I can’t imagine being able to travel the world at my leisure eating the finest foods mankind has to offer and saving millions of lives through charitable donations and yet wasting my life, money, and time picking losing fights with governments while defending indefensible shitbags on the internet.
Must just be something about billionaires I don’t understand 🤷♂️
If you want to understand billionaires, just go through this mental exercise.
You’re handed a million dollars today. You have to spend it all in a day; you can’t carry it forward. (And no charity donations for this mental exercise!) Easy, right? There’s things you want. A fancy house. A fancy car. Pay down all your debts. Anybody could spend a million dollars in a day.
Tomorrow you get another million. You have to spend it all in a day. Still possible.
And the next day and the next day and the next day. Every day you have to spend a million dollars. You’re beginning to run out of things to spend it on. Most people would run out of ideas after 30 days. You’re doing stupid things now like buying an “ultra-rare” collectible that will just go into a vault with all your other “ultra-rare” collectibles never to see the light of day. You’re just out of ideas.
But the money keeps coming in. Day after day. A million bucks. You have to spend it. For almost two years and nine months.
That’s a billion dollars. Nearly three years of spending a million bucks daily. Spending a ludicrous amount of money daily, it still takes you almost three years to get through it all.
A billionaire is a person who thinks that isn’t enough.
Does that give you some insight into what a billionaire is?
I could do it easy peasy
It’s called supporting the arts. I’d just set up artist funds all over the country so that artists - visual artists, musical artists, theatrical artists, circus artists, writers, you name it - could learn, create, and share their work without struggling to get by.
But then, I’m a human and not a capitalist lizard masquerading as human, so art actually means something to me.
You’re missing the point of the exercise. You’re meant to spend that billion on you and you alone, one million dollars a day, to show just how ludicrously large a billion dollars is … and then realize that to billionaires it isn’t enough.
Ok, I did actually miss that line about no charitable donations.
But I’m going to be annoying and argue that because of the gratification that funding artists would give me, it is actually a fully selfish endeavor and as such fulfills the requirements ;)
Its not annoying, its dodging the thought experiment entirely.
Take a joke, friend. I’m playing around.
The thought exercise says no charity donations. I guess spending part of your million a day on a suite of lawyers to argue that arts funding on that scale is not a “charitable donation” is a valid use of the money. But, that would cut into the charity funding eventually.
Someone who puts money over
customerspeople
Billionairism is a serious disease.
It’s like hoarding. Surprised Elon isn’t more emotionally stricken when he loses gobs of
moneyself worth score.
So hitting him in his bank account is how to get him to do your bidding? So let’s impose some more embargos and demand his account be banned for lies.
Rocket Kiko is such a wimp he cares about a tiny amount like this, when he’s the richest child in the world.
I think his ego is at least as much of a factor. Even before he bought Twitter, it was well known that he was probably going to lose money, because the value was inflated. But his ego made him go through with it, and of course he’s lost a lot of money there.
Similarly, when users are moving to other social media, I don’t think he’s looking at the associated price tag. After all, he knows how to increase advertising revenue on Twitter. All he needs to do is get rid of the neo-nazis and the racists, and some of his former large advertisers might come back. But he won’t do it because he doesn’t want to be pushed around, and he also probably likes the neo-nazis and the racists.
There are many quiet ultra rich people who are mostly aiming at getting a lot of money and keeping it, and then there are vocal for rich people who want to show off their power along with their money. Our boy here is in the latter category.
It’s pretty sad that the new users are going to Threads, when the Fediverse without Facebook control is right here.
The masses aren’t ready yet. Hell, I’m a technical person and can’t figure out for the life of me why the mastodon instance I’m on can see some things from another instance but not other things. To see the things I want on pixelfed I’ve got to have multiple accounts on multiple servers.
I obviously like the fediverse. I’m here on multiple services. But let’s not pretend that any idiot can figure out which instance to sign up for and just automatically see all the things they want to see and talk to all the people they want to talk to.
It warms my calloused, embittered heart to see this.
But he’s a brilliant businessman. /s
You love to see it.
I love how this story converges with this community’s logo
I’m of two minds here… On the one hand Musk can suck it - but on the other I’m dismayed at how many people are jumping to defend a nation demanding the silencing of political opponents like this just because it injures Musk.
They can both be wrong. One side doesn’t need to be “right” here.
Poking around I can’t find anything talking about the election being rigged at all, only older articles talking about Bolsanaro falsely claiming that the voting machines could be hacked and rigged.
