The island Stark bought was very close to Palm Beach and had remained unpurchased and undeveloped, simply because it was awkwardly positioned.
The island was too small to build a tourist resort as the space was insufficient, yet for a personal estate, it felt somewhat too big, complicating security arrangements.
More importantly, being near the West Coast's most famous luxury resort destination, the island was particularly expensive—several times more than other more remote islands of a more appropriate size. Before Stark, there hadn't been any suckers willing to buy such an island.
Stark didn't consider himself a sucker though, because the problem of the island's size that troubled others wasn't an issue for him.
Originally, the island had only a short stretch of white sand beach on the western side, rather small in area, but Stark had purchased a batch of white sand in Los Angeles and created an artificial beach.
As everyone knows, labor in America is expensive. Other tycoons didn't do this because hiring workers to lay down sand comes with ridiculously high labor costs and slow progress. And if a hurricane were to hit, today's work might be blown away by tomorrow.
But Stark could use robots, incurring almost no labor costs, just spending on the sand, and robots were more obedient than humans. They could create whatever was drawn in the design, more convenient than building a home in a video game.
Now, the entire southwest part of the island had a huge, long white sand beach, which was the main venue for this wedding.
The other areas of the island had two hills; the one closer to the beach was lower and had a hillside villa area for accommodating guests. The higher hill was where Stark's newly built manor was located. On the day of the wedding, the bride and groom would proceed from here to the beach.
The hard installations for the wedding were mostly complete, and what remained was the soft furnishings of the wedding site. The decoration was entrusted to a professional company, and everyone was reviewing the design drawings of the décor style inside Stark's manor.
Upon seeing the design, Shiller understood why Stark was discontent.
The décor style was actually quite nice, a very common modern romantic wedding—and it represented the top tier of what could be achieved with this budget: floral arches, high-end dining ware, and beautifully adorned meals—almost flawless.
The only problem was that it was too common. One might say that eight out of ten of America's old money held weddings this way. According to Stark, even his parents' wedding had been styled like this.
Actually, everyone else was quite satisfied because this was indeed what the majority of people stereotypically imagined a wedding should look like. And because Stark was very rich and the wedding was going to be of high caliber, the other couples, who came from ordinary backgrounds, had never seen such a spectacle and felt it was already quite impressive.
The group had already begun enthusiastically discussing the details of the decorations when Shiller, noticing Stark's moodiness, invited him to step outside for a walk.
The two of them went to the manor's terrace, where Stark lit a cigarette and said, "Am I being too finicky? I just feel that such an important life event should bear some of my own mark."
"It's not about the ceremony, but about the people," Shiller said with a smile. "When you look back on these things in your later years, you'll surely find the expressions and demeanor of the people around you far more memorable."
"Yes, I didn't make any extra changes, because I know Pepper would like this kind of wedding. If it were all robots, it might become a talking point for a while, but looking back later on, there would always be regrets."
"Even though it can't be all robots, maybe you could still include some mechanical elements. Did you arrange for a robot performance?"
"No, because I know there will be some with a fear of robots among the guests," Stark spread his hands and said. "You know, ever since the mechanical revolution began, opponents have been constant. If they take this chance to cause trouble at the wedding, the happy memories would be marred."
Shiller sighed internally; of course, he knew that the mechanical revolution was occurring worldwide. Robots were replacing tedious and dangerous jobs, such as high-altitude electrical maintenance, heavy lifting, and bulk goods transport, and so forth.
Even without this mechanical revolution, those so-called labor-intensive jobs that were supposed to be replaced on a large scale had already been overtaken long ago—textile factory workers by textile machines and steelworkers by automated steel manufacturing lines. This time, it was merely an upgrade in robot technology, enabling them to perform more intelligent tasks.
But precisely because of this, the replaced demographic had shifted from low-level workers to the middle class, professionals, and even the wealthy elite.
Wealthy tycoons themselves did not produce anything, but their companies faced industry competition. The biggest opponents of the Stark Group's technological robots were the human resource giants of North America.
Knowledge represents wealth, and those who possess knowledge are also wealth. Rich people leverage money to retain the best talents filtered out by society, which is crucial for their family businesses to be passed down through generations.
However, if one day all these talents could be replaced by robots produced by the Stark Group, it would mean that all the human capital would become assets controlled by Stark, with the value of their talents depreciating.
Some might argue that robots, obviously more cost-effective, would have a better return on investment compared to humans with equivalent knowledge. Isn't using robots instead of humans also a way for the wealthy to reduce production costs?
