When part of what makes you "smart" is the hands you choose to shake, and the most lucrative hands are also the ones buying all the television stations and running the shadow government...
Al Capone wasn't a robber baron. He was a criminal entrepreneur. The robber barons have universities, foundations, and financial institutions named after them. The distinction between mobsters and robber barons is germane.
You have a disappointing perspective on what makes friendships "correct", but that might just be because I believe we have an immortal soul.
And yes, when the TV stations are bought by companies that are effectively instruments of the state: that's a bad thing. The ruling party shouldn't buy TV stations.
Your beef isn't with me, though. Re-read this thread. I'm hardly the most cynical person here. I can sum my take on it up this way: I'd like to believe I wouldn't accept Milner money, even if I needed it; at the same time, people I consider friends have accepted it, and I don't think less of them for it.
If by "friends" you mean people that you can use/be-used to find your way to "financial" success you obviously have a different/distorted take on the term "friendship".
Who do you seek out? Birds of a feather with whom to weep about your own misfortune? The stupid ones whom you can easily brainwash for fun and profit? The ugly ones next to whom you look sexier than by yourself? The weak ones whom you can rule over? The quiet ones over whom your voice is heard? The short ones over whom you can tower over? Perhaps you seek out neither of the above, but I knew a few too many people who did, and incidentally those people were also the first ones to criticize me for being closed and overly choosy with whom I talk to.
As you can probably tell, I have little patience for mediocrity and "beta" strategies.
How about reaching for power and glory without seeing people around you as mere objects with favorable and unfavorable attributes?
Reaching for power with integrity has its own set of rewards. Credibility for one.
People with attitudes like yours are destined to be used and discarded. Because a man of true power knows not to trust such and also knows that using the same standards on people that they use themselves is not amoral.
Superficial achievements are worthless to me. Therefore I believe that only integrity, wit, boldness and favor of Fortune will breed true glory.
Where did I say that I am being superficial? I am a bit hardened by life, but I do not at all see myself as superficial. I simply learned my lessons. I didn't use to be picky with whom I hang out, and then one day it came to me that my closest friend of six years is the most loathsome person I ever met, and, moreover, that he had been friends with me solely because he knew that I am not picky with people, thus he felt comfortable around me. So the "deep" strategy you are recommending (not judging books by their cover and taking tome to know people) hasn't exactly worked out.
Al Capone wasn't a robber baron. He was a criminal entrepreneur. The robber barons have universities, foundations, and financial institutions named after them. The distinction between mobsters and robber barons is germane.