Idiocracy First Manifests in the Aristocracy: Why those at the top are the most clueless

I don’t mean the Paris Hiltons of the world, but her daddy and his cronies – the CEOs, executives, and politicians – the rich and powerful. These people are the modern aristocracy. They have the most to gain in the short-term from the status quo, from maintaining that the current course is the ideal, and by claiming that only their compass is capable of pointing True North. Further, they have the money and connections to insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions, up to a point. They are thus strongly motivated to believe what they want to believe and to ignore reality.

The common man is not so isolated from consequences and has less motivation to believe that the rich know best, so those at the top must employ ‘think tanks’ to tell the little people what to think. Not surprisingly, what think tanks spout frequently coincides with what the rich want everyone to think.

John Kenneth Galbraith, the famous economist, noted the tendency of executives to be most psychologically committed to the rightness of the corporate vision – they have to be in order to attain their position. For example, if you accept that human-caused climate change is a problem, you’re very unlikely to become Chief Executive Officer of an oil or coal or auto company. The opposite is true:

• Example #1: Bob Lutz is the product development chief and Vice Chairman at General Motors. Mr. Lutz recently called global warming a “total crock of sh*t,” but then went on to claim that his views had no bearing on GM’s commitment to build environmentally friendly vehicles. Uh huh.
• Example #2: Rex Tillerson is the CEO of ExxonMobil. Mr. Tillerson argues that “the science of climate change is far from settled and that his company views it as its “corporate social responsibility” to continue to supply the world with fossil fuels.” Fuels that, according to scientists, are destroying the world. Interesting view of “social responsibility.”
• Example #3: Don Blankenship is the CEO of Massey Energy, a coal company engaged in mountaintop removal mining and violator of the Clean Water Act no fewer than 12,000 times. Mr. Blankenship recently tweeted that “Some fear that we are entering a new Ice Age. We must demand that more coal be burned to save the Earth from global cooling.”

Presumably these executives do listen to their own scientists when it comes to issues like engine designs, efficacy of oil extraction rates, and so on. They are not opposed to science in general, simply to science that reveals that their business model is flawed, or that their prestige, power, and money results from doing harmful things. They have a psychological blind spot – a fatal flaw.

The idiocy of the modern aristocracy is not immediately fatal for those at the top. You may have noticed that they are not suffering much, so may question just how dangerous it is to be stupid and rich. The sad reality is that their flaw is fatal for us. In a prime example of this dangerously gross idiocy:

• Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency and formerly an OPEC employee, admits that their projections of remaining oil supply are based on wishful thinking. The IEA, which every government in the world relies upon for oil forecasts, had never actually measured how much oil remained until 2008.

The fantastic stupidity of this is mind-boggling to average people. Perhaps if one is paid hundreds of thousands per year, jets around the world on a plush expense account, and looks good in a $1,000 suit, one can find a way to make sense of the senseless. That Mr. Birol gets all this while being so incredibly dumb is a sure sign that idiocracy has arrived in the aristocracy. That Mr. Birol has multiple degrees means nothing; very intelligent people frequently do very stupid things. Because oil is so vital to our civilisation, Mr. Birol’s foolishness is going to cost us very dearly. Heck of a job, Birol.

And that is the true tragedy of allowing morans at the top. They are leading us all to destruction.