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> Surfer Zuck hasn’t been seen in decades. But a suspicious and perpetually young version of him, in the exact same office background and a weirdly off voice,
by NBJack 2y ago
> Surfer Zuck hasn’t been seen in decades.
But a suspicious and perpetually young version of him, in the exact same office background and a weirdly off voice, regularly appears in video messages before every earnings call. He speaks of great opportunity and growth for the Meta Quest X, and assures the investors that the scant few humans remaining are perfectly targeted for the next wave of MetaM-8s to find them, corner them, then display enough ads on their chest screen until the victims give in and willingly max out their Bezos Card as each bot meticulously records their frantic taps through the checkout process.
In the distance, the next set of competing space rockets roar off into an orange sky choked with delivery drones.
- benreesman 2y agoYour satire is better than mine! This is some dark shit and I’ll thank you for giving me a little humor to go with the Black Mirror screenplay happening in real time.
- benterix 2y agoI just wonder - don't these current billionaries see how their actions literally shape the world to be a worse place to live in? I believe Gates, in spite all the hate towards him, actually has this kind of conscience and good intention of wondering, "How could I actually help the world in an optimal way?" and choosing his way (saving lives through vaccines; whether these are happy lives or not it's another question). But seeing that your businesses make the world worse and not doing anything seems completely short sighted. These folks have children, too - what kind of world they want to leave them?
- benreesman 2y agoGates is one of the wealthiest and best-informed and most influential people in the whole scope of human history: if he wanted to architect a sustainable economic model for the next century he could probably do it single-handedly. He could certainly do it if he displayed his demonstrated ability to build a coalition around a purpose. It’s borderline ridiculous that insulin could bankrupt a working family or that a retiree could be homeless or that home ownership among family-aged people could be in free fall with no bottom in sight or a thousand other things could even be possible if Bill Gates opposed them with any vigor. But look at his actions and not his words: at every step for 50 years he has deployed ruthless, bare-knuckled brutality to centralize welfare and influence. He was so egregious that the Department of Justice took time off from chasing arms dealers, terrorist, human traffickers, and other assorted villains they go after to fuck with a domestic economic Cinderella story because it was so badly harmful to the broader welfare. In the 90s when I started hacking seriously there was a meme before we even called it that of him in Star Trek Borg kit captioned: “Resistance is Futile”. At what point do we take seriously the theory consistent with all the evidence?
- benreesman 2y agoThe idea that any of these tycoons want anything good for most people is the String Theory in eight compactified Calabai-Yau dimensions of politics and economics. It’s an elegant idea that is just obviously false.
- cudgy 2y agoThis sentiment toward the likes of Bill Gates is the root of the problem. Someone builds a large company through massive advantage, luck, privilege, timing, and above average skill in a particular industry, and their starry-eyed wanna-bees think they can do anything, even single-handedly build a sustainable economic model for the next century. Even Bill Gates is smart enough to know that he can’t do that.