Elon Passes the Likability Limit

There is a “likability limit” that people like to remain under: Everybody has a level of “success” that they perceive to be admirable—and unthreatening to others. Most things people do are in an effort to “earn” love. Many desires, dreams, and ambitions are built out of a space of severe lack. It’s for this reason that some of the most emotionally dense people are also the most successful: They use their desire for acceptance, love, wholeness, as fuel—for better and for worse. The point is: Once people surpass the point at which they think people will judge and ridicule them for their success (as opposed to praise them for it), they promptly cut themselves off, or at minimum severely downplay/minimize it so as to keep themselves in good standing with those from whom they desire approval. (It’s ultimately not that people value ego and material over love, but that they think those things will earn them love.) (Location 558)

We're seeing this happen in real time with Elon Musk and his Twitter takeover. He went from space and electric car company geekboi to Bond villain in the eyes of the people because he accrued too much power.^[1]

It reminds me of the Great Filter (but for popularity):

…we likely are not a "progenitor" civilization in the universe if we only consider planets formation. We might not see anyone out there either because there's a great filter for intelligent life to emerge (so the bottleneck is in our past) or because few/no civilizations get to have an impact on their host stars (the filter is in our future) that would allow us to see them. (View Highlight)

I've always been under the impression that anyone's audience will eventually end up cannibalizing the leader. It's the circle of life (influence). e.g. the tall poppy gets cut.

Tweets From Others

Either die a hero or live long enough to be banned from soccer games for clout chasing a 2017 meme too hard: