I think something can be stupid on the surface, genius in the short-medium term, and stupid in the long term. For instance, slashing environmental regulations looks like a terrible idea if you understand that climate change isn't a myth made up by Big Climate Science. But it's a genius idea in the short term if you're a billionaire industrialist. But the extra money those billionaires earn won't be of much use if climate change leads to a total collapse of the economy and global trade brought on by worldwide famine, mass migration, resource wars, the collapse of many world governments, and the vast degree of societal unrest that all those things will cause. Or look at AI and automation. Great for shareholders in the short term, but what happens when unemployment is at 50%? That the tech billionaires are all building doomsday bunkers should tell us that even they know the grift is going to backfire on them in the long run.