The accounts that were requested to be suspended seem to have all been in relation to their own version of Jan. 6 and were spreading conspiracy and lies about the election. That’s a pretty major national security risk, honestly, if they’re trying to incite people to respond against a fairly elected government with violence.
—
Free speech is all well and good but not everything that flaps out of someone’s gums is protected. Hate speech isn’t, defamation is a crime in most places, fraud is a real thing, etc. If these people are using their platform to heat the waters in an attempt to tear down a democratically elected government that’s no fucking bueno, my dude.
X also has a history of banning left-leaning accounts just because. He’s perfectly happy to silence political opponents for the right.
Hate speech isn’t,
In the US it is. Yes it really is - just stop it with this. At least read the wikipedia article. I’m so sick of seeing this claim as the first response to any “free speech” discussion. Do you ever wonder how the Westborough Baptist Church still exists?? Daily Stormer?? Other hate groups???
That’s a pretty major national security risk, honestly, if they’re trying to incite people to respond against a fairly elected government with violence.
Ahhh, the “national security risk” defense - always the safe haven of the totalitarian. This is how China justifies quieting dissidents to great effect. Speech that is dangerous to the government isn’t always a bad thing. Imagine somebody who thinks your speech is dangerous is in power.
Letting the government decide which speech is dangerous to it or not is a very risky thing.
If these people are using their platform to heat the waters in an attempt to tear down a democratically elected government that’s no fucking bueno, my dude.
Oh you don’t think so? What if that “democratically elected government” is Putin? Because guess how many votes he got in the last election.
Sorry, I live in a country where you can’t just say slurs and shit all over people based on their race or sexuality. And I don’t really know about Brazil, to be honest, but I sure don’t give a fuck about the laws in the U.S. here since we’re talking about Brazil.
At some point you have to put your foot down and you’re just going to have to deal with that. Tolerance is not a paradox if you have two braincells to knock together and the country does not need to tolerate someone trying to incite further violence on the basis that they’re upset about the results of a fair election.
Lula won by 1% of the vote, Putin “won” with 88.48% of the vote and if you so much as say his name in the red square people come by to pull you away. These things are not the same and if you can’t understand that nuance then no wonder you fall for that “slippery slope” nonsense.
Sorry, I live in a country where you can’t just say slurs and shit all over people based on their race or sexuality. And I don’t really know about Brazil, to be honest, but I sure don’t give a fuck about the laws in the U.S. here since we’re talking about Brazil.
Fine with me.
At some point you have to put your foot down and you’re just going to have to deal with that. Tolerance is not a paradox if you have two braincells to knock together and the country does not need to tolerate someone trying to incite further violence on the basis that they’re upset about the results of a fair election.
Define “fair.”
No I’m not joking. Ask Donald Trump what a “fair election” is. Ask Putin what a “fair election” is. These people have been or are in power. At what point should Donald Trump be able to decide what is valid political speech or what speech is a national security risk?
You’re asking the government to police itself. That works for as long as the government wants to. It’s very dangerous. History is replete with examples of governments abusing their power. “Some random citizen saying shitty things” is nowhere near as risky.
Yes, everything is a slippery slope. It’s an aggressive binary to make it easy to understand and when something doesn’t fit that binary it must mean that it’s just a deliberate step in that direction, right?
There’s that incredibly popular saying that goes “the right to swing your fist ends at my nose” and that applies to speech as well. When you make life easy for yourself and just say everyone can start smashing noses because stopping them infringes on their right to do so the only people you empower are those who want to do harm. Especially when that issue becomes applied to more than just fists and now it’s rich people buying weapons while poor people still just have their two hands. In social media that’s rich and/or powerful people using money and influence to try to sway elections with lies and deceit.
This shit is hard, and complicated, and very often requires trust in things that are scary to trust or tell us things that might make us face something we don’t want to face. I understand that, really I do, and I’m sorry. Shit like libertarianism and adjecent ideologies promise easy answers and they’ve never delivered.
This shit is hard, and complicated, and very often requires trust in things that are scary to trust or tell us things that might make us face something we don’t want to face.
That trust is being placed in the hands of people like Donald J. Trump. Let that sink in. In the US our judiciary has said that they are not the ones who should decide what is or isn’t valid speech (for the most part, some exceptions apply, yadda yadda) - that this would be left for the populace to decide. And I whole-heatedly agree with that decision.
Because guess what - if people cannot peaceably protest then the will violently protest. You’re not stopping the ideas. You’re not going to stop people from being bad. You’re just giving the government a back-door to silencing criticism.
