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They are perfectly aware of their own optics and do it because you can't escape it. See Elon with his cringeworthy Twitter takeover that still hasn't collapsed,

They are perfectly aware of their own optics and do it because you can't escape it. See Elon with his cringeworthy Twitter takeover that still hasn't collapsed, Larry Ellison buying up the media or Tim Cook gifting the gold trophy to Trump. Nobody has the guts to boycott them anymore. Billionaires know that you depend on them for news, social media and smartphones too.

malfist 7mo ago
> still hasn't collapsed Which is why he's playing a shell game with xAI "buying" twitter and then SpaceX "buying" xAI
- bigyabai 7mo ago
  Well... it worked. The shareholders were made whole, Elon got his vanity project, and the only people who got the short end of the stick were the loss-leader Twitter addicts. From a game-theory perspective that's a pretty impressive political polemic to achieve with purely private capital. When the dust settles the only person to blame is Jack Dorsey, who spent his halcyon years on Twitter pumping Bitcoin and looking even more coked-out than Elon. If people can't move on to better platforms then yes, they are doomed to eternal monetization by warring moron techbro tribes.
yoyohello13 7mo ago
I think that's what bothers me the most about the last couple years. These ultra rich people are just brazenly being scumbags and there is nothing anybody can really do about it. I imagine this is what people felt like in the middle ages when their King was going senile.
- scottyah 7mo ago
  I think you're wrong and it's worse- there are a lot of things that many people can do about it, it's just that they choose not to.
  - bigyabai 7mo ago
    Both are true. Some things can be done and are simple/healthy, like escaping social media. Others are fundamentally much harder and not worth the risk/trouble/time.
    - esseph 7mo ago
      > Some things can be done and are simple/healthy, like escaping social media. Others are fundamentally much harder and not worth the risk/trouble/time. I think the calculation is very easy, actually. Risk vs Reward. You could even use polymarket to crowdsource funds for the activity!

malfist 7mo ago

> still hasn't collapsed Which is why he's playing a shell game with xAI "buying" twitter and then SpaceX "buying" xAI

bigyabai 7mo ago
Well... it worked. The shareholders were made whole, Elon got his vanity project, and the only people who got the short end of the stick were the loss-leader Twitter addicts. From a game-theory perspective that's a pretty impressive political polemic to achieve with purely private capital. When the dust settles the only person to blame is Jack Dorsey, who spent his halcyon years on Twitter pumping Bitcoin and looking even more coked-out than Elon. If people can't move on to better platforms then yes, they are doomed to eternal monetization by warring moron techbro tribes.

yoyohello13 7mo ago

I think that's what bothers me the most about the last couple years. These ultra rich people are just brazenly being scumbags and there is nothing anybody can really do about it. I imagine this is what people felt like in the middle ages when their King was going senile.

scottyah 7mo ago
I think you're wrong and it's worse- there are a lot of things that many people can do about it, it's just that they choose not to.
- bigyabai 7mo ago
  Both are true. Some things can be done and are simple/healthy, like escaping social media. Others are fundamentally much harder and not worth the risk/trouble/time.
  - esseph 7mo ago
    > Some things can be done and are simple/healthy, like escaping social media. Others are fundamentally much harder and not worth the risk/trouble/time. I think the calculation is very easy, actually. Risk vs Reward. You could even use polymarket to crowdsource funds for the activity!