[bflesch]

> So the filter runs, generation after generation, and what comes out the top is disproportionately people who lie well and feel nothing about it. Not because voters want liars, but because the machinery reliably promotes them.

The reason is that 99% of states are monarchies, and there is immense propaganda effort to make people believe that they in fact live in a democratic system.

Hollywood and the startup world enables nepo kids to lie to themselves and to the public about their "selfmade" status until they receive their ancestral Lordship from the King of England, and this fake meritocracy keeps everyone in line trying their best because one day you could be a billionaire, too.

It's a charade where your last name decides everything, even before you were born. But this is also the most peaceful and stable economic system humanity has come up with after horrors such as the crusades, the Holocaust and Rhodesia. It rewards achievements of many generations past no matter what modern ethics might think about those achievements, and it allows monarchs to peacefully blend in with the peasants.

With this in mind, the only thing a strive for "ethics" gives you is a spot on the weekly kill list.

[mrhottakes]

Excellent post. Interesting that "ethics" is something society expects from normal folks, but the Big Important Leaders never have that concern.

[SoftTalker]

There are still plenty of real "selfmade" people also.

[saturn8601]

>Hollywood and the startup world enables nepo kids to lie to themselves and to the public about their "selfmade" status until they receive their ancestral Lordship from the King of England, and this fake meritocracy keeps everyone in line trying their best because one day you could be a billionaire, too.

What about the exceptions? Doesn't that disprove the theory? You mentioned Hollywood. There has been a lot of malaise the last few years that many of the new "stars" are just kids of existing famous actors. Hollywood is already a extremely tiny industry(Only about 6% of the actual LA economy).

Then comes along an independent movie like Obsession, breaks so many records and launching its star actress into an overnight rising star. This is a person who has no familial history in the industry and was walking dogs for a year and a half to pay rent because no roles were landing.

[bflesch]

The audience still recognizes talent, but talent is far from everything one needs to be successful.

For every new star that suddenly "pops up everywhere" I recommend a journey through newspaper [0] and government archives based on their family names.

Here [1] you can check if the family has their own island, e.g. Trump island near Seattle/Canada with historic Swastika/KKK-shaped house that accidentally burnt down in 2019 or the other two Trump islands in Newfoundland (near Greenland).

Here [2] you can check if their family name was mentioned in US state department telegrams or as a government contractor ("Sweeney", "Graham").

Here you can check if their family name has its roots in Broadway [3], in Movies [4] or neither.

Bonus points if the family name is also the name of a country or a region ("Wales", "Holland", ...).

Of course there is always the official rags-to-riches story and the official CV and the curated Wikipedia page, plus the good old days where you could fake your SSN and travel with multiple passports, so be careful before accusing someone.

[0] https://www.newspapers.com (trial version)

[1] https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/searc...

[2] https://aad.archives.gov/aad/index.jsp

[3] https://www.ibdb.com/Person/IndexSearch?Keyword=epstein

[4] https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=epstein&s=nm

[saturn8601]

The first link is too broad and would send me on a goose hunt with no payoff. all the other links pulled up nothing when i searched the last name only.

I mean you are welcome to prove me wrong but in my time during which I was interested in learning more about Inde Navarette, I have discovered a poorly curated Wikipedia article with minor incorrect info (she is not studying behavioral psychology) which seems to indicate minimal 'curation' and her family history is well documented as not coming from an entertainment background or wealth. This is despite going to #1 on the IMDB Star counter and her main social media platform(IG) going from what I suspect was ~200-300K followers to 3.5M in the course of ~two months.

You argument can be made about anyone but it goes into conspiracy theory.

Has there been a reduction in rags to riches stories, I would argue yes but one positive example in 2026 could disprove your original hypothesis.

[bflesch]

Navarrete is both a region in Spain and in Domenican Republic [0]. According to Wikipedia, her unnamed father is Mexican and US Marine Corps [1]. IMDB has various actors with her last name or variations of it. Last name of mom is Fox like in Fox news.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navarrete

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inde_Navarrette

[saturn8601]

So..does this data convey anything meaningful about her success?