? He was backed by the mob! Yup, his talent was so apparent at even such a young age, that the mafia took an interest in him and backed him both financially and physically from harm.
