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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#61

Post by mcguire »

Pharmakon wrote: post #27
exolymph wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You come at the king, you best not miss. Also, never take notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy ;P

I think Omar, Stringer and Machiavelli would have gotten along on some level. "Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge." -Machiavelli

If you're going to do unto others,do unto them hard enough that they cannot return the favor.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#62

Post by api »

jdietrich wrote: post #54
andrewstuart wrote: post #5

"proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter" That's the richest guy in the world saying "I don't give a XXXX what it costs, find out who did it." It's also the moment in your life when, if you get the result that guys wants, he'll be glad to write you a cheque for $20,000,000 and will be happy to do so and he won't be interested in why the number is that high.

I'm getting strong vibes of Thiel and Gawker here. Attempting to intimidate a billionaire is generally a poor decision.

This is worse than Gawker outing Thiel as gay. In this case they're attempting blackmail ahead of time, which may be a crime.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#64

Post by matt4077 »

hypochondria wrote: post #17
danso wrote: post #4

> Well, that got my attention. But not in the way they likely hoped. Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there’s a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can? Can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a prominent person post the details of a personal extortion attempt out of defiance for all to see.

I don't think that this is a great example. The scandal was already out. His wife was already leaving him. The public already knows and already assumed lurid exploits. The rest is just details. It would be different if the decision to publicize this extortion attempt had been what caused his divorce.

It’s really not a scandal to split up with your wife. Or to have sex.

That Pecker and his ilk seem to think it is, is the reason they misjudged this situation so fatally.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#65

Post by Jgrubb »

weston wrote: post #40
exolymph wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You come at the king, you best not miss. Also, never take notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy ;P

It’s amazing how many people in Trump’s inner circle love quoting mob movies, calling people “rats” and “stoolies” but can’t seem to get down even the basics of being a half-decent criminal. I mean, Roger Stone literally told people to lie to Congress via an email. One can quote mob movies all day but that doesn’t make them a smart criminal.

I mean, they've lived in an era when being a white collar criminal is basically without legal penalty (as long as you're a white guy). It's really no wonder so many of them are so completely stupid, they would've had nothing to fear if their guy hadn't gotten himself elected.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#66

Post by defen »

> If we do not agree to affirmatively publicize that specific lie, they say they’ll publish the photos, and quickly. And there’s an associated threat: They’ll keep the photos on hand and publish them in the future if we ever deviate from that lie.

They never explicitly say that, do they? I'm not enough of a lawyer to know if what they did still counts as extortion/blackmail, but as far as I can see they simply describe the photos, and propose an agreement that would prevent them from publishing the photos. But they never say "Do this or we'll publish the photos" - perhaps they never intended to publish them in the first place.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#68

Post by raldi »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #52

This title should probably be changed to something useful. There is no indication of what it might be in the original title.

Part of the HN charm is that when there's a story pegged to the front page with a title like this, you can just trust that it's worth a click.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#70

Post by gumby »

minimaxir wrote: post #18

Granted, this strategy is very high risk unless you're one of the richest people in the world.

Really? I'm at the other extreme: blackmailing me would be pointless as there would be no gain (not to mention in my boring case any unclad selfies would have to be synthesized).

And in the current world[+] there's so much exposure that such pictures will be drowned out by the sheer volume of stuff. Yes, we're still at a point where politicians can lose their jobs because of racialist photos or certain indiscretions, but at least the "indiscretions" have less and less power over non-politicians (actual bad deeds still do, but that's not an issue here).

And these pictures are all about consensual behavior that isn't extraordinary. There's not even a scandal.

[+] or in what I can imagine is a linear projection of today's world forward only a few years from now

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