Though I don't really mean that as a dig at Tate. I saw an interview with him once and he was kinda musing on the limits of wealth and I found it quite odd cos he was saying "You can buy a load of cars but really how many do you need? I've got a wardrobe full of clothes that I don't wear" and more of the same and I found it quite strange cos it was like he half gets it, he understands the limits and how beyond a certain point of necessities and maybe some genuinely desired luxuries then spending becomes this pointless and shallow performative thing - and everything he said was right. But at the same time you see him dismiss all these things that people enjoy - off the top of the head I saw him talking about skateboarding and cooking and clubbing - cos they don't get you any money or pussy. And I think I was right saying that he half gets it, he's recognised that money can't salve the soul... but then frustratingly he dismisses all the things that might just do that cos he seems either unable or unwilling to recognise the intangible benefits that come from those sorts of things. And yeah that video of him dying of boredom in Dubai was him seemingly suffering through the exact problems he had identified in the interview.
And in fact that seems very typical of the guy. Until he was being discussed on dissensus I'd never heard of him, and then I read about him in the news (well newspapers, it obviously wasn't news at all it was gossip) and that made him sound like this kinda evil mastermind (I'm not talking about the people-trafficking here, I just mean that there was this idea that he was a sort of dangerously seductive thinker with an evil ideology) with these terrible attitudes. And then I saw a couple of clips of him taking and he said some things had me thinking "Taking in isolation that's not unreasonable" - problem is, the second I'd thought that I saw another clip and I thought "This guy has clearly suffered serious brain damage". And that seems to be about the size of it, the stuff he says is a mixture of some of the dumbest you'll ever hear along with some moments where it seems he's on the cusp of getting it. As far as I can tell he's not some bogyeman nor a genius, I didn't anything that amounted to an ideology or even a coherent position, he's... well, you might think it's one of those "even a stopped clock etc" but I don't think that's it. He's more like an average guy who says a load of stuff and some of it is dumber than others. The weird thing is that people have made this ten a penny pub-bore cab-driver type into some sort of guru.
If you go to the Dog and Duck at ten pm Friday evening, pick a table and listen to the loudmouth guy laying down the law and putting the world to rights, just by the law of averages he'll likely say some stuff that you'll agree with and on some topics you'll be wincing and pretending you didn't hear. As far as I can see the difference between that bloke and Tate is not in what they say, it's just in how many people are listening.
Disclaimer; that opinion is formed from the small amount I've seen of him. I reserve the right to totally disavow it or even outright deny I ever said it if that turns out to be necessary.
