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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#291

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

I have done things in my past that people could and may publicly shame me for. I was worrying TODAY about what I could do to try to avoid a possible future where my research gets derailed from some kind of extortion. It's my understanding that reciprocal altruism can spread easily through a competitive community, but extortion can overcome altruism when information is kept private.

This is Jeff Bezos helping us figure out useful language for standing up to extortion, which is important if we want reciprocal altruism to be a new cultural norm. Transparency is the anti-extortion pattern.

Thank you for your contribution, Jeff!

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#292

Post by mises »

function_seven wrote: post #118
monkeydreams wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. One thought did occur to me is that he is basically daring AMI to release the pictures. What if he knows the providence of these pictures, knows how they got into AMI hands, and knows that if AMI publish them he can sue them, Gawker (not Buzzfeed) style, into the ground?

Gawker style?

Gawker outed Peter Thiel as gay. Thiel got pissed and paid for Hulk Hogan to sue Gawker for releasing a sex tape of Hogan. Gawker went under.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#293

Post by jonknee »

trendoid wrote: post #263
usefulcat wrote: post #238

So let me get this straight.. the owner(s) of the National Enquirer are doing this.. because they're worried about what, their journalistic credibility? Seriously? After having published the Enquirer for decades already? Alternately, maybe some people just like to be bullies.

It is possibly due to pressure from Saudi Arabia. MBS was pissed that WP is going after him after killing of Khashoggi. Enquirer (and Pecker) are quite close to MBS, they ran a cover story on him (how awesome he is). It could be a bigger story than it seems at the moment.

Not just a cover story, they created a whole glossy ad free magazine about him and printed 200,000 copies. It's bizarre.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-publisher-pal-puts-saud...

> Greeting Americans on newsstands is a high-quality glossy advertisement for MBS, The New Kingdom. It retails for $13.99, has no ads and its 200,000 copies can be found in venues ranging from U.S. airports to WalMart, Safeway and Kroger’s—raising questions about the magazine’s financing and its origins. The Saudis say they don’t know how it came to be. AMI, which publishes The National Enquirer, insists it had no outside editorial or financial assistance, from the Trump administration or otherwise.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#294

Post by clucas »

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.

David Letterman laid out the details of a blackmail attempt on air a several years ago. If memory serves, he had been having sex with a young staffer on his show. These sorts of blackmail blowbacks happen from time to time, and it's always people who are very secure - either with money or social status or both - who are able to pull them off.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#295

Post by sytelus »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #289
sytelus wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assume you need atleast $100K to start a business but you have only $90K. Your friend comes around and puts in $10K but only if you are willing to offer 50% ownership. Given no other choices, you agree and work your ass off for next 25 years to grow business to $100B while your friend did nothing else for it. Does your friend deserve $50B? I am not asking from legal point of view because that answer would be yes. I a…

It's easy (and fun!) to go down the rabbit hole philosophically. Does Jeff deserve billions of dollars more than the hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees who have collectively built the company? Are their fruits of their labor worth so much less than his, regardless of Jeff's hard business decisions and many more hours per week worked, simply because of how equity is constructed and distributed? Jeff has clearly…

In capitalism, rewards are proportional to how much capital you have (either your own or borrowed), your efforts are minimally material.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#296

Post by toomuchtodo »

sytelus wrote: post #295
toomuchtodo wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy (and fun!) to go down the rabbit hole philosophically. Does Jeff deserve billions of dollars more than the hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees who have collectively built the company? Are their fruits of their labor worth so much less than his, regardless of Jeff's hard business decisions and many more hours per week worked, simply because of how equity is constructed and distributed? Jeff has clearly…

In capitalism, rewards are proportional to how much capital you have (either your own or borrowed), your efforts are minimally material.

But capital alone is no indicator of ownership interest grants (see: advisors or key employees who are granted equity for their contributions [1]).

Rewards in capitalism are to those who can convince others of value provided in exchange for an equity interest; capital is only a small part of that. Lots of equity is sweat equity!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Parker#Facebook

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#297

Post by danso »

jonknee wrote: post #290
slg wrote: post #285

It seems like a lot of people are not reading between the lines of this post. Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked by either the US or Saudi government and that now one or both of those governments are using the National Enquirer as an attack dog against him. That accusation is much bigger than any other piece of this story. EDIT: Here [1] is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up. The Bezos' cam…

Which makes stories like this a lot more interesting: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mby7kq/malware-to... > Saudi Arabia paid $55 million to purchase iPhone malware made by NSO Group, according to a recent report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz The Saudis really disliked the Washington Post digging into their murder of Khashoggi, it doesn't seem too crazy that they set their sights on the boss and ended up s…

Worth pointing out that the only mobile device that Bezos has apparently tweeted from (publically) seems to be an iPhone. Doesn’t mean he didn’t have a burner phone for conducting his affairs of course.

https://twitter.com/dancow/status/1093732934299856899

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#299

Post by jorblumesea »

slg wrote: post #285

It seems like a lot of people are not reading between the lines of this post. Bezos apparently believes that he was hacked by either the US or Saudi government and that now one or both of those governments are using the National Enquirer as an attack dog against him. That accusation is much bigger than any other piece of this story. EDIT: Here [1] is a reporter from the Washington Post backing that up. The Bezos' cam…

House of Saud, maybe, they are dumb enough to think this would work. Given their inept handling of the Khashoggi I wouldn't be surprised. I doubt anyone in the US intelligence profession would think Bezos would call off the WaPo because of some scandalous photos.

"Just blackmail the richest man on the planet, that will totally work!"

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#300

Post by panarky »

kumarvvr wrote: post #181
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.

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…

> literally has tons of money

If his keeps his money in $100 bills, then you're right. $136 billion would weigh about 1,230 metric tons.

More likely, his cash consists of electronic entries in bank systems which weigh substantially less.

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