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25M isn’t even that much money. Not only are they whores, they’re cheap whores.
by Ifkaluva 8mo ago
25M isn’t even that much money. Not only are they whores, they’re cheap whores.
- mindslight 8mo agoIt's a loss-leader. Once the patronage system has solidly taken hold, then they raise the prices. Our only consolation is that the fascist-supporting techbros are going to be victims of their own enshittification dynamic - they think they're paying customers, but they're actually the product. The autocracy will continue to increase its meddling to maintain its own political legitimacy. Moldbug's enlightened benevolent monarch who needn't care about politics is a pipe dream.
- awakeasleep 8mo agoIt’s a lot of money for a “what have you done for me lately?” scenario Like, this is opex
- munificent 8mo agoA whore doesn't have to charge any given john very much when they can service a large number of them.
- Cyphase 8mo agoQuite tangential, but this reminded me of a line from Human Target: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tqvzt?start=872&mute=false https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tqvzt?start=872&mute=fal... "I'm sorry, you... You think I'm a prostitute?" looks at offered cash "A $40 prostitute?"
- atmosx 8mo agoCheap or not doesn’t matter. Sir Winston Churchill supposedly asked Lady Astor whether she would sleep with him for five million pounds. She said she supposed she would. Then he asked whether she would sleep with him for only five pounds. She answered,"What do you think I am?" His response was, "We've already established that; we're merely haggling over price."- Marcus Felson, Crime and Everyday Life, Second Edition, 1998
- knollimar 8mo agoI think it does matter and this quote is always flaunted like it's some deep insight but it intentionally ignored nuance. An amount you can comfortably retire on is way different than $5. We love to pretend humans have unflinching morals but they don't
- sph 8mo agoOn the other hand, immoral people would try to convince you that anybody would kill their own mother for the right price.
- DANmode 8mo ago“We” also love to pretend that every, (or even most), humans who could break laws, or common moral boundaries in order to cash out actually do that. I think that’s a fallacy, too.
- knollimar 8mo agoAgreed; an equally flawed assertion. In my view we have some unflinching morals, some more flexible ones, and some you don't adhere to at all, and which is which tends to differ between people. I personally don't believe in non-religious ontological good because of this aspect of human nature.
- 8mo ago
- coldtea 8mo agoIn this context they're not the whores, they're the johns. Trump / the PAC would be the whores, but what else is new?
- tombert 8mo agoThat's something that has bothered me about this entire administration, particularly the bizarre and disturbing involvement of the Diablo-cheating billionaire. Everyone knew that a lot of politicians have been for sale, but I didn't realize how cheaply they were for sale. Musk able to buy his way into being in charge of an idiotic department with basically no regulation while still being allowed to CEO like five companies, and he did it for like $100 million. That's a lot of money, more than I'll ever be worth, but it's way less than I would think it would cost to buy the presidency, in charge of billions (and maybe trillions?) of dollars of sales and contracting.
- timacles 8mo agothe US is like a new born deer against battalion of ninjas when it comes to corruption. Decades of believing we are blessed with some sort of perpetual exceptionalism has made the American people not only susceptible to corruption but actively unknowingly promote it. Propaganda has convinced them to invite it into their house and let it know where all your money is and your bank account information.
- m_ke 8mo agoIt's more than that, supposedly Sama donated another 25mil through a PAC. I'm sure the Crypto AI Czar (David Sacks) being a major Anthropic hater didn't hurt either Or that Kushner put a billion in OpenAI recently EDIT: wow they got in at a huge discount too and OpenAI bought stake in Thrive... https://www.wsj.com/articles/thrive-capital-bought-shares-in-openai-at-a-fraction-of-current-valuation-talks-cfdeccf4?gaa_at=eafs https://www.wsj.com/articles/thrive-capital-bought-shares-in... https://openai.com/index/thrive-holdings/ https://openai.com/index/thrive-holdings/
- Spooky23 8mo agoPOTUS pretty much told you this is what you are getting. His great admiration for Andrew Jackson pretty much says it all. Jackson was the poster child for bullshit populism, patronage and corruption.
- bigbadfeline 8mo ago> 25M isn’t even that much money. Not only are they whores, they’re cheap whores. I don't know, Anthropic is providing 10K open source developers with $200 subscriptions to their bot, for up to 6 months. 200 * 10000 * 6 = $12 Million total. That's even cheaper, I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from all this.
- malfist 8mo agoThis has to be one of the worst whataboutism I've seen. No one is objecting to this corruption because it was cheap. Just expressing incredulity
- 3rodents 8mo agoThere is no need for such derogatory language, sex workers would be deeply offended that you compared them to the Trump apparatus.
- spopejoy 8mo agoI can't understand why denigrating someone as a prostitute or w**e is not called out as inappropriate if not fully misogynist. Its history is deeply, inescapably misogynist, it's anti-sex worker as you say, and it's just tacky. Corruption of morals for money doesn't need to be feminized to make an argument.
- xboxnolifes 8mo agoNot really. They get 25m here, 25m there, a little off the top over there, a crypto pump and dump once in a while, and they end up with billions. While the specifics may differ, this is neither their first time doing a deal like this nor will it be their last.
- gwerbin 8mo agoIt's more about loyalty than about any particular dollar amount. It's a tribute moreso than a bribe.
- mlinhares 8mo agoWe're still here mostly because these are the dollar store fascists. If they were really competent this would be the fourth reich already by now and all brown people would have been exterminated in concentration camps.
- k33n 8mo agoHave you ever considered that they’re not fascists at all, don’t have the goals that you’re claiming they have, and don’t hold any of the views you claim they have?