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Posted (edited)
15 hours ago, Shaddie said:

So I guess the question is

Was he batshit crazy while he made his money or did the money make him crazy? 
 

Sorry to quote myself but I guess construction of said sentence was not good.  
 

So, If I act like a stupid asshole, spoiled bitch, will that make me 💰?

Or do I have to have some marketing skills for selling shit?

I believe billionaire for me is still possible but I need some help on the grift. Cmon surly help a brother out.

Edited by Shaddie
A
Posted
On 10/13/2025 at 3:23 PM, Brisketexan said:

Kinda yeah.  I mean, at least Thanos grasped, and had some remorse for, the cost of his insane plan (even if it was only because it touched him personally).

3fd.jpg

Thiel, Musk, Ellison, etc., would answer that question with "just half of all human population.  Not bad."  And then they'd move on to their next piece of bullshit without giving it a second thought.

 

Fuck, Sam Bankman-Fried was paraphrased to have said given a scenario where if you flip a coin and get heads, the entire world improves by more than double but if you get tails, the world is destroyed, that he would take that coin flip/wager.

This is the what is wrong with all of these people, they have the intellect, ability, drive and worst of them all ZERO empathy. It gives them all of the skills to become successful and not care who they run over or hurt. 

These tech bros: "I want to do XYZ!!"

Lackey #1: "That is impossible."

Tech Bros: "YOU'RE FIRED!!!"

These tech bros to the next guy: "I want to do XYZ!!"

Lackey #2: "That is impossible."

Tech Bros: "YOU'RE FIRED!!!"

These tech bros to the next guy: "I want to do XYZ!!"

Lackey #3: "We shall do all we can to make it happen!"

Fire people with homes, families, bills, don't care. Gamble with humanity to help or harm, don't care. If it gets in the way of them making more money, they just don't care about harm they create or inflict.

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Posted

The whole attitude of "break things, disrupt to achieve change" is great when the only one that can be hurt is you. When you're playing with jobs and lives of millions, it's not that easy.

There is also a tendency of some high achievers to blame others for not being high achievers, as if its some personal flaw. I recently watched a Nick Saban video from the past where he criticized mediocrity, and slammed high achievers if they put up with mediocre people around them. Think about what the average person achieves (or doesn't achieve) and then realize that half of the public is below that level.

It's great if we can continue to grow technology to improve efficiency but we also need to decide how are we assist people who will fall behind. The Ayn Rand crowd isn't ok with the homeless camping on sidewalks so whats the solution.

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

It's great if we can continue to grow technology to improve efficiency but we also need to decide how are we assist people who will fall behind.

I've raised it on here before: the most important question that our evolving society can ask, and ANSWER, is "what do we do with our morons?"

I use "moron" broadly, but let's put math to it - as a matter of math, half of all people are of below median intelligence.  So, our old answers of "learn to code, trade stocks, study hard and become a doctor," or all kinds of shit that requires at least above-middling intelligence, doesn't apply or help.  People with below median intelligence exist, and always will.  And they deserve not just to exist, but to live lives with dignity.

Used to be, someone with an IQ of 90 could work on a farm, or do manual labor, or simple manufacturing work, etc.  Real jobs, with real pay, and a real sense of actually doing something and being compensated for it.  That's a good thing.  We should want that.  Human beings have inherent value, and that should translate to our social and economic systems. 

Instead, we are offering the 1-2 punch of (1) designing and refining systems that give such folks dwindling avenues to work and make a dignified living, and (2) focusing solely on them as sources of additional revenue and value for oligarchs.  We don't care if you have a job worth a shit, but we VERY much care that you click on this TikTok or buy this crappy thing on Amazon or whatnot that will give another .01 cents to an oligarch.  Human beings are seen solely as an operating expense and/or a resource from which value can be extracted, NOT a capital investment and asset.  That's fucked, and we're fucked.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

I've raised it on here before: the most important question that our evolving society can ask, and ANSWER, is "what do we do with our morons?"

I use "moron" broadly, but let's put math to it - as a matter of math, half of all people are of below median intelligence.  So, our old answers of "learn to code, trade stocks, study hard and become a doctor," or all kinds of shit that requires at least above-middling intelligence, doesn't apply or help.  People with below median intelligence exist, and always will.  And they deserve not just to exist, but to live lives with dignity.

