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   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 18-Jun-2023 22:37:53 JST Charlie Stross

   in reply to

   • Kit Bashir
   • Steven D. Brewer 🏳️‍⚧️

   @stevendbrewer @Unixbigot Money can buy lots of things (and some things aren't for sale at any price). The takeaway I'm getting most clearly from Dilbert Stark (and the Tangerine Shitgibbon) is that it buys freedom from consequences; and some people react to this by demonstrating that they never had any self-restraint or ethical sensibilities whatsoever.

   • goatsarah likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Steven D. Brewer 🏳️‍⚧️ (stevendbrewer@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 18-Jun-2023 22:37:54 JST Steven D. Brewer 🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Kit Bashir

     @cstross @Unixbigot

     You may well be right. If it *is* a performance, he's not broken character yet.

     OK. I'm being somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But I still think that's the lesson that we should take away from the experience.

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     Steven D. Brewer 🏳️‍⚧️ (stevendbrewer@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 18-Jun-2023 22:37:55 JST Steven D. Brewer 🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Kit Bashir

     @Unixbigot @cstross

     Let's not forget that the muskrat is in a totally different situation, however. He has PLENTY o' money to pay off the loansharks. He's enshittifying the birdsite just for funsies.

     I still argue that it's performance art: he's providing an object lesson to people about why you shouldn't let important things get purchased and run by billionaires and he spent $44B to show how much he meant it.

     And a bunch of people *still* haven't gotten the point.

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 18-Jun-2023 22:37:55 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Kit Bashir
     • Steven D. Brewer 🏳️‍⚧️

     @stevendbrewer @Unixbigot You may be right, but I don't think he's self-aware enough to be doing it deliberately. I think it's just play money to him and he's throwing a tantrum instead of a normal midlife crisis. ($44Bn was more than his total worth prior to 2019. Past $1Bn no amount of money makes any significant difference to your lifestyle: there's nothing it can buy that you can't lease for less anyway, and it won't save you from dying in the end.)

   • Embed this notice
     Kit Bashir (unixbigot@aus.social)'s status on Sunday, 18-Jun-2023 22:37:56 JST Kit Bashir

     Your periodic reminder that VC-funded CEOs are in a situation that they have bet both their kidneys on being able to deliver a 100x return to the bone-saw wielding loan sharks who funded them.

     Your “community” is worthless to them unless it delivers Kidney Money.

     They cannot just “decide” to not enshittify the community you mistakenly believed was yours. No appeal to justice or fairness will work, unless accompanied by a donor kidney or two.