I encourage you to listen to the 4 part series Elon Musk Unmasked [1] from Tech won't save us.
His motivations are definitely not for the betterment of the average person.
But I'm not sure I can relate to the criticism you're levying here, because I don't expect that anyone's motivations would ever be "for the betterment of the average person", nor trust anyone who pretended to be so motivated.
Society improves when people create positive externalities for others as they pursue their own benefit -- those who deliberately apply their own subjective notion of "benefit" onto strangers they don't know and to whom they aren't accountable will often do much more harm than good.
I take offense to the idea that you wouldn't trust anyone who said they were motivated by "the betterment of the average person." (Not really take offense, more like armchair take offense, but you know what I mean.)
My free time is dedicated to projects that I believe have the potential to improve the world for the greatest number of people. I wrote a few books motivated by this, and then when I became a software engineer I build a few projects motivated by the same.
Examples include messaiah.ai, consciousness.social, multizoa.com, and dex.thesacred.xyz (though that one may not be functional anymore)
Not saying that they did the job - but that won't stop me from trying. Why I do it is a whole other discussion, but if I'm motivated by this, then there must be others, since I can't be THAT unique.
One of the reasons why I became a software engineer was to be able to bring to life projects that I believe have the potential to lead to "betterment for the average person," so...joke's on you :p
Gormo|1 year ago
But I'm not sure I can relate to the criticism you're levying here, because I don't expect that anyone's motivations would ever be "for the betterment of the average person", nor trust anyone who pretended to be so motivated.
Society improves when people create positive externalities for others as they pursue their own benefit -- those who deliberately apply their own subjective notion of "benefit" onto strangers they don't know and to whom they aren't accountable will often do much more harm than good.
Narciss|1 year ago
My free time is dedicated to projects that I believe have the potential to improve the world for the greatest number of people. I wrote a few books motivated by this, and then when I became a software engineer I build a few projects motivated by the same.
Examples include messaiah.ai, consciousness.social, multizoa.com, and dex.thesacred.xyz (though that one may not be functional anymore)
Not saying that they did the job - but that won't stop me from trying. Why I do it is a whole other discussion, but if I'm motivated by this, then there must be others, since I can't be THAT unique.
One of the reasons why I became a software engineer was to be able to bring to life projects that I believe have the potential to lead to "betterment for the average person," so...joke's on you :p