But the question is, who do the robots listen to?
For the wealthy, swaying human hearts is always simple. Humans have weaknesses, desires, and even the simplest greed for money makes them significantly more stable than the robots created by Stark.
If Stark were a pure capitalist, perhaps they wouldn't worry so much. Trading in robots would just be another business deal.
Shiller was indeed a hero.
He thought about problems from the perspective of the entire human race. When Earth was safe and sound, naturally there was no issue, but once the interests of humanity clashed with those of the wealthy, the robots purchased from Stark Group would turn into knives pointed at them.
Stark would have these robots hold knives to their throats, "If you don't listen to me and contribute to Earth's safety, it means the complete annihilation of your middle-management backbone under your leadership team, and you can forget about your lineage lasting forever."
How could the wealthy tolerate this?
This was the real headache for Stark.
If it were up to him, he would have turned the wedding into a robot expo and let those who opposed him see that he didn't care whether they came or not; he was living the good life.
But that's what he liked, and it was obviously not the wedding Pepper wanted. A robot expo could be held anytime, but there might only be one wedding in a lifetime. Perhaps Pepper would agree, but Stark didn't want her to have any regrets.
As Stark got older, he was no longer as sharp-edged as he was when he was young, eager to show the whole world who was the boss.
He began to separate work from life, walking his own path resolutely in his work, determined not to be hostage by any circles, but in life, he didn't need to be so rigid with these people.
He became more and more aware that greed was human nature, and against such nature, violence was useless.
He also began to understand why Shiller had to take such a huge detour every time he wanted to achieve his goals.
Were those wealthy people wrong?
Among them, many had also struggled to build their current fortune, enduring countless hardships and ridicule. They just wanted their children to avoid these pains and peacefully enjoy the fruits of their parents' labor.
Parents build the foundation, children take it further, and grandchildren reach new heights—isn't that how human society has always developed?
If he were to be honest with himself, Stark wouldn't want Helen and Little Morgan to start from scratch. On the contrary, he would give them the best education and a higher starting point than anyone else. That was a perfectly normal mentality.
If someone tried to take it all away, he would certainly rise up to resist and view them as the enemy, resolutely fighting to the end.
Some so-called strategists first consider everyone as selflessly devoted, then formulate their own plans. Once their plan fails because of some people, they blame those people for being selfish.
These people are indeed selfish, but selfishness wasn't a term invented that very day. In human history, selfless people are praised, indicating that selfishness is the norm and selflessness the exception.
Therefore, when formulating a plan, if you don't consider that people might not carry out the plan due to personal interests leading to failure, you fall into the trap of idealism.
The contradiction already exists and simply blaming others for being selfish solves nothing. It could even exacerbate the conflict.
Yet, by overpowering and then oppressing them to solve such conflicts, you ultimately solve nothing because there will always be people who can rise in class through their talent and effort, becoming the new elite. Such oppression is endless.
But to completely indulge them, letting everyone work solely for the continuation of their family, they will crazily exclude outsiders, suppress those beneath them, and block the paths to ascent, ultimately sharpening social conflicts and polluting the social atmosphere.
If neither leaning left or right works, and standing in the middle is a dead end, then the best solution is to mix kindness with authority, gently guide, as politics is the art of compromise.
Head-on confrontation pleases the moment but inevitably leads to hindrance at every turn and a waste of effort.
Instead, provide the other side a step down, "You respect me a foot, and I'll respect you ten." Both sides take a step back.
Stark understood that his wedding was in fact a gesture of goodwill to those conservatives, giving both sides an opportunity to sit down and talk. Even if no results came from the discussions, he had given them so much face. If they still tripped him up, he would be the one on the moral high ground.
But knowing this rationally and feeling comfortable with it internally are two different things. With Stark's temperament, he would inevitably feel stifled, but after much thought, he didn't know whom to blame, only able to beat up Reed in his dreams to vent.
Shiller had nothing to say. People must grow, and Stark had his childhood for decades, which was fortunate enough.
"It's time to abandon illusions and face reality, Tony," Shiller turned his head and looked at Stark, "This is bound to be a long and arduous struggle, but you are not fighting alone."
Stark exhaled a puff of smoke, his eyes always misty, which looked damp and bright as the mountain wind blew.
"I believe that the two great things in this world, truth and you all, stand with me. The one who will ultimately triumph will be me, Tony Stark."