The traditional Greeks believed there was a number of gods residing on Mount Olympus, highly effective gods who meddled of their lives and wanted appeasing as a result of they have been usually jealous, frivolous, petulant and self-aggrandizing deities.
In 21st-century America, we have now our personal group of “gods” who share these traits. Although they aren’t immortal, they’re imposing. They have the wealth and influence to alter the lives of everyone in the country, if not the world. They toss their lightning bolts from New York Metropolis, Silicon Valley, Texas, Florida and even Seattle, and all of us really feel the warmth.
The chief arenas of these new titans are communications, technology and commerce. Addictive algorithms, media manipulation and seductive innovation are only a few of their highly effective instruments.
One in every of them, Jeff Bezos, created an irresistible behemoth for on-line gross sales and supply that has radically altered the best way most of us store and left numerous buying malls barren. One other, Rupert Murdoch, constructed a ruthlessly partisan cable information channel that has carried out greater than another entity to polarize our politics and lift the extent of anger, worry and mistrust among the many citizens. And another, Mark Zuckerberg, invented a social media platform that revolutionized how people work together, empowered bullies and extremists, and captured many younger individuals in a bleak on-line universe of harassment, exploitation and isolation.
And now, quite a few these incomprehensibly rich and supremely self-confident males are driving the race towards synthetic intelligence, bringing into existence a courageous new world during which they are going to be much more wealthy and highly effective whereas the remainder of us might be pressured to cope with the profoundly unsettling penalties of their ambitions.
There’s a huge distinction although between America’s oligarchs and the gods of the ancients: These gods have been legendary and could possibly be ignored; our billionaires who act like gods are actual and inescapable.
See extra of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View different syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
Be aware: An earlier model of this column incorrectly acknowledged the day Cal Raleigh surpassed Mickey Mantle’s file.
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