Human nature admits a spectrum of outcomes on this, and I'd argue that most humans are not in fact pathologically acquisitive and power obsessed. Most humans value high status, but healthy societies confer high status in ways de-coupled from counterproductive Putinism. The people who attended the fifth Solvay Conference (that famous photo), who ran the Manhattan Project, who put men on the moon (or went) all were fabulously high status for good reasons with incentives that served society rather than parisitizing it. Those people got to be admired and enjoy the privileges of high status without bankrupting the body politic for countless commas.
This Bezos-style hyperaquisition isn't new exactly but it's not the constant norm its currently made out to be: its a sociecal failure mode with clear precedent but by no means a constant and its not at all obvious that it's inevitable.
This Bezos-style hyperaquisition isn't new exactly but it's not the constant norm its currently made out to be: its a sociecal failure mode with clear precedent but by no means a constant and its not at all obvious that it's inevitable.