As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that a lot of very mainstream advice people get about dealing with careers, society, etc is like “don’t do XYZ* or you’ll be eaten alive out there.” Instead of like “don’t eat people alive out there.”
*XYZ is just normal human behavior.
If this were the determining factor, the wealthiest would trend towards kindness and generosity. They trend towards narcissism and psychopathy.
Once peoples basic needs are met, like 99% of the human population, “survival” is no longer relevent to their level of kindness or generosity.
The wealthiest don’t feel safe. They fear someone will take their wealth like how they took value from everyone else to become wealthy.
True the 2nd step is not necessary. Most people are not sociopaths.
Yet they can drift distinctly that way via extra power & money.