There’s a reflexive instinct among Americans to denigrate people by attacking their intelligence while lauding them for their wealth-hording obsessions and their elitist social theories.

A lot of the uglier eugenics theories that Elon has latched onto come out of this cultural affect. Kindness and cheerfulness are luxuries you only get to express when you’ve “succeeded”. Everyone else needs to be as clever as they are cut-throat in their mission to climb over the tops of their neighbors.