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Hm, as always with this topic, it does seem to me that people draw a ton of conclusions based on the apex fallacy. It's hard to avoid the reality that people you notice are, definitionally, people who are high status enough to be noticed, and, as such, do not accurately reflect the reality of the everyday person. What sucks is that the one societal institution that has the responsibility of cutting through the bias and fallacies to get at the truth of these things has so completely discredited itself that it has become worse than worthless for it.
That's my take on it.
There are MANY, MANY things that someone who is top 1% in status (by whatever means they came into it) can just 'get away' with that is likely to wreck someone who attempts it while even slightly outside that top tier.
Bill Belichek can date a woman who could be his granddaughter (Hugh Hefner also got away with this). Elon can sire kids with multiple women he is not married to.
I mentioned a while back that there seem to be two main stable social norms around human mating.
Either everyone is held to monogamous standards (but we expect people to fail), or nobody is... but this means top tier guys collect a harem and lower tier guys duke it out over the remains.
We're in a very uncomfortable transitory period where both sort of exist simultaneously but the exceptions that have been carved out are causing the foundations of the former to crumble in a way that may take it out entirely. Maybe already has.
This can indeed apply to women too. Madonna gets a boy toy. Beyonce sings a ballad for single ladies the same year she got married to an extremely wealthy man herself. Alex Cooper gets celebrity ladies to admit to ridiculous beliefs and behaviors that, were it a (lower status) male were saying it would sound almost psychopathic. Which, it turns out, is basically what the Fresh and Fit Podcast gets tarred with, rightly or wrongly.
Alex Cooper also gets her happy marriage regardless since she's attractive, wealthy, and now a celebrity in her own right.
This whole topic gets perilously close to my rant on elite accountability. Elites face few consequences for encouraging behaviors in the lower classes that lead to horrific outcomes, and use their status to achieve the outcomes they want regardless of their own misdeeds.
Much of this can be easily challenged. Consider the other side of the coin and look at people who have achieved celebrity wholly unworthy of the status. I see people who think “Destiny” is a good debater. Destiny is a fast talking moron with a permanent case of bed head who treats Google like it’s some sort of “God machine,” that can spit out conclusions he agrees with all day to win arguments. That’s… not how that works… And the people who look up to and idolize him are fools. If you want to see good debaters in action, look in the philosophy and rhetoric departments. Not Jordan Peterson. Or Matt Dillahunty. Etc. There’s plenty of people like this. What Elon and Belichick have in contrast with the others is competency.
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