That's short term thinking.

You can't stop innovation across the planet, you will lose control over time as adversaries continue to innovate and subsume antiquated control structures.

All the people in charge currently are banking on being rich, enjoying society as they have made it, and then dead before it personally affects them.

I dunno about the last part. Rich people under 60 seem to be under the impression they might live forever, either biologically or digitally. Within our lifetime we see people trying to make their digital twin their legal heir.

I get the longevity angle (even if I think it’s not possible or even desirable) but digital twin I don’t understand. It’s like a different person altogether. Even if it was possible to completely clone a persona digitally it would not be you but someone else.

Much like grooming a natural heir, you can hope that someone will keep your legacy going, make decisions you would make, run your business, and so on.

I can see it as a rational strategy if you're worried successors won't be up to the job.

I totally agree with the ridiculousness of it, but that's not going to stop people with outsized egos from trying. Or companies that are trying to ride the coattails of a cult of personality.

Nah it’s more complicated than that. They need to lie to themselves first. They need to build a scaffold of logic that proves and justifies there actions before they do it.

Hitler for example thought he was justified. And so do all the people who claim global warming isn’t real.

Yet it’s a mistake companies and societies repeatedly make, because human brains are wired for zero sum games and paranoia. When you have it, the instinct is to clutch and guard and hoard not grow and expand.

When a company or a society is threatened the usual response is to double down on things that accelerate decline like killing novelty and innovation.

These things worked when we were small primates fighting over limited food sources on the savannah. Our brain stems don’t know what millennium they are in and still run those programs.

> That's short term thinking.

Which is exactly what our system encourages. You don’t need to think beyond the next quarter / election cycle. You’re only in it to extract as much wealth in the short-term as possible and secure your chair before the music stops playing.

Everything that is happening in the US screams short term thinking. It feels like the scramble after a leveraged buyout.

Funny that you mentioned an LBO, which is a strategy that requires long term success to succeed.

Currently the biggest US companies are throwing hundreds of billions into an uncertain bet that may pay off in a decade or so while everyone around is screaming "bubble" at them.

It looks like long term risky bet on new technology to me - exactly what you want those rich capitalist do.

Oh I completely agree.