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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#211

Post by rtpg »

rblion wrote: post #176
3pt14159 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Nobody is perfect. Gandhi was apparently racist and John Lennon was an egomaniac, I admire them both still for their efforts to make the world better than what it was before. Bezos still a human being like me and like you, whether you love him or hate him. I didn't say he cured cancer but last I checked, he puts ONE BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR into Blue Origin to help our species keep evolving towards a spacefaring civili…

Nobody is perfect, but when the person's "main thing" is objectionable then it seems pretty normal to be critical of that person! It's the difference between "My teacher committed adultry" and "this loan shark's entire reason to exist is to scam people out of their money"

You see Blue Origin as "moving towards a spacefaring civilization", I see it as "rich person plays with money gotten by aggressively underpaying everyone involved in his enterprise"

It's like Bill Gates giving to charity. Sure, it's better for him to give than not to. But we can also just take the money and improve society no matter what the whims of a single person. Why do we give billionaires the choice to hoard away their money at all? What purpose does it serve?

For every Gates there's a hundred Elisions, who decide that the money should go towards buying Hawaii and mega yachts instead of curing malaria.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#212

Post by rblion »

3pt14159 wrote: post #198
rblion wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is perfect. Gandhi was apparently racist and John Lennon was an egomaniac, I admire them both still for their efforts to make the world better than what it was before. Bezos still a human being like me and like you, whether you love him or hate him. I didn't say he cured cancer but last I checked, he puts ONE BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR into Blue Origin to help our species keep evolving towards a spacefaring civili…

Grey area? They mixed inventory and forced Apple to sue them to stop counterfeit goods from poising the public consciousness. They routinely fuck over small businesses by copying their products or allowing false inventory to compete with them. Show me some real proof that Amazon is retraining warehouse employees with skills into high-demand jobs. It will be the first I'll hear of it. As for building something better,…

Capitalism isn't perfect but I'll take this over the other options that I've seen.

https://blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/our-pledge-to...

That's a subjective opinion. Amazon started out as a book store and I love books, so I naturally stuck with them from the late 90's til now. It's an incredible story to go from next to dead to where they are today. Only bigger 'comeback' is probably Apple, another company you probably hate. Right?

Facebook is the next AOL or Yahoo, just a matter of time now. People are loyal until they aren't, then they'll leave in droves. The reverse 'early adopter' stage is already happening...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#214

Post by rblion »

rtpg wrote: post #211
rblion wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is perfect. Gandhi was apparently racist and John Lennon was an egomaniac, I admire them both still for their efforts to make the world better than what it was before. Bezos still a human being like me and like you, whether you love him or hate him. I didn't say he cured cancer but last I checked, he puts ONE BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR into Blue Origin to help our species keep evolving towards a spacefaring civili…

Nobody is perfect, but when the person's "main thing" is objectionable then it seems pretty normal to be critical of that person! It's the difference between "My teacher committed adultry" and "this loan shark's entire reason to exist is to scam people out of their money" You see Blue Origin as "moving towards a spacefaring civilization", I see it as "rich person plays with money gotten by aggressively underpaying ev…

Does Amazon do more good for society or bad? Serious question. I wonder this a lot. Can they be blamed for wanting to create something better than Wal-Mart? Can they be blamed for the fact that shareholders expect growth and customers expect lower prices all the time? Is this not a bigger problem than just blaming the billionaires for all of society's woes? Aren't all of us complicit for buying and supporting Big Tech in our day-to-day lives?

Fair points. I don't have the answers. I'm curious to find out like the rest of us though.

What are people expecting? The billionaires give up their money, redistribute it into the 'common good' and all our problems will go away? Yeah, I'm sorry but I think this situation is more complicated than that.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#215

Post by defen »

mejari wrote: post #81
defen wrote: post #66

> 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 descri…

From the quoted e-mail: >In the case of a breach of the agreement by one or more of the Bezos Parties, AM is released from its obligations under the agreement, and may publish the Unpublished Materials. That's very directly saying that they will publish the photos if Bezos doesn't do what they say.

Saying that they may publish something is not saying that they will.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#216

Post by elliekelly »

matt4077 wrote: post #72
api wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It’s generally not blackmail to threaten someone with some action that, by itself, is legal. See, for example, the many civil settlements where rich people stop the people they raped from going to the police. And I’m unsure what the status is on publishing salacious private photos. Sure, there is a copyright issue. But that’s a civil matter, not criminal. If it were a crime, it really wouldn’t be much of a threat bec…

Theres quite a bit of nuance between the #MeToo settlement agreements and coercion that you seem to be misunderstanding/glossing over: https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analysis/if-amis-jeff-bezos-sh...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#217

Post by elliekelly »

phowon wrote: post #92
jlmorton wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true at all. > Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal embarrassing, disgraceful or damaging information about a person to the public, family, spouse or associates unless money is paid to purchase silence. It is a form of extortion. Because the information is usually substantially true, it is not revealing the information that is criminal, but demanding money to withhold it. https://definitions.usl…

So I'm curious - is this considered blackmail if the object isn't money?

It only needs to be “something of value”... often money, but I think most reasonable people can see the potential value of the requested statement from Jeff Bezos.

Now if AMI wanted you or I to say those statements I’m not sure how valuable they’d be.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#218

Post by futureastronaut »

yladiz wrote: post #174
3pt14159 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Regardless of what you've typed, at least don't outright lie and completely expose your troll. A fundamental truth is 2+2=4, and the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s. What is typed above is not.

You're really calling a user who joined in 2008 with 12k karma a troll? I think it's nonsense that parent's opinion against Bezos was flagged, instead of the erudite references to Batman and The Wire in these comments.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#219

Post by dahfizz »

rodgerd wrote: post #208
kumarvvr wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMI picked the wrong person. Jeff, literally, has tons of money, extremely respected in the business world. Forget about the embarrassment, if he secretly capitulates to this, then the real blackmail material would be the capitulation, not the photos. Cause if the owner of Washington Post bowed down to blackmail, every article published in the article will be called into question. And who gives a shit if a billionair…

> Did he not divorce his wife by parting with half his fortune? Half of their fortune. It was communal property.

Let's be real. He earned much more than half.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#220

Post by pradn »

exolymph wrote: post #25
Pharmakon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That gave me chills, and the phrase, If you’re going to shoot the king, you’d better be goddamned sure you’re going to kill him flashed through my mind. Well, they missed spectacularly, and now the man who has a rocket company for fun is clearly pissed.

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

Random but sorta relevant: In the video game Morrowind, there's a king who wears the best ring in the game - it provides constant life and stamina regeneration. The only way to take it is to kill him. But you better be prepared to fight a room full of very powerful guards. You better be prepared when you go at him.
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