Used to be, someone with an IQ of 90 could work on a farm, or do manual labor, or simple manufacturing work, etc.  Real jobs, with real pay, and a real sense of actually doing something and being compensated for it.  That's a good thing.  We should want that.  Human beings have inherent value, and that should translate to our social and economic systems. 

Instead, we are offering the 1-2 punch of (1) designing and refining systems that give such folks dwindling avenues to work and make a dignified living, and (2) focusing solely on them as sources of additional revenue and value for oligarchs.  We don't care if you have a job worth a shit, but we VERY much care that you click on this TikTok or buy this crappy thing on Amazon or whatnot that will give another .01 cents to an oligarch.  Human beings are seen solely as an operating expense and/or a resource from which value can be extracted, NOT a capital investment and asset.  That's fucked, and we're fucked.

And, if you start reducing the "what do we do with the morons" question and carrying the oiligarch's solution to its end, everyone ends up being a moron, a drag on the bottom line.

That includes various intelligent and diligent folks that didn't choose the "right course of study," or through various life events categorized as "luck,"  so that the line defining "morons" starts to creep to the right of the mean and before long, it's the sub-90% and not just the sub-50%.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

And, if you start reducing the "what do we do with the morons" question and carrying the oiligarch's solution to its end, everyone ends up being a moron, a drag on the bottom line.

That includes various intelligent and diligent folks that didn't choose the "right course of study," or through various life events categorized as "luck,"  so that the line defining "morons" starts to creep to the right of the mean and before long, it's the sub-90% and not just the sub-50%.

Bingo.

The question becomes "what do we do with people who are not members of the oligarchy?", and the answer ALWAYS ends up being "fuck 'em."  

Shit, it's really not different than the folks clamoring to be "in favor" with the rising fascist regime.  "I'm an insider!  I'm one of you!"  That lasts right up until they all turn on each other, and the group of "true believers and favored members of the regime" becomes really fucking small.

Gessen-PB-PromoSocial2.jpg

This is how it goes.  Always.  Literally 100% of the time, with no exceptions.

And we're living in a world run by these people:

3gwdow.png

 

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Posted

@Brisketexan, @TwiceHorn

How the fuck were y'all Republicans in the before times? The easy way I reconcile it is you were seduced by the small government rhetoric we now know (but many of us suspected) was complete bullshit, but now I have to ask. On this page y'all are engaging in a back and forth that would've had you RINO'd out the door of your local GOP club, even if you brought the doughnuts. How were you sucked in by the party whose raison d'être is to protect and expand the wealth of the filthy and obscenely rich?

 

Posted
Just now, softlynow said:

@Brisketexan, @TwiceHorn

How the fuck were y'all Republicans in the before times? The easy way I reconcile it is you were seduced by the small government rhetoric we now know (but many of us suspected) was complete bullshit, but now I have to ask. On this page y'all are engaging in a back and forth that would've had you RINO'd out the door of your local GOP club, even if you brought the doughnuts. How were you sucked in by the party whose raison d'être is to protect and expand the wealth of the filthy and obscenely rich?

 

In short?  Because we were (foolishly) convinced by a message of small government, but also respect for and protection of individual rights, that a regulated capitalist system provides broad benefit to all classes, etc. (seriously, just laying out broad strokes).  And I DO believe that regulated capitalism does that -- it does so elsewhere, it's just that now, MAGA calls that approach "SOCIALISM!"  If you want to make it even shorter....read some issues of The Economist for a basic center-right perspective.  Most of us still agree with much of that.  But realize that "center-right" actually INCLUDES things like some form of universal health care, actual regulations on capitalism, and being in favor of managed and reasonably regulated global trade.  Today, MAGA literally calls The Economist a "leftist rag."  So, we're Economist readers.  For a long time, the American Republican party generally aligned (at least in its messaging) with the values and approaches voiced there, so it made sense for us to find a political home there.

Did the Republican party ALWAYS have these flaws running through it?  Of course it did.  We're also pragmatic in knowing that all parties/movements have flaws.  But now we live in a world where the GQP has given in to every last one of its worst impulses.

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Posted

As a sometime subscriber to The Economist, I hear ya . . . a bit. It just seems like people that think like you were always a one in a tiny minority watching as the platform and rhetoric always seemed to barely account for your views. Would you say you were slow to see that the party was well on its way to completely abandoning your views beginning with with the Tea Party revolts in 2009?

