711–720 of 1001 posts
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Almost everything that is happening in US politics was telegraphed beforehand if you were looking carefully enough. If Musk's current level of influence and his actions are a surprise to anyone, I'd politely suggest that they augment their sources of information.
Since you’re ahead of many of us, can you let us know what happens next?
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More likely: Trump lets him slash and burn, then turns on him and throws him under the bus to the American public. Very typical Trump playbook. Maybe he also takes a page from Putin’s playbook and puts him on trial in a very public and humiliating way, sending a clear message to all the other oligarchs.
I kinda like to think that Jeff Bezos is whispering in Trump's ear, hoping for this inevitable outcome, and waiting to pick up the pieces with Blue Origin.
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> He literally posted an AI generated video of Xi in Winnie the Pooh garb. I missed that one, do you have a link?
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1815187468691316946?lang=en
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He spent $44 billion on his own personal propaganda machine, and then used even more money to purchase the US presidency
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He wasn't _forced_ to buy anything. He was forced to pay what he promised for it.
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> Investors already put their money in at around $157B+ and are not willing to take a price cut down to less than $100BN. This is for a controlling stake, not outright ownership, isn't it?
Yes but why would investors on the board who own a piece of OpenAI at 157B be ok with a sale at a smaller valuation?
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Conversions to paid users us only 5-6% though https://beta.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/company-news/2024/10/2...
Does that number matter? What’s the conversion rate on any single typical ad hosted by Google? Yet it all adds up to make a lot of money, for Google and (presumably) the advertisers.
Once zip/unzip technology became commodified (either by being baked into the OS or open-sourced as happened with 7zip), paid 3rd party tools were no longer needed and WinRAR's business disappeared.
"The bid is being backed by Musk's AI company xAI, which could merge with OpenAI following a deal, according to the Wall Street Journal which first reported Musk's offer earlier on Monday." xAI is not making any money - it's a money furnace, so what does it mean the bid is backed by xAI ? The leverage and 'creativity' in the US is off the charts. Dotcom bubble starts to look reasonable.
Given what happened to the internet afterwards, dotcom bubble was always reasonable. There were a lot of idiotic companies that made no sense, but the overall idea that internet is going to generate tons of value and money was completely true.
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Easy: buy media companies to sow political division and pollute the discourse, buy political influence to restrict access to open and unbiased education to ensure the populace cannot engage in critical thinking, then poison the environment in myriad ways until people in their 20s require a dozen rounds of IVF to have kids (or more likely, just giving up because of the ruinious state of inflation compared to incomes).
Come on... endlessly wealthy and wants to do harm? There's only one real, obvious answer: Engineer a plague, or a series of plagues targeting food crops, livestock, and humans. Make something as contagious as measles that kills a third of people reliably, spread it multiple global focal points at once, and you could topple the world pretty effectively. If you attacked the economy and food supply at the same time I do…
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Yup! You guessed it! https://www.inverse.com/article/32100-elon-musk-favorite-jam... The person who asked 7 years ago never forgot that and made the same connection as you: https://www.threads.net/@pixelastronaut/post/DFFJF9GxE7D?xmt...
If you read the book, the comparison goes from amusing to unsettling, if not all the way to scary. Among other parallels, Drax ingratiates himself with England's leadership ("Your Majesty, may I have the temerity...") and cheats at games despite obviously not needing the money or fame.
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I think the grass roots of the tech world has some portion of the blame here. The introduction of hoodies, flip-flops, open drama and bickering, and kicker into the office environment is not unrelated. And it’s not just CEOs, we’ve now got a senator who looks like the guy I bought pot from as a kid. I never thought I’d make this argument, but maybe at least appearing respectable increases the odds that you’ll actuall…
Eh, respectable looking people were responsible for the Holocaust, slavery, segregation, and plenty more.