Robert Downey Jr is the obvious case of a person who had a redemption arc, to simplify it he was a promising actor that got addicted to drugs, fell off, went to rehab and then became a huge hollywood big stsr known, even known for being Iron Man.
What real life person had a redemption arc?
Elon Musk. Started as a likeable tech billionaire but eventually redeemed himself to the right wing fascists and extreme edge lords.
I just want to know what the actual fuck happened to him. I know a lot of people will say he was always a man-child and there’s some things to back that up for sure. But I swear COVID does something to some people and they just turned into complete unredeemable asses.
He started to get weird around the time of the cave accident. Or rather that was the time the public really started to notice
It’s easy to be humble when the public showers you with praise. The real test of someone’s character is when you earn the public ire.
Do they grow and reflect, or dig in their heels and lash out? I think we learned how that worked out for Musk.
As best as I’ve been able to tell, it was a mixture of:
An increasingly narrow social circle of people willing and able to disagree with him.
An increasingly large social circle of people willing to tell him what he wants to hear, and willing to try and shape his world view.
And drugs.
He has sadly reached the stage where he is unwilling to have anyone around him who will openly disagree with him. Doing so is a firing offense.
He has absolutely reached the point wealth wise where it is impossible to make new friends who you can trust to not have a motive in every interaction with you.
And he has, without question, become someone that decent people from his past likely wouldn’t want to be around.
I’m not sure that it’s going to be possible for someone in his current position to reform without losing the vast majority of his fortune first. And even then, I’m not nearly as optimistic as I could be.
I remember watching a time lapsed video of his flights he took over the years that Tesla was struggling, The Gigafactory was under construction and SpaceX was getting set up. I think it broke him in some way.
Similar to this, there’s this guy who’s close to the living embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins - venal failed casino owner, corrupt real estate developer, unfaithful porn star fucker, boastful self promoter slapping his own name on all sorts of things from buildings to steaks to scammy colleges. He hasn’t directly killed anyone, but arguably is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.
And, yet, to some people, he’s basically become the right hand of the God.