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Posted
4 minutes ago, softlynow said:

As a sometime subscriber to The Economist, I hear ya . . . a bit. It just seems like people that think like you were always a one in a tiny minority watching as the platform and rhetoric always seemed to barely account for your views. Would you say you were slow to see that the party was well on its way to completely abandoning your views beginning with with the Tea Party revolts in 2009?

Oh, I wasn't slow to see that at all.  I realized very, very quickly that electing Obama broke society's brain.  The birther shit that started during the campaign told me that we were fucked, and I haven't looked back since then.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

In short?  Because we were (foolishly) convinced by a message of small government, but also respect for and protection of individual rights, that a regulated capitalist system provides broad benefit to all classes, etc. (seriously, just laying out broad strokes).  And I DO believe that regulated capitalism does that -- it does so elsewhere, it's just that now, MAGA calls that approach "SOCIALISM!"  If you want to make it even shorter....read some issues of The Economist for a basic center-right perspective.  Most of us still agree with much of that.  But realize that "center-right" actually INCLUDES things like some form of universal health care, actual regulations on capitalism, and being in favor of managed and reasonably regulated global trade.  Today, MAGA literally calls The Economist a "leftist rag."  So, we're Economist readers.  For a long time, the American Republican party generally aligned (at least in its messaging) with the values and approaches voiced there, so it made sense for us to find a political home there.

Did the Republican party ALWAYS have these flaws running through it?  Of course it did.  We're also pragmatic in knowing that all parties/movements have flaws.  But now we live in a world where the GQP has given in to every last one of its worst impulses.

Can't improve much on that.

But more than any slogan like small government, I am just fundamentally conservative.  I'm kinda cheap, I'm super-careful with my clients' money and resources and my advice to clients is conservative, although I present more extravagant options.

I was never comfortable with the social/culture bullshit.

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Posted
16 minutes ago, mchookem said:

my excuse is i was young and stupid

Oh, there was a healthy base coat of same, but it lasted beyond my prime "young and stupid" years.

I also grew up in a household that generally (not exclusively, but generally) voted Republican.  My old man, while hispanic, was an army veteran petroleum engineer, and pretty straight-laced.  But gotDAMN in their later years did my parents fucking HATE the GQP and Trump.  Shit, some of my dad's last thoughts were regrets that he didn't live to see that sonofabitch die.

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Posted (edited)
33 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Can't improve much on that.

But more than any slogan like small government, I am just fundamentally conservative.  I'm kinda cheap, I'm super-careful with my clients' money and resources and my advice to clients is conservative, although I present more extravagant options.

I was never comfortable with the social/culture bullshit.

You're describing fiscal responsibility, not conservatism as a political philosophy. The GOP hasn't been fiscally responsible since it embraced Reagan's voodoo economics. It was never about "balanced budgets," an idea they sold to the public to win campaigns. 

The "conserve" in conservatism is all about retaining the proverbial status quo, i.e., maintaining a specific social hierarchy, protecting the rich from the poor, ensuring the wealthy keep their money, etc.

It's a political movement inherently designed to keep the hoi polloi in check, and you can draw a through-line all the way back to feudalism, where it was assumed a specific social class had the divine right to get richer off the backs of the serfs, with knights acting as enforcers. If that also sounds like the Antebellum South and the Post-Reconstruction South, then you can start connecting the dots to modern-day Conservatism.

ETA: Oh shit, I just realized I'm in the Peter Thiel thread. You know, the guy who follows Curtis Yarvin, a crazy fucker who wants us to live in a world of technofeudalism.

Edited by bolverk
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Posted
2 hours ago, softlynow said:

Would you say you were slow to see that the party was well on its way to completely abandoning your views beginning with with the Tea Party revolts in 2009?

It went back way more than 2009. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh, I wasn't slow to see that at all.  I realized very, very quickly that electing Obama broke society's brain.  The birther shit that started during the campaign told me that we were fucked, and I haven't looked back since then.

Dude.

Posted
13 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Dude.

I mean....am I missing a major timeline event?  The open descent into (1) racism that was (2) utterly disconnected from reality that was birtherism was rather jarring.  And it popped up re his campaign in 2008.

I'm not saying there weren't plenty of issues with the party pre-2008, but that was a pretty eye-opening break in 2008.

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Posted
4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

It's great if we can continue to grow technology to improve efficiency but we also need to decide how are we assist people who will fall behind. The Ayn Rand crowd isn't ok with the homeless camping on sidewalks so whats the solution.

You know the answer to that.

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