This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
If they were posh people with "breeding" that wouldn't make being the direct or indirect victim of their destruction any better, unless you're an upper middle class Briton who has bern btought up with 19th century notions of "born to rule elites" such as most columnists for The Guardian.
I get it that people here derive a little enjoyment out of taking the piss of the character flaws of these wankers, but were they are coming from is not were this columnist is coming from.
Imagine if, when Facebook rolled out, people were just like "no thanks, I'm good" and it never took off.
That's exactly what happens when a Facebook competitor (possibly an ethical one) rolls out these days. Which is part of the problem. Zuck poisoned the idea.
Friendica exists, and it's part of the Fediverse. It's not going anywhere.
Dead things can't, in fact, go anywhere.
I wanted to. I liked Myspace. It has character. Some of it was cringe. But you could at least customize it. Facebook seemed so bland. But I had an ex GF that insisted on it and I didn't think it was worth breaking up over. I shouldn't have been such a pushover.
I stayed on Myspace long past when the majority jumped ship. It eventually lost what made it special when the boy band guy bought it to twist it into something more music focused. But I still preferred it to the sterile, uniformity of Facebook.
You would break up over switching online platforms?
Nothing like that. It was more like she was insistent and I didn't feel like it was a hill to die on at the time.
It sounds ridiculous now with everything that's happened in social media in the meantime, but I can see that being a thing in 2006 when the vibe of social media was very different to what it's become now. Back then it was just a tidy little PHP site for you to chat and share photos with friends and family on. Literally nothing appeared in your feed that wasn't a post from a Friend. It was basically a Whatsapp group with a photo gallery feature.
Since Facebook didn't have the baggage it has now, it's much easier to read refusing to join your girlfriend's circle of friends and family back then as a wider rejection of her as a person, same as if you refused to join her family Whatsapp/Telegram/whatever group chat.
I'm not taking her side here, but I wanted to give a bit of perspective for people looking at it through the lens of 2025.
I'm assuming the GF would break up with OP over it. Which is itself a big red flag.
Edit: fwiw, it does seem like there is quite a bit of drama and bullshit over choice of phone (Android vs Apple)
I used to hate the Android vs Apple drama vis à vis romantic partner choice, but then I realized that it's in itself a great filter of people I don't want in my life
No one seems to have read Machiavelli’s stuff these days. It explains so much. Also, just history in general will tell you all about today’s happenings.
The thing they all share is that they are deeply unloved. Trump, musk, bezos, zuck, none of them have healthy loving families. They have noons they can genuinely connect with. And they all think by having more money and being more popular will fulfill that human need. But it never does, so they just keep going not realizing the path they chose doesn't end anywhere near what they desire. Money will never buy love and peace.
That's a tired stereotype. Powerful people are unloved because they don't need to be loved. They are psychopaths, they have all the love they need, they are bored with the world and have nothing more to want.
People around you are unloved because they have problems.
Also money can buy you a cottage surrounded by nice trees near a river, healthy food, more house animals than you could want, a fast PC, jasmine and lilac bushes outside your window.
I think it can go a long way.
My irritation from this stereotype is because it kinda says the opposite of what it says. It feels like sublimated envy, expressed by saying that you don't envy them. Why talk about their money at all then.
I wouldn't envy anyone's money if that's all the difference between us, unfortunately money buys power and power is used to impose one's will upon me, and that I very much care about.
But your typical young Trotskyists in the Interwebs write whole articles consisting of Marxist vibes (a strong thing, especially in spring, but not enough) and envy to those having more. LOL, someone having more money is not our problem. Our problem is someone attacking us with it.
And they all think by having more money and being more popular will fulfill that human need.
If that was all it was, then I'd feel sorry for them. No, they're trying to fulfill that need by being Great Men of History with Mighty Plans, but their Mighty Plans are all terrible, because they're horrible people.
Yeah, I think it's a mistake to imagine that these are good people who just need a little love. There are literally hundreds of millions of people who aren't getting enough love for proper human flourishing and it's not like that turned them all into fascists. The kind of evil exhibited by these people must be attributed to a fundamental enjoyment of the suffering of others.
Well statistically about 30% of people worldwide don't mind fascism so that's hundreds of millions of people too. I'm not sure I'd be willing to say a lack of loving relationships is the primary cause of that but I doubt solving that problem would hurt.
I wouldn't challenge this view for Musk, Bezos, Trump. But Zuck gives me more of a "reformed (now married) incel that comes from an otherwise normal family environment vibe". His marriage seems at least typical, likely loving etc.
His product happens to be the most harmful for democracy and I consider him equal for worst of the bunch as a result, but I think it's explained by corporate/personal greed and being out of touch with reality.
He wants to be Augustus Caesar. That’s not “normal loving relationship” behavior.
No amount of money and power will ever scratch their itch
not realizing the path they chose doesn't end anywhere near what they desire
It'll end where they deserve though. Alone, despised and empty. No amount of money or stupid blue checkmarks will ever change that.
I just started reading this book about Facebook and I am amazed how little they cared about how much power they had, and how oblivious they were of it.
These are companies that rule the world, but don't know what they want with it, other than for it to generate profit
If I had as much power as them I'd at least make dogs that can speak esperanto.
I have been prepared for evil, for greed, for cruelty, for injustice – but I did not anticipate that the people in power would also be such huge losers.
This. This is what I feel like
I felt like this in January when this was first published and I still feel like it today. I'm not really sure what it will take for things to change but I get the feeling that powerful and wealthy people do not want things to change.
Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos-- you can tell they are insecure. They became rich and powerful and now want to stomp on people.
Because it's so much better when they're charismatic assholes?
I think it's much sadder (more sad? saddest) that people fall for such absurd douche bags. If they would at least be sexy and seem smart you could understand how people could be fooled but this is just too hard to watch.
Yeah like, they have negative charisma, so it's extra baffling. I cannot imagine a world in which I'd support Donald Trump, but definitely not in this one where he routinely shits his own diaper. If he was only disgusting mentally but was a good speaker or handsome or whatever, it would make at least a little more sense
I think they relate better to douchey, stupid people which allows them to more easily imagine themselves being rich one day.
I think it's dangerous to imagine people follow these folks, or let them run rampant over society, because they aspire to be like them. That makes it so much harder to really understand why people support them, or even just refuse to tell them "no", and makes it impossible to do anything about it.
People believe that life is a meritocracy. Even when they themselves can look around at the people near them and see that those in positions of power don't deserve it, they still view society as a whole as "fair". Yes, they personally have may have gotten screwed over, but, in general, the people who float to the top got there because they were smarter and more capable. Therefore, we should sit back and just let them cook.
They need some kind of trigger to see the billionaires not as people who have earned their place, but who have stolen it.
A charismatic tyrant at least provides SOME excuse. People aren't necessarily monsters, they are just gullible.
When you have someone as decrepit and incompetent as trump who ALSO has a visible diaper bulge at his hips and who can't speak a coherent sentence? There is no argument other than people truly choosing hate above all else.
Great to find a like minded tribe. How about getting decentralised ?
Why was Altman missing in the story? The next ruler of the world....
Huh, it's almost like people who try to destroy the world are weird and shitty. I'm mostly surprised that anyone else is surprised.
