I think the change is that today’s ultra-rich don’t act the same way the rich of the past did.

The “robber-barons” of the early 20th century were phenomenally rich and powerful, and they built schools, libraries, parks, and other public goods with a small fraction of their wealth because they understood that they had at least some tiny obligation to give back to the society that provided the conditions under which they could get so wealthy.

Today’s rich are actively preaching against the concept of empathy, and resisting any notion that they owe anyone anything. They are convinced that even a single dollar of their fortunes going to anything other than their own personal aggrandizement is a deeply offensive idea. And they are so willing to resist doing anything positive for the world that they spend enormous amounts of money to create propaganda networks to convince others that they don’t owe anyone a single cent of their fortunes. They buy ad campaigns to convince people that taxing them is bad, spending in some cases more money than the taxes would cost them… all because they firmly believe no one but themselves should see even the tiniest benefit from their money.

I firmly believe that after a certain amount of money there is no longer “joy” in having money and they all have to find something else to get their fix so to speak.

It just so happens that hurting people (or more accurately, having the power to make people hurt themselves and put themselves through humiliation to please you) is the only thing that they enjoy after they’ve won the money part of life.

Even small businesses do this, owner gets the car they’ve always wanted and then just decides to make everyone that works for them as miserable as possible, even if it costs them more money to do that, because the high from that is WAY better than the money they could otherwise make.

It depends on how you define weird, but this phenomenon has a name (if that gives you a clue as to how common or uncommon it might be): Alexinomia

I also not only struggle with not feeling weird when I hear my name, but I also just avoid using other people’s names to the point that people get upset with me when I am trying to tell them about things involving multiple people because I will simply never name any of them. It makes listening to me rather confusing for others, and I’m not even entirely aware I’m doing it. And I die a little bit inside whenever I’m in a situation that requires me to address someone by name.

Might be worth looking into Alexinomia for some more information if this is bothering you.

Since no one on here will ever know me…

It’s accepting that I have autism and that having autism is ok. My mom used “autistic” as an insult against me, the first time I remember was from age 5 as an attempt to control behavior she saw as undesirable. Running circles outside until I wore the grass out and flapping my hands about was something I needed to feel ashamed about according to her. And so I hid that and everything else she criticized so hard that I couldn’t accept that the reason I struggled so hard with a lot of things in my life wasn’t because I was just some innate failure but because I had an unaddressed condition that was she not only refused to help with but actively made worse.

To this day I still cannot do things like make eye contact, or tolerate being touched. But I’ve learned to not only accept myself for who I am, but accept that little boy who never understood why his own mother never seemed to be able to love him.