There's a concept I find really useful: Acquired Situational Narcissism. If somebody spends enough time in an environment where everything is about them, they can easily come to believe everything is about them.
Another thing I think is at play is people confusing luck with genius. Zuckerberg is clearly smart, but Facebook was also a right-time, right-place thing. As FaceMash and Facebook showed, he understood his audience because he was his audience. But now, nearly 20 years later, Zuckerberg-the-billionaire has very little in common with the audience he needs if he is going to make the metaverse happen.
I mean, I too read and like Snow Crash, so I get the emotional appeal. But a middle-aged guy's favorite dystopian novel from 30 years ago may not be a useful blueprint today.
I'm trying to word this kindly, but I think you should instead look at the concept of "Parasocial Relationships" if you think it's appropriate to diagnose Mark Zuckerberg with Acquired Situational Narcissism.
You do not know him, you have not met him and it does not make sense to try to diagnose a public figure based on what you've been presented by either his own press releases or media coverage of him. You and the person you have replied to have bought into the idea that no one at Facebook challenges him despite having not worked at Facebook or personally witnessing this.
Dude, we're all just shootin' the shit on a random tech forum site. Saying "Damn, Zuckerberg must be a total narcissist to have come up with this shit" is not exactly like I'm writing "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" in his medical chart or something.
It's more an expression that "I think this idea is so bat shitty that I don't want to know jack about how someone came up with it, just seems like a narcissistic idea to me."
Sorry, remind me where I diagnosed him? Or where I even claimed I was qualified to diagnose him?
What I said was that it's a concept I find useful. Whether a trained professional who was given the necessary access to diagnose him is beside the point. Indeed, any qualified professional who did examine and diagnose him couldn't talk about it like this, so it seems bizarre to me you have mistaken an internet forum comment for some sort of ironclad medical claim.
And I find the concept useful and relevant here because it helps make clear how the rarefied world billionaires live in can over time distort cognition whether or not it crosses the line into an actual disorder.
That's my take on it too. I don't really feel the metaverse in Snow Crash was something that I'd like to replicate. I mean, it's a cool idea, but that world is not one that I'd intentionally try to make.
Whether or not we are on our way that direction is another question entirely...
Another thing I think is at play is people confusing luck with genius. Zuckerberg is clearly smart, but Facebook was also a right-time, right-place thing. As FaceMash and Facebook showed, he understood his audience because he was his audience. But now, nearly 20 years later, Zuckerberg-the-billionaire has very little in common with the audience he needs if he is going to make the metaverse happen.
I mean, I too read and like Snow Crash, so I get the emotional appeal. But a middle-aged guy's favorite dystopian novel from 30 years ago may not be a useful blueprint today.