It’s a risk. A demonstrable one at at that. This isn’t some vague “the gubmint is commin’ fer yer guns” stuff. Governments abuse their vast power to silence individuals all the time. And I don’t need to invoke Putin show show it - right now in Florida there is a government working very hard to outlaw LGBTQ ideas, books, and, yes, speech. You want those people to have a voice even if they’re a threat to those in power.
The people defining “threat” aren’t always going to be people you agree with.
Shit like libertarianism and adjecent ideologies promise easy answers and they’ve never delivered.
That’s entirely uncalled for - I’m not espousing libertarianism any more than you are by having any free speech at all.
In the US it is.
The USA is less than 5% of the world’s population. The USA’s demented notions can get fucked, rather like they’ve already fucked the world.
We’re doing just fine thanks.
Yes. Your recent elections aren’t even slightly a hint of a profound social illness. Nor is the more than one daily mass shooting. All y’all are doin’ just fine!
I’m sure your country is perfection.
It’s a metric fuckton better than a country a hairsbreadth away from civil war and a populace with hair triggers, yes.
Thats all nicely worded and such but this was disabling accounts on some random companies messaging apps, not throwing them in jail or barring them from journalism.
So the X accounts belonged to legitimate political opponents, they weren’t spreading disinformation?
I don’t know about the judicial system in Brazil but they don’t seem that corrupted…
BoTh SiDeS!
How do you feel about the “Don’t say gay” bill? Because that’s exactly the sort of abuse I’m talking about.
How do you feel about the “bait”
What don’t say gay bill in Brazil are you talking about?
I’m discussing principles - they aren’t limited to Brazil. If you want to explicitly only discuss the exact situation in Brazil then this isn’t the thread for you.
This thread is specifically about Brazil. Did you not read the meme?
This thread is the one I started with my top-level comment that I invite you to read to know what you’re replying to.
And just a bit of an FYI - people can discuss components of an article that don’t specifically relate to every part of the article. For example - I could raise the issue of “freedom of speech” and how it relates to any nation generally without discussing the specific case in Brazil. Isn’t that fun and interesting! Or would you rather I just circle-jerk “hur hur musk bad”?
So the X accounts belonged to legitimate political opponents, they weren’t spreading disinformation?
I don’t want the government deciding who is or is not a “legitimate political opponent”. That double-edged-sword swings both ways and cuts very easily.
I think there are a few simple criteria to discriminate between legitimate opponents and others: spreading disinformation, bad faith, populism, the absence of a coherent political discourse, etc. If a government identifies illegitimate opponents based on these criteria, I’m ok with that.
So, what makes you think these accounts were legitimate political opponents?
Oh that’s easy. “Legitimate political opponents” are people who agree with your ideology, no matter what it is.
Neat - let’s go with that.
According to Trump the MSM is “fake news” and thus spreading disinformation. We’ll shutdown CNN and MSNBC immediately and levy heavy fines on other stations that continue to spread dangerous content. It’s also a fact that he won the 2020 election and people claiming otherwise are also spreading dangerous misinformation that threatens our democracy - they should be silenced as well - to protect the nation.
Good plan. This will go well.
It’s funny that you never even try to defend any of these accounts. The best way to show that Brazil is in the wrong would be to show that the people being banned were posting true statements.
It’s funny that you never even try to defend any of these accounts.
Why would you think that I would? Have you not understood literally anything I’ve been saying?
The best way to show that Brazil is in the wrong would be to show that the people being banned were posting true statements.
What a remarkably simple view of the world you have. It’s like you think this is a sitcom plot. Do you want Musk to wear black and the judge to wear white so that you have an easier time recognizing who is the villain?
As I said in my original post - both sides can be wrong. One side being wrong doesn’t make the other side right.
Your argument that other people are engaging in black and white thinking when you take the position that the possibility of injustice makes justice unobtainable is funny.
Cool story, bro.
You seem to believe that Trump saying “fake news!” is enough to consider that something is actually fake news. Anyone with a bit of critical thinking can verify this kind of affirmation and decide for themselves whether Trump is right or wrong. There’s a difference between a truth and a belief, but your argument seems to equate the two.
If a judge in Brazil says an account should be banned because it spreads disinformation, I can go and check what was posted and decide if it’s indeed disinformation. Now I might not have time to verify every affirmation like this so I tend to trust the judicial system of any country by default, unless I have reason to believe they can’t be trusted.
