It's sad to see. My childhood best friend, who I'm still close to but drifting from, has decided to go full NPC. One of the most intelligent people I know (Rhodes scholar + doctorate) regularly repeats The Economist to me, and doesn't see how his job of investing in "green energy" has made him a zealot of the regime (laughed at me for having a copy of Fossil Future).

Main thing I've noticed about him over the years is that his fiat success has been tied to his ability to navigate new social domains. It's an aptitude for taking on new sets of socially acceptable beliefs.

The most sadly comic moment of the last few years was when he asked me (2021) to help advise him on some shitcoin startup his company was considering investing in - after years of dismissing me imploring him to look closer at Bitcoin, he was suddenly an expert and proudly showing off his chance to invest in a project who's pitch was that they'd invented a new coin that solved the energy and centralisation issues of Bitcoin 🤡 

 damn sad story. very sad actually.